Play day in Flagstaff, Az

Our lives started to change the day our beautiful English Chocolate Lab came into our lives. Our walks around the neighborhood and occasional visits to the dog park didn’t feel like they fulfilled the most primal needs of a breed with such strong ties to nature.  So one day we packed up some basic camping supplies and headed for for “leashes optional” ground.  It turns out that we humans have some pretty strong ties with nature as well and our boy, Bogey, helped us rediscover that.

Since that day we have found ourselves on the road more days each and every year, to the point where we roll out every weekend we have the opportunity.  Trading in airplanes and hotels for open road and the great outdoors.  Our camping experience has evolved, to say the least, but we still find satisfaction in the simplest things – a warm campfire, a hike in the woods, or a cold lake for the boys to swim in.

A few years later Koele came into our lives – an English Golden Retriever.  We stuck with the English breed because we were told they had a much calmer temperament than the American breed.  Calm temperament is a description that suits Bogey well – it is actually a significant understatement.  It does not, in any way, suit Koele.  The first sign of things to come was when we picked him up from his breeder.  We consoled that it must be very difficult to part ways with these puppies that they raise.  The response we got back was a bit perplexing …. “some are easier than others.”  We soon found out what that meant as sleep deprivation kicked in over the next several weeks. ….or maybe it was months.

Koele has calmed somewhat over the years but we also realized that Koele is everything that Bogey isn’t and Bogey is everything that Koele isn’t.  Individually they are perfect, together they are perfect. They bring out the best in each other and in us.  Together we make bad days tolerable, good days amazing, and life an adventure…