“Where Can I Get One of Those?”

Yesterday, I was hiking with my lady owner, one of her pals and a begrudgingly accepting dog friend, and she relayed a story about one of the last times she hiked that trail with Walter. It was before my time, when Walter went along on longer, uphill hikes. As it was, yesterday Walter napped happily at home but expressed extreme anxiety and duress for our benefit when we got home. “Wh, whe, where have you been for so long?” Needless to say, we might just dope him up and take him along next time.

So, the story. Years ago, our lady friend and Walter were hiking along this increasingly popular trail accessible on the Idaho side of the Tetons. It must be in guidebooks or well-known throughout the state, as there tends to be a lot of obvious visitors that attempt this hike. The payoff is very nice, and a bit more high-profile than other in-and-out hikes because it involves a waterfall.

At the height of summer, you are likely to see large gangs of families wearing terrible footwear dragging much too young children with them up a decent sized hill with a zig-zagged trail. They all seem to make it, eventually, to the waterfall. It’s likely to see these people without water, sweating bullets, men with shirts off, etc., always asking those passersby how much further they have to journey.

That day, Walter was bounding up the trail ahead of our lady friend and encountered a medium-sized group of hikers led by a woman who greeted him as if he were a rare white beast not typically seen on Idaho hiking trails. Not uncommon outside of the “a dog is just a dog” world in which we live, our lady friend stopped and anticipated this group firing off a bunch of questions about him. And, that they did.

First, though, it’s important to note that the woman leading the pack was quite attractive. Wearing the typical matching spandex capris and zip-up, perfect blonde ponytail and enormous diamond on her finger, our lady friend looked down at the hole in her worn shirt and imperfectly painted toenails in her inevitably dirty sandals. At least they were painted, she thought. With not a bead of sweat on this lady’s brow, she was very put together.

Explaining that they were from out-of-state, the woman pet Walter and exclaimed how unique and beautiful she was (they always say she) and questioned his breed, age, temperament and more. Having already fallen in love, she said “Wow! So, how can I get one of those?” It was such an odd question.

It was as if Walter was a certain make and model of a car. Or, as if the woman was complimenting our lady friend’s sandals and inquiring about where they were purchased. But, those aren’t even good scenarios. It was more like he was a sculpture that was obviously for sale in some secret place, the artist someone only the locals know about who can only be reached via secret code or referral.

In this woman’s mind, obviously he was being produced by someone, but not too mass-produced like a Labradoodle or something of the sort. She wanted to know, how could she add an animal like Walter to her collection of pretty things? What was the name and number of the magician who made him?

Our lady friend fumbled for the answer and didn’t know exactly what to say. “Oh, well, I got him in Chicago years ago.” The woman expectantly waited for her to produce a business card, perhaps, but our lady friend just continued to awkwardly choose her words out of confusion. “I mean, he’s not a special breed or something. He just turned out that way. All his litter mates were black. He just happened to be white.”

Having half expected this woman to give her a dollar amount for considered purchase, she continued “He’s old.” Though they still seemed perplexed, our lady friend excused herself and continued on the hike trying to recall the name of an actress that looked exactly like that woman. She eventually dropped it, but for years she has thought about that encounter.

Is that what dogs are to some people? It’s naive to think that the dog you chose is not purposeful, that the breed is not a reflection of who you are as a person. If you’re a back country skier, you don’t typically adopt a basset hound or other short-legged friend. If you don’t particularly like to walk a dog, you get one that you can easily carry around in a purse. Have a job for them to do? There’s a breed for every job out there, farming, herding, rescue, bomb-sniffing and the like. There are even dogs that hunt specific animals, as we all know.

Now, Walter was picked out of a litter of black-furred sisters with white markings because he looked like a baby seal. He was painfully cute and, as a puppy, people literally stopped their cars to get a look at him as they walked the streets of Chicago. Our lady friend certainly was swayed by looks, especially because she had intended on getting a female dog. But, getting Walter was a matter of circumstance. She did not seek out the world’s most adorable puppy. He happened to be one of the labs that she had intended on seeing.

I, on the other hand, was positioned by the shelter as a Golden Retriever mix, the only dog that sent our man fiend over the edge after weeks and weeks of our lady friend showing him pictures of adoptable dogs. “Oh, well, I think we have to get THAT dog.” Little did they know what they were getting themselves into, until our lady friend saw me as a drenched, drowned rat of a giant white dog at the shelter, having the unmistakable rear dew claws of a Great Pyrenees. But, from the moment she took me from my cage, I strategically touched my body to hers to claim ownership. I leaned, caressed, buried, nudged and pawed my way into her heart immediately. “OK, how do I get him out of here?” she asked the staff.

No, the issue we have is that people let their vanity shine through and want a dog that suits their materialistic viewpoints. “Oh, I must have one of those new rare breeds as found in the hillsides of France.” I’m often mistaken for some sort of rare dog from a mountainous European country and, most likely purposefully, our lady friend can never remember the name of it. It’s not a Pyrenees, of course, but something else…what? No, she thinks, he’s just Stan.

Without recounting the obnoxious viewpoints about breeding being punishable by law, the millions of dogs being killed in shelters, and on and on, the bottom line is that our owners didn’t create us from a petri dish. Each and every mixed breed dog out there is a one of a kind. They’re more valuable and precious than any mass bred dog, their DNA not following the constraints of a brand name. They’re a rare painting that you can typically get at a pretty big discount, too.

Even more, these unique mixed breeds weren’t expressly made for an owner. Instead, they just happened to be available at the very time someone needed a pal. What can be more precious, cosmic, glorious and tear-evoking than the fate of your soul mate coming into a scary, uncomfortable world and saving you? And, if your cards are played right, even if you don’t match their designer sweater collection, they let you become their very best friend.