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My beloved chocolate Labrador retriever, Chili, had just passed away, and I was still mourning the 2022 loss of my other chocolate Labrador, Mocha. My new puppy, Maple (you guessed it, another chocolate Lab), had just been spayed and was banned from physical activity for two weeks. I wanted to go hiking, but the idea of venturing out without a furry companion felt wrong.
It was my dad who suggested a solution: Take a shelter dog hiking. I was immediately on board. My local shelter, Santa Barbara County Animal Services, offers Doggy Day Trips where all I had to do was show up to the shelter, and they’d pair me with a suitable dog based on my activity. After some light paperwork, the shelter worker appeared from around the corner with Balto, a 2-year-old Husky-Malamute mix who, I’m told, was picked up more than six months ago as a stray.
On our way to the trail, we rolled the windows down in the car, and Balto surrendered his head to the wind like a baby chick emerging from its shell. I watched from the rear-view mirror as his nose pulsated, taking in every smell, and his mouth curved upward, creating the slightest smile. Our destination was Rattlesnake Canyon, a 4.5-mile out-and-back hike in Santa Barbara, California.
Once we got onto the trail, there was no slowing Balto down—no element of nature not worth stopping for, no leaf unworthy of peeing on, no stick too unremarkable to carry. Balto led the way up switchbacks as if he knew the trail like the back of his paw. He dipped his body in at stream crossings and let the water cool him off. When he finished in the stream, he bolted back to the trail with me flailing behind like one of those inflatable blow-up tube men at car dealerships. He wanted to maximize his time out there.
He wore a bright yellow leash with black letters that read “Adopt Me,” which was quite the conversation starter on the trail. Many people we encountered were unaware that you could bring a shelter dog hiking. It’s actually a program that many shelters around the country are beginning to implement.
A dog’s sense of smell can be 10,000 to 100,000 times stronger than humans. Through sniffs along the trail, Balto was experiencing a beautiful and fascinating world utterly lost on me. I imagine that the stale smells of the shelter become boring after a while. Nevertheless, during his stops, I began to engage more with my own senses. And when I did, seemingly trivial things like a bird’s rhythmic chirp and the oscillation of the stream crept in. About halfway to the top, I noticed the Aleppo pine trees that stuck out from the surrounding foliage. I later found out that, following the 1964 Coyote Fire, the Sierra Club reportedly replanted these trees in 1966 with seedlings.
At the meadow, I snapped a photo of Balto in the grass. Tongue flailing in the wind, he stared back at me with an elation that I found hard to comprehend. How does one achieve this level of genuine, unbothered happiness? How is he so content with his future so uncertain?
Some dog owners say canines are so happy because they don’t worry the about the future or dwell on the past. But maybe it’s not a dog’s detachment from the future or past that makes them so happy. Maybe it’s simpler than that: Maybe they just live. Balto lives, I know that much. He doesn’t know if he will be in the shelter tomorrow, the next day, the next month, or a year from now, but out here on the trail, it seems like that’s the last thing on his mind.
On my second hike with Balto—he was too fun to hike with only once—the Los Angeles fires were blazing. I found it impossible to separate myself from their destruction, all the loss, and the likely possibility that a fire could rage through here again. While my mind raced, Balto was focused on the trail ahead of him.
I’ve hiked Rattlesnake Canyon hike dozens of times, but I often find that while my body is there, my mind is not—it wanders to daily obligations, major life decisions, or some ongoing catastrophic event. Before I know it, my time on the trail is over, and I’ve spent most of it worrying about things beyond my control.
Something shifted while hiking with Balto. Watching this dog find peace, despite having no control of his own livelihood, helped show me that if I really wanted to, I could do the same. My time on the trail is supposed to be a respite from life’s troubles, not a place to focus on them. When it feels like the world is burning (and in our case, when it actually is), being present on the trail can help me process life beyond it.
On the drive home, I glanced at the white fur stuck to my leggings and smiled. That night, I thought about Balto in the shelter. I wondered if he would remember our time together. I wondered if he missed the trail. In all his beautiful dog optimism, I wondered if he thought I might show up tomorrow to do it all over again.
When I picked him up from the shelter for another hike together, he rushed over to me. He parked his body at my feet and glanced up at me, smiling as if saying, “Are you ready to go?” One employee, who watched our reunion, said, “He remembers you.”
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