We built a shower into the garage for dog washing, but if we had children I could see it being equally useful. When we lived in the trailer dirt was just a fact of life. Now that we are in a house it is refreshing to have as little dirt as possible. Now Dazey and Enzo can do their dirt rolls and I wash em down on the way back through the garage rear door. It’s the little things.
Tag: dogs
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The Flying Enzo!
This is my boy Enzo. He is maybe 9 years old but is still the same dog we got from the foster all those years ago. If you cannot tell he loves running in the snow.
Liftoff 
Airborne 
Hover 
Dazeys trying for liftoff. -
Hitting the Road
On Labor Day 9/1/2014 Kate and I packed up what we needed, and hit the road to be fulltime RVers and digital nomads. It took 3 months for us to plan everything from renting out our home, to finding a trailer and tow vehicle, and figuring out that Kate would resign her job. This was a quick transition but we made it work and for 6 years we roamed the USA and some of Mexico.
The initial catalyst for hitting the road was due to our dog Zeke. I have talked about Zeke before and how great a dog he was. On a trip to Tucson we noticed that Zeke had started wetting his dog bed. Some quick Google-diagnosing mentioned different things, including cancer. We had lost Bonzai the year before and Ozric the year before so we immediately assumed the worst, but did our best not to say as much directly. It is interesting how people avoid talking about their sadness even while it is shown on their faces.
On the drive home to Phoenix I asked Kate: “If money wasn’t an issue what would you be doing right now?” It was partly to lighten the mood but also a serious question. Career wise Kate was doing fantastic and my website/marketing business was doing well. We had a nice home in central Phoenix and great friends. We were happy, but there was something missing in our lives. We had spent the prior few years trying to have children but it was not to be our fate. Kates immediate answer was: driving around the country in an RV.
In May of 2014 Zeke was diagnosed with cancer and with treatment was given 18 months to live. We were devastated. We started treatment and he responded well, which is not a good sign. 18 months became 12 and then we stopped asking for timelines.
In the middle of this Kate and I had been training for the St George Half Ironman triathalon which involves training 7 days a week. The race was just a few weeks away and we managed to make it happen and both of us finished. It was a great accomplishment but all we could think of was Zeke.
A month later Kate comes home after work and announces: “Labor Day” and I am like “yeah its in 3 months what about it?”. Her reply: “Thats the day we are hitting the road in an RV.” The flag had been planted now we needed to make it happen.
At the time we had a pop-up trailer for camping in. We would hitch up on the weekends and drive into the Arizona mountains. We had been camping in the pop-up for less than a year and had a good routine for making it work. We had been car campers before that, and enjoyed getting into the out doors and away from the city. However, we knew that there was no way we were going to be able to live in the po-up. We would need to find something bigger.
So in the middle of training for another half ironman which would happen in July, and dealing with a dog in cancer treatment: we added finding a trailer to live in to our to do list. We were also going to need to get rid of 70% of our stuff and find renters for the house.
We started looking at trailers with the thinking that a trailer would suit us better than a Mobile Home. The difference is that a trailer has a tow vehicle so there is only one motor to maintain. With a Mobile Home you have the motor that drives the home and then you are also going to want a second vehicle. The reason for this is that once you setup camp somewhere you have to put everything away before you can drive the home somewhere else. In a trailer this isn’t a big deal since you just un-hitch the tow vehicle and drive it to town for groceries. With a Mobile Home you have 2 motors to maintain and neither of us are mechanics.
At first we thought we might be able to use a hybrid type trailer. These are larger than a pop-up but still have sections that pop out and have canvas covering the area. They are smaller than normal trailers and we quickly realized they were too small for our needs. Eventually we found our 29 foot Jayco Jaybird G2 RLS29 (The RLS stands for Rear Living Space.).
Then we needed to upgrade our tow vehicle to something that could handle such a large trailer. We found a Toyota Sequioa that could handle the weight and we both liked that Zeke had space in the back to hang out in. I installed a trailer brake controller and we were ready to roll out!
Then we just needed to get a blog setup, cause thats what you do. Since Kate’s last name is Grass I came up with the totally innocent name of Rolling with Grass. 😎 I wanted to get a big sticker made up for the side of the trailer but Kate shut that down. Alas our blogging career did not take off, mostly due to a lack of blogging, but we had fun with it.
