August 25

Roll The Bones: Hounds of Love

Words by Chris Nelson

The three giant rocky sea stacks that sit just offshore in the rough waters of Oceanside, Oregon are hidden by a dense fog, as ceaseless clouds carry quickly through the air on the back of a strong, cold summer breeze. The hard wind sends the soft white sand into the air and into the thick beard and long eyelashes of my beloved five-year-old Bassett Hound mix, Blue, who keeps his eyes shut as his short little legs slowly trot ahead down the beach.

He remains uninterested as we pass by a bald eagle pecking at the washed-up body of a freshly dead seal, but it catches the attention of Mavis, the four-year-old purebred Viszla who became our family when I first started dating my soon-to-be wife. Mavis charges headlong toward the yellow-beaked accipitridae on the back of the deceased pinniped, and I give hopeless chase, knowing she is far faster than me and that by the time I catch her, she will be gleefully rolling in the stink of death. Fortunately for me the caws of a nearby flock of seagulls distract her and send her sprinting in the opposite direction.

Huffing and puffing for air with my hands on my tired knees, I yell to Mavis: “Kill those silly surfin’ birds, you hot dog-skinned idiot!” As I chuckle and cough and try to find my breath, Blue suddenly pokes his head through my legs, looks up at me with his beautiful amber eyes, and licks my hands with his purple tongue. As I wipe the sand from his face, I ask, “Little man, how did we get so lucky to end up here?”

It was three years ago when Blue and I first drove out to this quaint seaside town on the far edge of the Tillamook Forest in a brand-new Subaru Outback Wilderness, borrowed from a company man who I came to know well when I was an automotive journalist. The hardest part of the road trip from Colorado to Oregon was staying sober long enough to drive, because back then my every worry and sorrow drowned in enough swill to not feel anything, but in my life there was one glimmer of hope: Mavis’ mom.

At the time she was my co-editor at an incredibly cool dog magazine that has since been run into the ground and, for the first few years of working together, she despised everything about me, but she slowly warmed to my shine, and we decided to give it a go.

Every night of my trip in Oregon, she and I spent hours on the phone, happily talking about nothing, and every day as I drove along the primordial coast or through the dense rainforests, I listened to the playlist that she made for me, featuring some of her favorite modern folk music artists.

One night on the road back to Colorado, as Blue and I huddled together in my tent on the bank of river in the middle of Montana during a torrential thunderstorm, we listened on repeat to Bella White’s “Just Like Leaving,” which is the song that was playing last December when I got down on one knee and proposed to my person.

When I told Blue and Mavis about our engagement, they couldn’t have cared less, because they assumed we were already married, and they had already decided to be best friends for life. They seemed far more chuffed when earlier this summer I told them we’d be taking a family trip to Oceanside in a spacious and comfortable Forester Sport, courtesy of my friend at Subaru.

Back on the beach, when I finally catch my breath and Blue’s face is free of sand, I see Mavis turn her attention from the seabirds to an idyllic family picnic.

Just as I start to run after her, my partner— who happens to be a fantastically talented dog trainer— softly blows her whistle, and Mavis immediately stops, sits, and patiently waits.

In an instant, the chaos I’d been chasing is brought to a beautiful end by her peace and calm.