Obsidian Black Dog has accompanied me on every single one of the now 1,301 trail miles I’ve taken this year. And all the miles I’ve taken in the prior 8 years as well. He’s got lots of favorite trails and he often refuses to go the way I want to go- particularly when we get out on the west- side trails. He likes to do ALL of Diretissema, and ALL of Andy’s, and ALL of Ambrose. He really likes it when we do all of those together.
I ‘ve explained that I have a full-time job, and that few other dogs get 5 walks daily. He doesn’t seem to care a whit about those facts. I’ve always said, you’d hire a Golden Retriever to throw your party, but you’d hire a Lab to do your taxes. He’s a Lab, and Labs love their routines. So, since he got five short walks as a pup, he should get five longer walks as an adult. Period.
Obi has been trail walking in 10 states with my family and me. From the Desert SW to the Pacific NW, he’s been on every trail we’ve rambled. Next June, he’ll be 10, and I suppose he’ll start to slow down a little. We’ll see.
Back in mid-August, I received a note from wonderful folks over at PPLT. They wanted to go for a walk with Obsidian to introduce him to their followers in “Happy Tails”- a new social media feature that they were using to highlight to the huge number of canine trail users we have in Helena.
Obi is always up for a good walk, so I agreed and we met early one morning and walked a few of the trails on the NW shoulder of Mount Helena. Obi was in rare form. He played “where’s your stick” for about 1/2 mile and ran back and forth like a dog half his age.
Anyway, he’s been my constant trail companion for nearly a decade and I wouldn’t trade him for his weight in gold.
Nature, every day. 
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