Here’s what I’ve learned about dogs.

1- Dogs are cute.

2- Dogs are lovely.

3- Dogs are four legged angels that run up and kiss you when you fall down and protect you from strangers and provide better therapy than any professional session. (Don’t tell your doctor I said that.)

When I first started dog walking, I didn’t know what I was getting into. I had come from the hospitality industry, a place where people go when they get out of art school and don’t want to work in their own field. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run into old classmates from film school that ask, “Why aren’t you working on set?” instead of “How are you?”. The reason I don’t work on set is because I don’t want to ruin something I’m passionate about by doing it according to someone else’s vision. If I’m not making my own films, then I don’t want to be working in film at all.

So there I was, being a barista, being a server, being on the weirdest level of the food chain that is somehow looked down upon from those above and those below.

I met over a thousand people in the years that I served, only a small score of which were genuinely nice people.

Serving is a really fast way to lose your tenderness toward strangers. I know I don’t need to explain this, we’ve all seen customers yell at their waitresses. I’ve been reminded dozens of times of my shortcomings as a human and that “some people actually work for a living” unlike servers who spend their time spitting in burgers and just generally screwing everything up (for the record, I never spat in, nor intentionally ruined someone’s food, but I did sometimes switch out skim milk for full fat in the lattes of the really evil people).

It had been exceptionally hard to find a pleasant place to work in Vancouver, and last year I thought I had a winner at a unique bar where people went to eat, drink and paint. But if it sounds too good to be true, then it was probably created by an irresponsible artsy person who is not meant to run a business. And so it was that the bar went bankrupt, and my comfortable serving job was fed to the dogs (take that person who said I suck at segues).

I did look for another serving position at first, and I scheduled an interview at a harbour bar not long after becoming unemployed. But upon showing up to see the Saturday afternoon rush, I left immediately. There was NO WAY I’d go back to serving gross old guys with hungry eyes who thought it was ok to touch you on the waist as they ordered their third beer with “extra head”. No fucking way. In fact, I don’t think anyone should do that job, and I think we need to reconsider the way we operate the entire hospitality industry, including gratuity. (I mean, is it earned or demanded? And wtf is a tip cup doing at a gas station?)

How I came upon dog walking was how most people find random weird things that they didn’t know they wanted in their life; Craigslist. I saw an ad and I thought, that’s what I want to do. I want to pick up poop for a living. Little did I know just how MUCH poop I’d be picking up.

So let’s skip ahead, I’m a dog walker now. I’m awesome at my job. I try really hard and I love the dogs with all of my heart. I’ve come to dislike people that don’t like dogs, and outright despise those that abuse them.

Let’s do a test here. When I say “dog walker”, what do you see?

Yes, that’s me, after stomping my way up a big ass hill, trying to keep up with dogs who never fail to remind you of how you could never outrun a bear because you’re a bloated, pampered, 21st century Canadian who’s most agile body part is a thumb.

It is amazing, spending so much time outdoors. Day in and day out, you pick a hill, hike up it as far as you can go and run back down so that you can get the dogs home in time. You only have an hour and a half out there, so you make it count the best you can. By these small increments, I’ve seen more of Vancouver’s natural beauty in two months than I had in four years of living here.

Growing up, I was very into fantasy. I obsessed over the Harry Potter books and watched My Neighbour Totoro repeatedly. This fascination with fiction pushed the bar for what truly amazed me progressively higher. As I searched for more extreme experiences, the things that actually awed me grew infrequent, until eventually nothing impressed me anymore. Gore, horror, magic, beauty. It all became the same shade of unsurprising. This made it impossible to enjoy the wonderfully simple things in life. I took for granted all of the natural beauty our world, and especially coastal British Columbia, is full of.

Through being emerged in nature every day, I have acquired a taste for subtlety. The way a rainy night makes the rivers run wider the next day, the way the trees create a shade through which to safely view the sun, the way one misstep on a hill can upset your entire climb. There is beauty in the way a dog’s breath hangs visible in the early morning air, how in the mud their pawprints and your footprints blend into one another, how, if you lead them right, the dogs will follow where you go.

Outwardly, it may seem like just a job, but inwardly I reach a sort of nirvana every day out in those woods, and it is awesome.

On the lighter side of my experiences, I have gained many new stories with which to entertain the house guests we might totally possibly one day have. These include such popular titles as;

Gunnar, or The Dog Who Humped Too Much

Wait, You’re Not the Dog I Ordered

The Day the Poop Got Free

and the ever popular,

Stealing Bebe

There are actual stories behind each of those titles, and perhaps one day I will share them with you, or perhaps I shall simply save them for my memoir which is sure to be equal parts terrifying and confusing. In the meantime, look at these doggies.

Don’t let their adorableness fool you though, dog walking is not a cute job. It is messy and muddy and sweaty and full of so much fecal matter that it would drive a sewer rat insane.

I walk dogs who eat poo and then try to give me mouth-kisses after.

I walk dogs that roll in mud because they want me to feel pain.

I walk dogs that I can’t walk with other dogs because they would kill each other dead.

I walk dogs that are so cute I want to puke out loud.

I walk dogs that are weirdos and oddballs, and dogs that try to hang themselves by jumping out of the truck when they’re still tied in. I walk dogs with names like Ron Weasley (yes for real) and other dogs that never learned how to sit and dogs that shit in the same spot every single day and dogs that projectile poop like diarrhea fire hydrants.

I walk dogs that pee RIGHT INTO my boot while it’s on my foot and dogs that eat human poo we find on trail.

I walk dogs that give me cuddles when I scream because a spider fell on my face, and I walk dogs that hold me steady if I’m sliding down a hill. I walk dogs that are beautiful and smart and quick and tender, and dogs that are so ugly it makes you love them more. I walk dogs that completely understand you but they don’t actually understand you but they make you feel like they understand you, and I walk dogs I wish I could kidnap and take home with me forever.

If I was allowed to own a dog at our place, I would have adopted one months ago, but until I can have my own I will cuddle each puppy that comes for sleepovers. I will give belly pats to all dogs I encounter whether I’m working or not, and I will let them lick my chin and chew my shoes and wiggle their way into getting some treats. I will keep going to work in the worst coastal rains you can imagine, and I will pick up all of the grossest poos and I will hike harder and farther with my pack every day, twice a day, because as long as it makes me this happy, this is the job I want to be doing.

If I could recommend one thing to all people everywhere, it is to get a dog, take that dog out into the wilderness, and shoot it. No, I’m sorry, I have a weird sense humour– Try going exploring with it instead.

Vancouver-dwellers, you especially have no excuse to not experience the surreal wonders we are surrounded by. If you are tired, if you are looking for inspiration, if you are stressed and anxious or feeling paranoid, or if you are simply unimpressed or disillusioned or have been listening to a lot of Mother Mother and really thinking you could go for a trip out to the Sticks right about now, find your way to a trail and just start walking. Walk and walk and inhale and exhale and look around you and think about nothing and get sweaty and muddy and fall down and keep going and don’t forget the canine companion. Unless you’re allergic to dogs. In which case your life must be hollow and empty and really, no amount of nature is going to help you now so you might as well get six cats and accept your own demise.

Sincerely,

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Dog-Walker-Man,

Lillith Foxx

all photos taken on my Samsung Galaxy S4