“Oh dog doo,” Mom said slowly, like speaking at a normal pace might cause something to go terribly wrong.

“See?” Mom shifted the Wagon triumphantly into recovery mode. “The trick to not getting stuck is to just keep moving.”

Something about that didn’t add up for me. How would we get out without calling for help if we needed it? But since dogs can’t add, I did the reaction Mom’s face told me to do.

“I bet that’s why everyone is so peevish lately,” I decided. “What does progress do when there’s a mountain in the way?”

So that’s what orange meant! It was one of those human words I heard all the time but never understood. I sniffed a big noseful of the foul, revolting, monstrous air and thought about orange so I would remember for the next time.

“Wait here.” She held up her hand in the stay sign. She kept her hand up as she disappeared beneath it. Finally, Mom pulled the hand out of sight so she could use it to hang onto the next rock.

“Down where?” I peeked over my shoulder. From above, the slope looked a lot more like a cliff. It seemed impossible that we’d climbed so high moving so slowly. “I’ll go wherever you go. Please don’t leave me here alone.”

“Where’s everybody going?” I asked. “They’re all leaving because of the smoke, I guess.” Mom’s shoulders twitched, shrugging off a thought like it was a fly in her ear.

“What do you suppose this frisbee is doing here?” I sniffed. I’m not really a fetch kind of guy, but picking up a frisbee is a great way to start a game of tag, so I tested its texture with my teeth.

Once we fell in and learned to accept wet in our socks, smoke in our lungs, and not to count on kindness from strangers, it turned into a kind of freedom. Once you give in, it’s quicker to swim to shore than to walk. Though you may come out in a different place than you planned, once you shake yourself off, it’s usually only a few steps back to the trail.

“IT’S A HORSE!” My tail wagged faster as my excitement ratcheted ever-higher. “Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! I can’t wait to bark at him!”

“Some days great just isn’t one of the choices.” Mom’s whole body sagged as she said it, like the words made her twoteen times heavier.

I tried to imagine it, but the situation Mom was describing sounded more like the middle of a story than the end. “Then how will we get out?” I asked.

“That’s not what it’s like on Dogstagram,” I said. “Dogstagram is like Black Twitter, but for dog issues. Mostly whether there’s equal opportunity in booping, whether or not to conjugate verbs, and if it’s really that dog’s birthday today.”

I don’t usually like it when Mom ties me up and goes somewhere without me, but with Lily there, I didn’t need to bark. While Mom went inside to order, I taught Lily about breakfast. “Here, let me show you how it works,” I coached. “First you say, I’d like a side of bacon. Then you ask, Can I get that with cheese? Now you try.”

“Drop the potato chips and no one gets hurt!” I barked, refusing the empty paw.

“What the smell is that woman saying?” Mom grumbled the umptieth time I heard it. “Wait, you can hear it too?”

“Don’t you dare take off!” Mom hissed, hooking her frozen claws around my collar and trapping me for monster meat.

Mom leaned back and her arm shot out as if to shove the Furryner off a cliff. She might have done it, too, if he’d come any closer, but only by accident. They froze for a second, both staring at the stop hand at the end of Mom’s stiff arm.

“It’s not criminal, but it’s a violation of something-or-other,” Mom said in her law-gic voice. “I wouldn’t call it il-legal. More like extra-legal.” What a relief. If the Law found us, they would probably give me a medal for being so much more legal than everyone else.