Prolog
It all began while hanging out with some friends the Monday after the Mountain Readiness event in May 2025. As we were chilling a guy stopped by riding an old military style motorcycle and sidecar. In the sidecar were three very cute German Shepard puppies, two female and one male. He was looking for good homes for them, for free, as he also had the parents and couldn’t look after them all.
Back in 2022 I had to put the last dog I had, Denali, down as she could no longer walk, and even had trouble evening getting up. She hadn’t really been my dog, she was my son’s, who was in jail at the time I moved to Colorado for a new job. The plan was for Denali to go back once he got out, but that never happened. That was the second dog I had to part with, the first being a labrador that I had trained as a search and rescue dog. After Denali I had deliberately avoided holding any dogs, especially puppies, as I know a dog will choose you, and I wasn’t ready.
While I did allow myself to briefly pet these adorable puppies, I did not hold one. But I did take a few pictures and send to my daughter, without any comments. I had always said the next dog I got would be a German Shepard or a Malinois, as I wanted to train it to be a protection dog. But my work, well more the five hours a day commute right now, had always stopped me from taking that step.
After the guy left a friend of ours who had to put his dog down that morning stopped back. After a short conversation he went over the guys house and came back with one of the females, he named her Raven.
The next day I was five hours into my seven-hour journey home, towing my camper, when my daughter called. “Did you see the pictures?” I asked. “Yes, did you get one?” was her response. “No” I said, “I wasn’t just going to get one without talking to you as you have Sadie.” Sadie is her four-year-old St. Bernard. A few months ago my daughter lost her other dog, Yuki, who she had for about thirteen years. Since then, Sadie has been depressed. “I want one,” she said, “the male.” One of the other challenges, I told her, is that you travel for work and your mom has to look after Sadie. I’m not going to have her look after a dog I’m going to train properly. When my daughter pressed the issue, well not really, I said, “Well then I guess we’ll have to coordinate and not both be travelling at the same time.” I called one of my friends who had the guys phone number. I called and told him I wanted the male and that I’d make arrangements to come back down the following weekend.
On my way home from work the next day I stopped in the pet store. Three hundred and seventy-five dollars later, over four-hundred if the lady hadn’t brought out a coupon book, I came out with a large bag of dog food, a large bag of cat food, both for our existing animals, as well as a grooming brush, dog bowls, a konk, a kennel and some treats for training. I had already ordered a remote training collar earlier in the day from Amazon.
Saturday came early at two am, I was on the road by 2.20am and drove the four hundred and eight miles in a little over six hours, with one stop for fuel, and arrived at the campground to meet “Boomer,” as my daughter named him just from the pictures.
