Questions like that are how Mom cheats at arguments. She knows that dogs can't tell the future like she can.

Pots clattered as she dug through the kitchen, searching for I-knew-not-what. She grunted triumphantly and pulled out the knife.

Screams filled the inside of the mailman van as the ghosts of all the dogless families he'd eaten rattled the bars.

"Oh my dog! It's the shoopacabra!" I barked. "Let's get him!" I leaned hard into the leash and ordered him to run.

I couldn't tell if it was nature or civilization calling her back, just that Mom was accepting the call.

If you try to make everything look like the plan, then you're going to miss a lot and spend the whole adventure being frustrated.

The car-house came to rest in a car kennel surrounded by sky. Only the crowns of a few mountains joined us in the sky, still dripping with

"Why would there be a parking lot if there were nothing to see? People who drive sedans don't go up a dirt road for nothing."

Death sat self-consciously behind them all, its bloodthirsty depths and time-stained teeth awkwardly out of place among the picnic tables, r

There was something creepy about being so close to something so big.

"Oh look! A cairn." Mom veered toward a little stack of rocks. I sniffed the pile. "Hello, Karen. My name is Oscar."

"Heights... I can't... I'm too scared to get close enough to take a good picture," she admitted. "I was kind of hoping you'd do it for me."

The monster halted and let out a screech like a carrion bird. Then it backed up for a closer look.

"Oh well. I suppose you've learned your lesson. Please move out of the way so we can go."

A dog on a road trip goes for a trail run on BLM land and discovers they're in a hunting ground.

The car-house picked up speed as it rolled toward the blinding whiteness. As we zoomed in, the grid lines on the ground began to show.

Even the raindrops were prickly, as if it were raining wasps. Beside the trail, the bristle bushes bloomed with food wrappers and underpants

"Imagine that! A truck stop! Who does she think she’s talking to?" Mom pulled the seat leash across her chest like a diva cape.

"Sheesh, there's absolutely nothing here," Mom narrated. "There have got to be trails around here somewhere."

Mom splashed out of the bushes and opened the door. I took a flying leap inside and shook the wet from my fur into the blanket. Mom humphed