Forever Dogs

Every dog should be loved like Valentino.

Forever Dogs

As I write this, Porter is watching over me. His picture is on the wall, and he watches me. Porter was a great dog. I got him from the shelter in 2000, I think. He was crazy, at first, and impossible to manage. I was thinking about taking him back to the shelter. Then I read somewhere on the internet, “Appreciate your dog for doing nothing. Wait until he is quiet and calm, and just praise him for being settled and sweet.” It took quite a while for Porter to actually settle down for a moment, but then I praised him, and it made all the difference in the world. He learned that he didn’t have to be crazy to get my attention. I would appreciate him if he just stayed calm and quiet. From that time on, he had this game he would play. He would see me working on something, a construction project, or working at the computer, and he would settle down somewhere maybe 10 or 20 feet away, and he would just look at me, quietly, with his snout aimed at me, until I noticed him. Then I would laugh because he was being so sweet and quiet, very unlike himself, and I would go over and pet him and praise him. This became his one joke that he told me, hundreds of times, and I laughed every time. He would settle in a position and just watch me until I noticed him. When I try to explain it, it sounds kind of stupid. And it was stupid, I suppose, but this joke of Porter’s always made me laugh. Porter is still watching me today.

After I got Porter from the shelter, about a year later we got a second dog, Tess. We were just going to try her out and see what she and Porter thought of each other. After about 2 minutes, they were lifelong best friends, and life with 2 dogs was easier than life with one dog had been. Tess was the sweetest dog in the world, and very smart. Having Porter and Tess led me to get sweet Kelsy as a puppy, from a shelter. She looked like she could have been the offspring of Porter and Tess. Then Kelsy became my search dog as we started volunteering for Missing Pet Partnership. Then came Mu and Fozzie and Sky and Viktor. Then came Tino.

Tino entered my life as Kelsy was leaving. Because Kelsy had been my search dog, and because it had been my job to observe her and read what she was telling me, when Kelsy died, it absolutely ripped the heart out of me. I was impacted much more than I was anticipating I would have been. It was as if a part of me died that day. When Kelsy died, I had thousands of pictures of her, and many videos and writings. She was already the subject of two books I had written. Still, I felt that I did not have enough pictures of her, especially puppy pictures. Then I had Tino, in the era of the iPhone, and I went crazy with documenting his life. I’m certain I have at least 100,000 pictures of Tino. My iPhone says I have 189,947 pictures and videos. I’m sure at least half of those are of Tino. He is very photogenic, and magnificent. (Why do I have more pictures of Tino than any other dog? Because the other dogs, especially Mu, don’t really like to have their picture taken. Brandishing an object at them can make them uncomfortable. Tino has had his picture taken every single day of his life, since before he could open his eyes, and he thinks picture taking is just a normal part of life.) Because he is my search dog, and because of my experience with Kelsy and Mu and Fozzie as my working dogs, I have a deep bond with Valentino Squishy Wordsworth.

25 years from now, in the year 2050, it is statistically likely I will still be alive, due to my genetic inheritance and due to advances in technology and medicine. It’s even possible I might be healthier and more productive then, with the aid of technology, than I am today. 25 years from now, I will have a picture on my wall of Tino, of course, next to the same picture of Porter. In addition to that picture, it is very likely that I will have a realistic avatar of Tino that I can see in my virtual reality glasses. As I look through these glasses, and manage all of my data and communications the way I would today with an iPad and an iPhone, (voice to text will probably actually work right 25 years from now) I will also see a dog, a virtual dog, resting nearby. This virtual dog will look so much like Tino that I wouldn’t be able to tell you which one was real if he was sitting next to a real dog. (I’m guessing I will also have a real dog in 2050.) This realistic avatar of Tino will be built up from probably more than a million videos and pictures, and from my audio recordings and writings about my work with him. All that data will be thrown into an AI blender, and it will recreate Tino in perfect detail, so I won’t be able to spot a single flaw. He will howl and sing, and sound just like the Tino I see in front of me today.

