THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE sunset – the golden hour for photos and exercising cow-dogs. The plan was to take the Jeep to Bobcat Landing and let Dirt swim in the swampy black river and practice herding alligators.

“Jeep,” I say to Dirt. He lets out a screeching bark, runs out back, and jumps in the passenger seat. We crank the CJ and the Allman Brothers and just when I eased out the clutch, I realized I forgot the road beers.

I threw it in neutral and cranked the volume so I could keep listening to Gregg while I stocked up. “You’re my blue sky, you’re my sunny day…” I hummed along, kept the front door open, and reached in the back of the fridge to grab two, mountain blue, Coors Lights.

“Dirt! That’s enough!” I hollered, while I stared at a piece of old fried chicken on the top shelf in the fridge. I could hear he was messing with something. A lizard, I assumed. But he quickly went into his half-growl, half-high-pitched screeching bark, typically only reserved for herding armadillos or nipping ex-girlfriends.

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