I have always been a dog walker. Even when I didn’t have one, I found dogs to walk. Or, more likely, dogs who loved to walk found me.

Embedded, however, in thousands of traipsing miles, is a secret, a spoiler alert: My dog walking is a not-so-clever disguise for a wanderlust heart. Truth: My canine companions and I are delighted questers rather than dutiful walkers, making us soul-linked in a way that must have been familiar to the likes of Admiral Byrd and his Antarctic crew or Lewis and Clark and their expeditioners.

There are worse proclivities than finding the bend in a mountain dirt road irresistible. Or that beach dune wall that begs to be climbed before the wind captures and removes them. Curiosity, while it may have killed the cat, is not likely to topple a canine-human team intent on adventure-seeking. 

I lived off Chunns Cove Road near downtown Asheville for several years with my dog, Autumn-Socks, a husky-shepherd mix who was as intelligent as she was beautiful. She came to me as a senior dog from a nearby county’s shelter, but there was nothing retired about Autumn-Socks. She had the endurance and stamina to have donned snow shoes, taken a place at the head of the pack, and pulled in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska.

We lost no time in befriending Chance, the neighbor’s Goliath of a dog. A Great Pyrenees-border collie mix, he offered an affable, fun-loving balance to Autumn-Socks’s more focused inclinations. Chance had been penned for some time, and his delight and gratitude at being found and included knew no bounds. With his owner’s permission, Chance accompanied Autumn-Socks and I daily in our explorations.

Chunns Cove is teeming with wildlife, including coyotes, a vast assortment of raptors, large and small foxes, and black bears. The bears, in particular, have become more visible as their territories have been encroached upon by people. As a result, their hibernation cycles are shortened, and food supplies require more and more searching, including pilfering human garbage.

Black bears are not typically aggressive to people, nor do they eat meat. But they are big and bulky, beautifully roaming with their lumbering gait, sometimes on all fours, sometimes standing on their back legs, often with a cub. They are pungent, particularly to a dog’s level of senses, and highly protective of their offspring. A mama bear can weigh from 200 to 800 pounds, and her baby, depending on its age, half that. They seek no friendship with humans, and humans are well served to return the sentiment, despite how tempting it may be to pet and cuddle a bear. Winnie the Pooh was a stuffed toy for a reason.

On a late April morning, Autumn-Socks, Chance and I were almost to the top of Chunns Cove Road, which dead-ends in a mountain cove, just passing in front of an uninhabited house, someone’s mountain retreat. Both dogs were leashed. Neither showed indication of anything out of the ordinary, no stop-still response to a smell, movement, or sound.

That the adult black bear, walking on its back legs, came down the driveway of the house as if to get into its car and drive away was as much of a surprise to Autumn-Socks and Chance as it was to me. If we were surprised, however, the bear’s shock and fear were magnified exponentially. Flailing its front legs, it threw back its head and bellowed as though its enormous claws were being extracted.

Autumn-Socks and Chance, barking in tandem ferociousness, jerked and pulled on their leashes, straining to protect me and themselves, but mostly striving to get closer to the bear. No retreat, no surrender for them. The bear stopped and turned, then ran back towards the house. Almost pathetic in its discombobulation, it came our way again. In the seconds that had passed, I had maneuvered us so that we could return the way we came.

We backed up slowly. I made a conscious effort not to run, fearing we might be chased. The dogs were predictably disappointed, still straining at their leashes and barking maniacally. With not the slightest hesitation, given the opportunity, they would have pursued the bear to the ends of the Earth. I marveled at their unabashed and instantaneous seizing of the situation.

Fifty feet down Chunns Cove Road we started running, both dogs full throttle with me in tow. I looked over my shoulder to see if we were being pursued. The bear had stopped in the middle of the road, looked around briefly, confused as to what had happened, then, on all fours, galloped across the road and disappeared into the woods.

It felt good, a profound relief, to run with the force of our collective adrenalin. No barking. Just the pant of our breathing, the sound of their paws and my shoes lightly bouncing off the pavement, the scratching of my jeans against my squall jacket.

We stopped. Leashes still wrapped around my wrists, I bent over my knees and took several deep breaths. When I looked up, both Autumn-Socks and Chance were looking at me with sparkling eyes, big smiles, lolling heads and dancing feet, communicating the complicit request: Please, please, let’s do it again. I began to laugh, mirthful tears spilling down my cheeks, then sat down, only to lie down, while Autumn-Socks and Chance stood over me, licking my face and nudging me. Get up, we’re ready, let’s go.

At least in this lifetime, I’ll not explore Antarctica like Admiral Byrd or carve out a path in the wilderness of a new continent like Lewis and Clark. But I will keep a dog by my side, one who finds me, in spite of my human limitations, to be an acceptable sojourner to the multifaceted explorations and adventures of an ordinary life.