The virtual Tino I will have in 2050 will be a repository of all of the experiences I have in the present with my working dog. I will remember, and this avatar and the AI system he is based on, will remember everything about my life with Tino. That is, my digital best friend will be a repository of all of the memories I keep, either digitally or in my mind. Because I know what Porter meant to me, and how Kelsy was even more central to my life, I know that I simply can’t live without Tino. I will need to remember him in every detail, when he leaves me someday, hopefully far in the future. Knowing that Tino is my forever dog, a dog I will think about every single day for the rest of my life, I notice everything about him. Recently, he has started developing stripes along his sides. They are hard to photograph, but he has parallel ridges horizontally along his sides, as if someone ran their fingers through his fur on both sides, evenly and symmetrically. I don’t think he used to have this before. Did I just recently notice what had always been there? Or is he changing? Looking at a picture from five years ago, I don’t see it. Maybe the light has to be just right. I’ve noticed recently that Tino has added new words to the things he usually says. I don’t know what he is saying, but he has new words, and I wonder if it means he has new ideas.

What I will remember about Tino, 25 years from now, besides his subtle stripes and his new words, is the very important, life-saving work we do together. As I sit in a comfortable chair, in the year 2050, with my virtual Valentino sitting beside me, I will be able to watch a movie, more than a movie, a three dimensional recreation, in vivid detail, of the time that Tino and I searched for Puppy, the 150-pound dog, stuck in the mud. Tino and I found Puppy when there was absolutely no other way he could have been found out there in hundreds of acres of woods. I was so proud of my Tino, my baby. He did great work that day. I have many pictures and videos, and I just remember that day vividly. With virtual reality or not, I will remember days like July 21st, 2018, being caked with mud, and so very happy.

Tino 2050 benefits from Tino 2025 in that the original Tino is the source of his being, his reason for existence. This virtual replica Tino will be like pictures and videos and a scrap book and a memoir, all rolled into an AI powered virtual replica. Tino 2025 benefits from the future existence of Tino 2050 in several ways. First, knowing that he is a forever dog, I will live these moments with him more deeply, observing him more. I think people tend to not notice details because they think they won’t remember anyway, so what’s the point in capturing data that will just evaporate. Now, with ubiquitous tools for preserving memories, we have the opportunity to pay attention, to record, to preserve. Second, because I know that Tino is my forever dog, preserved in my mind palace and in my iPhone, I have an extra incentive to live memorable days with him, whether we are working hard or just hanging out, doing nothing. Although I can’t explain to Tino that he is my forever dog, he can benefit from extra attention I give him knowing that I am capturing these days.

Tino and I only locate the lost dog in 25% of our searches. We may provide crucial information in other cases, like a direction of travel. Most of our searches don’t have the happiest of endings, like when Tino found Puppy. Some of our searches have the worst ending, when Tino finds remains, as happened a couple of months ago. I will remember those days, too. Every day, I talk to people who are overcome with grief. I am aware that all of our work is based on someone else having a very bad day. Tino and I are sort of like cops in some ways, or like ER doctors: the work we do is predicated on something having gone very wrong. The work of a police officer is almost always instigated by people doing things they shouldn’t do, that they know are wrong, that they could simply choose not to do. Also, sometimes there are accidents, some of which may have been completely unavoidable. My point is that the work of a police officer or an ER doctor or of Tino and me, all of that work is based on someone’s personal tragedy. I am always aware of that.

Just as I can clearly picture my future life with a digital avatar of Tino walking beside me in 2050, it is fairly easy to predict and envision all of the ways a dog can go missing. It happens at least 30 times a day in King County, that we know of. A gate is left open. A visitor to the home doesn’t realize that they need to guard the door when coming in. A fence board is loose. A newly adopted dog backs out of a collar, in a very predictable way. We already know all the ways a dog can go missing, and most of them are easy to prevent. Because we can’t know every single possible way a dog can go missing, such as a serious car accident where the vehicle’s windows are broken out, we should prepare for an escape by having ID on the dog, a registered microchip, a scent item preserved in the freezer in case a search dog might be needed. Because it is easy to imagine a scenario where you could need a picture of your dog to post online or to make fliers and posters, you can take a few pictures today that show your dog very plainly and clearly. Every single lost dog was, prior to that moment of escape, a dog who could potentially become lost. The dog becoming lost was a fairly predictable possibility in most cases, which could have been avoided or mitigated fairly easily.

If you need the services of Tino, I am sorry you are in that position. I have lost cats and dogs, and I know how hard it can be. If you are like me, you feel like you have lost a family member, a best friend. Possibly you are missing a dog or cat who means as much to you as Tino means to me. It can be simultaneously true that someone can have a job they wish never needed to be done, and also enjoy that job. Or at least enjoy many aspects of the work. When Tino and I get onto a scent trail, we work as one unit. We are no longer a dog and a human, separate individuals. We are a team, or a combined symbiotic organism. When we are working, Tino is an extension of my senses, allowing me to enter another world, a world of scents I can’t smell and sounds I can’t hear. Because I have memory and a longer life span, I extend and expand Tino’s life by always remembering him, by making him a forever dog.

