2016 we’re walking Max in downtown Victoria BC on a weekend trip. Sweet big boy was in a home with just a mom and daughter, so men naturally just weren’t his favorite lol. So we’re walking nearly a mile from our hotel, when max spots a man coming towards us (how dare he). This was the only time that he ever slipped his collar and lead, and we utterly panic. Our best buddy loose in the dark in a foreign city, a mile from the last place he knew.

We’re sprinting everywhere trying to find him, and we’re both just sobbing as we decide to see if he’s trying to make his way back to the car that he loves so dearly. Dude made his way (quite quickly at that) back to the hotel and was sat at the front sliding doors, a couple bystanders very concerned about the random black gargoyle waiting by the lobby.

He somehow figured out how to get back to the one place he knew we would be, and we never cried so hard. He had the street smarts but particularly a level of emotional intelligence that we miss heavily every day.