Traildogs
Missoula's love affair
This is a dog series about humans’ affection, and deep bonds, with canines.
Missoulians love, love, love their dogs. Last summer I read an article in The Pulp about the poop bag man, who picks up other people’s dogs’ refuse in small plastic bags and leaves the bags with passive-aggressive notes at trailheads.1 According to that lengthy but entertaining article, 80% of Missoulians own at least one dog, and there are 31,000 licensed dogs in the county. So many residents love to take their pooches on walks and hikes2 that I decided to collect photos and names for a traildog newsletter. Here we are at summer’s end and I’ve got some golden ones for you.3
This is Mesa. I met her while trying to not die walking straight up the back of Mount Jumbo.
Mesa looks sleek and healthy, perhaps a bit muddy, and happy to be coming downhill instead of going up. Have you hiked Mount Jumbo? From front or back, it’s burly.4 Don’t try it in April.
Bambi’s mom was hiking Waterworks in what I’d consider dress boots, but in June there’s always potential for spring mud, I suppose. Bambi’s toes look dainty and Bambi herself appears spry.
Chihuahuas enjoy great popularity, I notice, perhaps because they’re easy to pick up. And so is their poop, if you even have to bother.
This is Dixie and it was hot at the top of Jumbo! She’d just indulged in some slurps from her water bowl. She was hiking with dog friends but they expressed shyness in front of the camera. I love dogs with wiry hair! They remind me of my little longhaired dachshund from back in the day. I had to trim him with a special dog hair clipper, which he hated. A two person job, we managed it by cooking bacon. One person fed him bacon grease from a spoon while the other trimmed down the overgrowth.
Blu is an iconic golden retriever, seen everywhere in Missoula. I think corgis and chihuahuas outnumber them, but still, goldens carry the special glory of a Missoula favorite. Who doesn’t love a leggy, waggy, friendly, fluffy yellow beast curled up by one’s feet in winter?
Taking photos of dogs is tricky. They run the gamut from perplexed to indifferent, which means they either race toward you and try to lick your phone hand or keep trotting alongside their owner with a feline “fuck off” vibe. Here’s Lily, who just wanted to show me her seal-like rear profile.
I met someone the other day whose partner is the social media person at one of the local animal shelters. What a delightful, yet tragic, job: photographing animals in every condition from terrified to content to sick to playful, and trying to capture their truest personalities to help them join someone’s home.
My good friend Carla belongs to one of my favorite rescue dogs. This is Elvis and he has a lovely adoption story in which Carla and Matt have gotten to show him how to play, how to hike, how to get in the water, how not to get in the water, how to be loved. He is a beautiful dog whose personality exactly matches this photo: a pinch goofy, a pinch wary, a heaping handful sweet.
I know the short version of canine-human interaction genesis has to do with canines and humans developing a symbiotic relationship that grew to something much deeper. Barry Lopez’ classic Of Wolves and Men describes this millennia-long process of dogs and people growing together, of two species’ separate paths merging into a single trail.
On high windy trails in Missoula bitterroot grows by trailside rocks, and in gulleys arrowleaf balsamroot blooms beneath towering Ponderosas. Bumblebees’ vibrations release powdery pollen from purple shooting stars, and a pup and his person can frolic together in the silver creek.
I’ve witnessed the bags and the notes and if you live and hike in Missoula, you probably have, too.
notoriously ignoring leash laws and poop regulations (requests? I don’t even know if poop scooping is required, beyond courtesy…)
I took so many pictures of dogs! These are just representatives and in no way intended to suggest that any one dog is any better than another because as we all know…all dogs are best dogs.
Official word for “too hard for me but I’m pretending I can do it, no problem”