The other day, Tino and I were working along the shoulder of a freeway. We were searching for a dog that we had found before, two years ago. I had been so proud of the work Tino did back then, searching through the mud and the brambles until we caught up to the dog. On this day, in the rain, on the shoulder of the freeway, we would not catch up to the dog because the scent trail turned into the lanes of traffic on the freeway, and we could not follow. Chances are, the lost dog returned to the shoulder of the freeway somewhere, perhaps a mile away. He could have run down the center median a long way, as dogs have been known to do. It’s also possible he could have gotten over the barrier, or slipped through a gap underneath. Tino and I were prevented from tracking that scent trail all the way to the current location of the lost dog. The dog’s owners were sad and upset that we were not successful this time. I certainly hoped the lost dog would have taken a path that would allow us to follow and catch up. Although it’s sad that we didn’t find the dog this time, Tino still did really excellent work. In what could be described as a losing effort, Tino tracked the scent down an embankment and along the edge of the freeway to a dead end. Although I would never knowingly put Tino in a dangerous position, working along the shoulder of the freeway is not without risk. We did good work and did our best, in challenging circumstances, even though the outcome was not the best for the lost dog’s owners.

Besides the work, I just enjoy being with Tino. Driving to and from the work, or just going to the grocery store, or going for a walk, or playing with a stick in a park or a parking lot, I just enjoy being around him. When he threw up in the bed at 3:30 AM last week because he had eaten some grass on our late night walk, I didn’t really enjoy that part, but in almost every other respect, I enjoy every moment with Tino. In the year 2050, when I am hanging out with the virtual avatar of Tino that looks and behaves exactly like him, I will remember our adventures, and moments that we just did nothing. When he was just there, just being. I am complete when Tino is with me, whether it is now and he is physically here, or some day in the future when he is in my mind or I can look at a virtual replica of him.

I am going to lose Tino someday. I don’t know when or how. It could be tomorrow, if a car swerves or loses control while we are working a case or just out for a late walk in the moonlight with Raven. I hope I have Tino at least another 8 years, and I will do everything I can to make sure I don’t lose him any sooner than I must. However long he is with me, it won’t be enough. After he is gone from me physically, he will always be with me in my mind. There will never be a day that I don’t think of him. Here in the year 2025, I am continuously, purposefully aware that I need to enjoy my time with Tino. I enjoy listening to his singing. When he is not barfing, I enjoy sleeping next to him. One of my frustrations is that I fall asleep too fast, with Tino curled into my chest. It’s like I get so comfortable with him beside me that it just knocks me out. I wish I could spend ten minutes before falling asleep, just enjoying his presence, his breathing, his mass, but usually I am fast asleep in just moments. I enjoy playing with a stick in a parking lot in some random location with Tino. I notice the way his tail moves as he dances with a stick. While I am here in 2025 with Tino 2025, I am also aware of Tino 2050, and that I will be hanging out with him someday. We will sit around and think of all of the dogs I have had in my life, from Porter on. I will remember him in vivid detail, whether with the assistance of digitally enhanced memories, or just relying on my brain. I will remember everything about Tino for as long as I live. I enjoy these moments with Tino, and I am here with him, present and aware. I am also always aware that I am going to look back on this moment from 25 years in the future, and there will be many aspects of this day I would want to always remember, even on days when our searches are unsuccessful.

The solution to lost dogs is not Tino and I finding them. 10,000 dogs go missing every year in the greater Seattle area. Tino and I can’t search for them all. Even if we could do 10,000 searches per year, we would probably only be successful 25% of the time, due to challenges beyond our control, such as the lost dog crossing a freeway. We will help as many dogs as we can, but we can only help a small fraction. The solution is not to have an army of search dogs like Tino, fully trained and with skilled handlers, although I do wish we had that resource. The solution is for every dog to be a forever dog like Tino. All dogs are just as wonderful as Tino, even if they aren’t working dogs. Although I think Tino is beautiful, and photogenic, all dogs are beautiful in their own ways. If every dog was wanted and cherished and loved the way I love Tino, the way he is woven into my soul, the way every dog deserves to be loved, then dogs would go missing at a much lower rate. Accidents will still happen, like the dog we searched for the other day, where there was a medical emergency and a door opened unexpectedly, and the little dog ran out in panic. These things will happen. If every dog was loved the way I love Tino, if every dog was valued as a soul, as a forever dog that would be remembered vividly 25 years from now, then I don’t think 10,000 dogs would go missing in a metropolitan area like Seattle every year. It would be much rarer.

