“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.”

I ran through the crowd, pushing other dogs out of the way and introducing myself to their people as Mom trudged around the outside of the group where she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone. A frisbee flew overhead and sand smeared under my paws as I tried to knock it out of the air before anyone else could catch it.

“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.”

“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.

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.”

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

Before we even started our hike, we found a real treasure: an unlocked people-potty!

“I thought that being right was the only thing you liked about talking to other people,” I said. “You can’t correct people without disagreement.”

Donuts are like cheese sticks for Mom. When it takes extra bravery to get home without killing any strangers, Mom rewards herself with a donut. “But they weren’t in the basket where they usually are, and the whole bakery case was locked.” I didn’t like where this story was going. You don’t get between Mom and pastries.

“Oh good! The horse came home after all. I knew we’d find a happy ending.”

“After they mounted a thorough search for the horse, and a respectful time had passed for grief, I bet they adopted a buffalo,” I concluded. “Hey, what’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?”

When the Weather Jinx spoke, the sky awoke. Right on cue, it darkened to a mominous grey and threw down a spat of rain while it gathered its clouds to show what it could really do. “I sure hope this weather breaks soon,” the Jinx jinxed.

Dogs go potty in words, leaving public messages for any passing creature to enjoy, but Mom doesn’t like to pee where someone can see. Humans go potty like punctuation, as if its only meaning is a moment of privacy between important things.

I waited, but there was no rumbling and no tumbling. I waited some more, but still no Mom fell out of the Mom-return slot. I would have to step onto her landing strip if I wanted to look for her. I was just about to take a cautious step onto the runway when I heard a whoosh.