This Dog’s Life
This weekend, Mino the dog, (Mino Man, the Mino Meister) finally departed to explore the mountains on the other side. Mino has been a close partner and a member of our family for some 13 years. We have countless stories and adventures in the history books, hiking and climbing in foreign lands, learning new cities and cultures, and hanging out on the beach. On this tremendous journey, he lived in Chile, Ethiopia, Liberia, Colombia, and Utah and left his scent in a handful of others.
He got his start in the Chilean backwoods, where one fine day he decided to ignore his cow chasing sensibilities to find his life’s true path. And like any conscious organism searching for direction and enlightenment, this dog climbed a mountain. We found each other at the top of a picturesque peak called La Campana in Chile’s coastal range.
Even though it took years to domesticate Mino, he never required much training, for the dog educated by the law of the mountain is not easily tamed. He wore a collar, but we rarely used a leash. In those early days, we often found ourselves in the Andes. While I explored, he was chasing cows, a thrilling pastime. At night, Mino cuddled around my feet at the bottom of my sleeping bag.
When not walking, Mino found a safe space on my lap where he spent an inordinate amount of time. Like this, we took hundreds if not thousands of city bus rides in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Through the window, Mino marveled at a completely different world happening on Africa’s streets. As he gradually checked his instinct to chase animals, he convinced himself that he was no different than the rest of us. Mino loved humans, the whole lot of us. It didn’t matter our size, wealth, race, or beliefs, he was impartial to the Sapiens. And with the exception of a select group of tail sniffing friends, he hated dogs and rightfully feared cats.
In his life, Mino explored, witnessed, and experienced more than 99% of the world’s dogs. I erroneously believed that our relationship was built on the concept of exploring. Each day we woke up and each day we encouraged the other to look ahead, to keep up the search. Now that he’s gone, I realize that the only one who was searching was me. And that his search had ended when he found me. Mino was my right hand, squire, companion, and best friend. He was there for all the most important episodes of my life: marriage, births, deaths.
Our family grew, and Mino was no longer my dog. What he discovered that day on the mountain when he followed me back to my car was bigger than a single caretaker, he joined a family who loved him like a son, like a brother. We moved around a lot, and Mino became more than an emotional support dog. He was Ignacia’s protector, and the best friend to two little girls. With me, he still came on long hikes and hung around at the bottom of the climbs like some old guy’s dog, but he also walked the girls to school and vacuumed up the food below the baby’s highchair.
With each passing year, he was a bit slower, a bit blinder, shedding more and more hair. In 2019, as a family we launched our most ambitious journey yet: 25,000 kilometers across South America in a campervan. After eight countries, two oceans, mountains, deserts, and jungles, the van trip ended in Santiago, Chile. And if he failed to see the significance, Ignacia and I realized this was his full circle moment. He returned to his homeland with a family, stories most dogs would never believe, and a handful of fans who followed his adventures.
In his retirement in Moab, Utah, Mino spent his golden years walking around our neighborhood, lying on his back in the grass, and sniffing his way in and out of the house. Last weekend, we bid him farewell and sent him off with plenty of tears and kisses. We carried his body up a trail through the La Sal mountains into a high valley where we were met with a mighty rainstorm. As we waited it out in a grove of pine trees, we noted the herds of cows moving across the valley. Back to his old tricks, we realized this was the last time he would chase cows through the mountains. And there, somewhere among the rocky peaks, where the earth meets the heavens, is where his furry body came to its final resting place, among the wildflowers.