Last week, Tino came with me on a stake out as we monitored a trap set for a skinny black dog who had been wandering an industrial area for 10 days. Some office workers had been feeding her, and she would come and go from the 400 acres of woods nearby. She finally showed up after 3 hours, and she went into the humane trap in under 5 minutes. When I walked up to the trap, she barked at me like she would tear me to shreds if I tried to touch her. I reclined on the pavement near her, and I had Tino lie down beside me, to display calming signals to her. Tino even yawned at her, which is a calming signal. After seeing that I wasn’t immediately trying to do anything to her, and seeing my companion dog, four times her size, being so relaxed and calm, she relaxed, too. I couldn’t find any place to take her at that late hour, so I took her home. She stayed overnight in one of Raven’s kennels. The next morning, she was perfectly calm around me. She let me pet her and she climbed into my lap. When I took her to the shelter, she wanted to stay in my arms. I would very much have liked to make her my forever dog, like Tino, but I can’t adopt them all. Tino was once thought of as disposable, when apparently his mother was dumped in the wilderness, before Tino was born. Tino is a magnificent dog, objectively speaking, and he is the center of my life. He would have died if someone hadn’t contacted Useless Bay Sanctuary. He is 8 years old, and we have already had an amazing life of work and play together. My life is so much better with Tino, my forever dog. This little black dog is just as beautiful, in her own way, and just as worthy of love. Why isn’t she someone’s forever dog? It appears that someone dumped her at this industrial park next to a forest, although I don’t have any proof of that. Certainly, no one is looking for her very hard. I named her Duffy, after Susan Duffy, from Reacher. I would like to have made her my forever dog, if I had room. She definitely deserves to be someone’s forever dog. I hope you will adopt her from the Burien shelter if she isn’t redeemed.

In the year 2050, Tino and I will go to the beach, specifically Useless Bay, at low tide on a summer day. We will go to a specific location:

///sublime.imagination.encounters

https://w3w.co/sublime.imagination.encounters

I will go there with Tino in my virtual reality glasses, and also with any dogs I have at the time. I hope I have a search dog, and we are still doing this work. I will probably have a titanium hip replacement, and maybe I will have a new heart, printed in a 3-D printer with organic tissue cloned from cells of my old heart. I might have an exoskeleton that lets me get around easily and even tackle rough terrain with my search dog. My dog of 2050 will play with other real dogs at the beach, and Valentino 2050 will play with digital recreations of Porter, Tess, Kelsy, Mu, Fozzie, Sky, Viktor, Raphael, and Raven. Also at our virtual play date will be every dog ever saved by one of my rescue dogs. Tiny Thelma in the freezing cold. Charlie hiding in the blackberries. Puppy being freed from the mud pit. The beach at Useless Bay will be virtually covered in dogs, tens of thousands of virtual dogs, all of the dogs we have helped over the years. I hope that most of the thousands of dogs on the beach with us in 2050 will be dogs that never went missing because their owners took advantage of simple loss prevention measures. I hope that all the dogs we play with on the beach in 2050 will be forever dogs with families that love them.

I have written many articles about Tino, and shared many photographs. Although I just like to brag about my amazing dog, I hope it also inspires people to look at their own dogs as creatures they could appreciate as much as I appreciate Tino. I wish every single dog owner would take the loss prevention measures detailed in this article. Even if I didn’t like a dog, although I don’t see how any dog could not be loved, I would still want to take these loss prevention measures simply to avoid the expense and hassle of trying to find a lost dog. Even if it wouldn’t break your heart to lose a dog, you should still take these steps to keep your dog safe because every dog deserves that level of protection. If your dog is everything in the world to you, which is the way many people describe their dogs when they ask for Tino’s help, then absolutely you should take these prevention measures, to be sure that almost all of your memories are happy ones.

The video below is just Tino with a big stick, a memory I am preserving. I will watch this video in virtual reality in 2050, with my forever dog beside me.