We pulled out of Phoenix a few days before Labor Day and headed up to Flagstaff to camp with friends for the weekend and bid them farewell. Over the next 6 years we would criss cross the US multiple times. We spent 3 different winters in Florida and a couple summers in New England. We took the rig down to Mexico on 2 different occasions and continued living in it until last fall on our land.
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Zen and the Art of the Dog Walk
It wasn’t until I met Kate that I have ever had a dog as a pet, or even had a pet. My sister had some hamsters at some point but that was just a box of shit in the house. Anytime I brought up getting a dog to my family there was mumblings of responsibility, and things which I was still a bit foggy on. Looking back I should have gotten a dog as a kid.
At the time we met, Kate had Bonzai and Ozric (she requires all her dogs to have ‘z’s in their name). Bonzai was a rescue that Kate first saw in the parking lot. Bonzai was a puppy and Kate elected to see no other dogs and rescued her on the spot. At one point we had her genetically tested and she came back as Siberian Husky and Dauschund. Talk about an odd couple! Ozric was part of one of Kate’s co-workers litter of Boxers. Kate went over to have a look at the puppies and Ozric was the runt, and apparently quite cute.
Kate’s house had a dog door to a fenced in back yard, so it was a self service affair for the dogs. In terms of not having to pick up piles of shit it was great. However, this meant that we did not use the backyard for much. To be fair we lived in Phoenix, so hanging out in a backyard pretty much only happens if you have a pool. Kate did not have a pool, she had dirt and dry dog shit.
The first and only time I tried taking Ozric and Bonzai for a walk, we made it about 200 yards and Ozric decided to sit down. When a 60 pound boxer decides to sit down its game over, until they decide to move again. In this case Ozric stayed sitting until I started walking back towards the house. That dog was all about chillin.
After he passed and Bonzai let us know she needed a new companion we rescued Zeke. His name was Humphries but that wasn’t what we considered to be a terrific name for a dog, and there was no ‘z’. At one point a vet tech thought he looked part Argentine Dogo. Zeke was a big, beatuful, gentle beast, and loved going for walks, he was also the best on leash.
Walking a dog on leash can be a varying affair based on a number of factors. The first and main factor is the dog themselves. Some dogs are great on leash, and I hear it is because the owner trains them to be. All I know is that Zeke must have been trained by someone before us, because Kate and I are not “trainer-type” dog owners. He did not pull on the leash and walked by your side very calmly. He enjoyed visiting our neighborhood coffee shop and was a very good boy.
Eventually Bonzai passed and it was just us and Zeke. He liked humans more than dogs so we didn’t try to force a new companion on him.
After Zeke passed we rescued Dazey and shortly afterwards Enzo. Again we altered the names to protect the innocent. Dazey is pretty good on leash but she knows she can get away with a lot. Enzo is just Enzo. If there is a Squirrel or anything he is ready to go!
At this point we were only a few months into our full time RV adventuring, and we were moving around a lot. We saw a lot of states and campgrounds and went on a lot of dog walks. Walking the dogs could be interesting side quests involving other dogs, roads with lots of traffic, and wildlife.
Dog walking is a Zen activity because there is a balance. The primary purpose of the walk is to let the dog relieve themselves outside of your home. They also need exercise, but then there are the smells. Apparently a dogs nose is hyper sensitive and can detect things that are well beyond our capabilities. When they find something to sniff on it’s a big deal.
In the meantime I have other things to do, and unfortunately cannot spend the whole day waiting on them to finish their forensic analysis of whatever animal urinated on that rock. I try to let them get some-time to explore but eventually its time to move on. The other issue is that there are a lot of things they want to eat in nature. For a lot of dog owners they see this as natural and ok. For me I am not a big fan of messes inside the house and/or trips to the vet because of excessive diarrhea. So I err on the side of not letting them nibble on random shit in the woods.
Squirrel! In the end I think we have a good balance on our walks. I try to get them out 2 to 3 times a day with at minimum one loop around the land. Thats a good 18 minute walk and there are tons of things to smell and try and eat. I get to take a break and spend time outside with my best buddies. Its a win-win-win-win-win.