CHARLIE WAS THE NAME of the first family dog I remember when I was little. Charlie lived with us from the time I was in elementary school to well into my twenties. Charlie was a smaller dog, a black and white cocker spaniel and Scottish Terrier mutt. He was there throughout my childhood; he was nearby the night I was having sex with my high school girlfriend in a sleeping bag in the backyard.
The day my brother and I had to put Charlie down at the vet, we went to the Denver Art Museum later to inject a beautiful distraction into the day.
Putting a dog down is one of the worst days in life.
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I didn't have a dog again until years later when my wife adopted a puppy she named Laika (LAY-kuh). She was named after the Russian dog Laika (LIE-kuh), the first living organism to orbit the Earth (before monkeys) and dying in the process. We changed the pronunciation to distance our Laika from the tragic story of her namesake and to sound more tropical.
During the years that my wife and I lived apart, she had Laika to keep her company. Laika was a brown female Rhodesian Ridgeback, the runt of the litter. She weighed 45 pounds and could outrun greyhounds at the dog park. She was as smart as she was fast.
When life allowed my wife and I to live together again, there was Laika, waiting for me to take her for a walk. I knew she wanted to run but even in good shape, I'm nowhere near her league in speed. So Laika became the first dog to run with me on a skateboard. It was the only way I could keep up with her and let her run as fast as she wanted.
At first, Laika was suspicious of the skateboard, barking at it after I set it down on the street at sunset. As I started riding it, she didn't like it at all, barking and tracking with us down the street.
"Laika! It's okay!" I commanded. "Let's GO!"
It only took a minute or two before Laika finally realized the skateboard was not a threat, and she started to run. Then she realized I could keep up with her. It was a good test, and we stopped a few houses down the block because with just the standard six-foot leash, I was coming too close to her legs with the skateboard. The next day I bought a 12-foot leash and we were off and running. Once the street out in front of the house became comfortable on that second day, we started cruising with the skateboard all over the neighborhood.
During the days, we would usually jump into a car and drive to the bike path that winds through Bear Valley from Sheridan Blvd to Wadsworth and beyond. We covered that bike path, back and forth, perhaps a hundred times. It runs right next to the tree-lined Bear Creek; past my old high school, some tennis courts, and a soccer field; over a bridge; past a gas station; under Wadsworth Blvd; and straight through a prairie dog field that stretched for a dozen acres or more. Laika loved the prairie dog field. Even though she never caught one, she sniffed and dug furiously into the prairie dog holes with predatory zeal. It was one of our favorite things to do during the day.
"Laika! Dig it out of there, Laika! Get it!"
Laika had an incredible sense of smell. Standing on the skateboard above her, I can usually see farther ahead than she can. I recall a specific strip of the paved path that winds through an extended field of green grass and trees. I remember seeing a squirrel run straight across the path ahead of us about 50 yards. Laika didn't see it and as we approached at full speed, the squirrel had disappeared into some trees.
But I knew the instant we crossed the invisible squirrel trail because Laika smelled it and came to an abrupt stop. I had learned how to stop quick on a skateboard for stuff like this; Laika kept my senses sharp. She became even more energized, turned in the direction of where the squirrel had come from, but quickly ascertained that the scent on the trail was getting weaker in that direction. She snapped an about-face and began following the squirrel trail, that I could not detect, in the direction of the squirrel. It was impressive.
There were also the late-night, drunken skateboard runs all over the Bear Valley Shopping Center strip mall property with her at 2:30 AM when I would come home after a night of barhopping. The strip mall was at the end of the block. I would jump on the skateboard, and she would pull me with her leash straight out of our driveway, down the block, and across Dartmouth Street into the expansive parking lot.
One late night, while the two of us cruised through one of the well-lit stalls of the Bear Valley Carwash, we disturbed a little gang of kittens. Maybe seven or eight of them jumped from a large metal trashcan and scattered in every direction. Into Laika's brain went an injection of dopamine that sent her into a frenzy. Like a third-grader standing among the colorful detritus of a tipped-over gumball machine, she didn't know which one to go after first.
Most of the kittens were actually running in the same direction as us and Laika and I were instantly surrounded by them. I distinctly remember the sight of Laika running right past one kitten because she was laser-focused on another one further ahead. Her boost of adrenalin worked like a boost of nitrous oxide to the engine of the Dog-Skateboard-Human hybrid machine, and it was all I could do to stay on the skateboard while Laika accelerated through the stall and took a 90° left turn to avoid hitting an eight-foot fence that marked the border of the parking lot.
We all made the left turn, including most of the sprinting kittens, but I went wide on the immediate right turn necessary to transition onto the neighborhood sidewalk and had to jump off the board. I was surprised my drunk ass had made it through the carwash stall at all.
When I turned around, I saw that Laika had stopped at a small bush between the sidewalk and the fence of the first house next to the parking lot. A few of the kittens had tried to hide in the bush but there stood Laika, looking at me with a kitten in her mouth, the back legs and tail hanging out of one side of her jaws, and the little head hanging out of the other. It too was looking at me, and emitted a tiny, breathless, meow.
Laika was seeking approval. And perhaps, uh... authorization to proceed with a plan that would, shall we say, cease the meowing permanently?
I couldn't have that. I smiled at Laika. I couldn't help myself. She was so happy. And she was so good to have the restraint to ask me before she shredded the kitty. With a big smile, I give her the answer.
"No, Laika," I said slowly shaking my head in the negative. "Just put it down."
Come to think of it, as I read this, it's turning out like a scene of a police negotiator attempting to convince a crazy, sweaty guy in a bank to drop the gun he's holding to someone's head, but it was not far from that.
No, no. Let's just put the little kitty down before anybody gets hurt. You haven't really committed a crime yet besides trespassing after hours with me. Let's not escalate this.
She was a good dog. She set the kitten down and it ran for its life, though it no longer needed to.
I would sometimes see Laika curled up in a ball sleeping on a chair. I would say in a normal voice, "Laika! What are you doing? Laaaiiika?"
She would not move a muscle. Seemed quite asleep, alright. But after a pause, I would whisper one word: skateboard?
Suddenly, with her eyes still closed, her tail began wagging. Ah, you're not so asleep after all. I would say "skateboard" again, and then Laika would lift her head and look at me to make sure I wasn't joking.
Laika was born in Hawaii and spent her skateboard years in Colorado where she and I covered what seemed like a hundred miles on paved paths, streets and parking lots.
We had to put Laika down in June of 2017 after cancer had sent her and our bank account to hell and back. On the last full day of her life, I drove to a small dirt parking lot next to the prairie dog field we used to ride and run through. I lifted her out of the car and we slowly walked a few yards into the field, took one long last look at it, and then I carried her back to the car, and we drove home.
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Sunny was our last dog who died, about a year ago. We'll be dedicating an entire article just to her one day when I'm feeling moody.
Sunny used to go with Laika and I and the skateboard too. Two dogs, two leashes, and a skateboard, and I don't ever remember having a wipeout, believe it or not. I used to pick up the skateboard and carry it while the dogs I explored the riverbank.
Sunny was the friendliest dog I've ever met.
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This article's Main Event is about Vida. I decided she would be the subject of today's article while we were out for our daily run this morning.
We adopted Vida in the summer of 2021 for a specific reason. My mom was living with us and was ill. She was, in fact, bedridden, and tending to her needs took a full effort from my wife and I, even with nurses coming in daily to assist. I emptied the urine bag hanging on the side of the bed a couple times daily. Anyone who has ever had to take care of an elderly and sick family member knows how it drains you physically and emotionally.
That's where Vida comes in. We needed some positive energy in the house and nothing provides that better than a puppy who runs around and bounces off of everything. We named her Vida because that's the word "Life" in Spanish.
Technically, she's a shepherd mix of some kind. Another mutt. We get our dogs from shelters, and the report on her background included a police incident at the place where she lived. Evidently, everyone at the house got busted, nobody gave a shit about the puppies, and so they were taken to the Humane Society of Boulder Valley.
Vida was about four months old when we adopted her, and boy did she accomplish her mission.
She ran around on the house trying to catch us and would yipe in frustration when she hit the hardwood floors and couldn't get traction. She would jump over the coffee table to the couch and back. She loved running after her rubber ball when we’d throw it down the stairs. She sat on Mom's bed a lot so she could pet Vida too. Vida was indeed the antidote for the grey clouds inside our house.
Vida has outlived my mom and continues to bring verve and zest to The Pack.
Vida has a thick undercoat and seems impervious to the snow, which is good because she loves to play in it. Dogs are usually good at smelling, and she is, but her vision is even better. Excellent. Her reflexes are lightning-fast. She can spot a rabbit from across the yard that I don’t notice and rarely misses snatching a little piece of meat thrown anywhere near her face.
Like Laika, she's as fast as she is smart.
I think Vida has some Akita in her DNA because her tail curves backwards over her back. We tease her about it when she wags her tail because it doesn't look like a normal dog.
"Gees, Vida. You can't even wag your tail right. What's wrong with you?"
Even if she did understand what we're saying, she wouldn't give a shit, and I'm not so sure she doesn't understand.
The rabbits in our neighborhood drive her crazy. She wants one, but just like Laika with a kitten in her mouth, I don't want any animals killed. But Vida did get one. Once. When I took her outside to whizz on the front lawn late one night when I had a good buzz going, she saw a rabbit at the edge of the yard and charged at it. She got to it before I could restrain her. I couldn't see exactly what she did in the dark, but it looked like she only had a hold of it in her teeth for about two seconds. When I got there a few seconds after that, it was already limp. Dead.
I was angry that the rabbit was dead, but Vida had a huge smile on her face. Although I was upset about the rabbit, I was simultaneously impressed with Vida.
She's bloodthirsty. And I've come to like that about her. I try not to let her kill anything, but I admire her casual ability to be instantly lethal without a second thought, and then pant with a big smile on her face afterwards.
No one is invincible and like all of us, Vida does have her Achilles heels. For Vida, her big one is being in the car. She stares out the window and pants and drools until she's out of the car again. Whether it's a ten-minute trip to the vet, or a five-hour drive from Denver to Pagosa Springs, Vida will never settle down until we reach our destination and she exits the harrowing vehicle.
Today Vida is a healthy four-year-old. See for yourself. You can see her in action right now if you like because we've added cameras to the skateboard.
In June of this year, we began shooting footage of our daily skateboard runs around the park to use for camera and editing tests. We started with a GoPro HERO 2 and added a GoPro HERO 13 Black, along with a set of lenses and mounts, and even shot some footage with a Blackmagic 4K.
We put it altogether as a series titled, [The Arvada Weather Report.]
When we need to test more equipment, like the recently acquired dog harness camera mount, you may see new Weather Reports.
Our other dog, Shasta, likes to watch Vida's short films. Your dog may like them too. Regardless, say hi to your pets today, from Vida and me.
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Hey, it sure feels nice to write about a dog who's still alive.
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