There are mornings that feel like ordinary mornings, right up until they don't.

A few days ago, on a warm double-digit morning with the sun already high in the sky, Emma and I pulled on our hiking boots and headed for the truck. It was exactly the kind of day we had been waiting for. The first real taste of spring, the kind that makes you want to be outside and moving and somewhere beautiful.

We decided to head to the Torrance Barrens. One of our favourite spots.

I should tell you that I have never once made that trip in nearly fourteen years without my best friend. My sweet boy. Our German Shorthaired Pointer, Otto.

Otto on a hike at the Torrance Barrens in 2014.

He always knew when we were going. We'd grab our boots, our cameras, our water bottles. And before we had even touched the door handle, he was already there. Vibrating. He would leap with ease into the back seat of the truck and watch out the window, big ears flapping in the wind for the whole drive. It's only twenty minutes, but the moment we turned onto Southwood Road, the whining would start. Excited and restless, like a kid on Christmas morning with enough energy to power a small city.

We started hiking the Barrens well before the pandemic boom, back when Otto and I would arrive and find ourselves completely alone out there. I'd let him off leash and he'd run to his heart's content. Always a good boy, never running too far ahead. He was a dark-faced pup then, with the most incredible velvety soft ears and big clumsy paws, bounding ahead into everything with limitless, joyful certainty that the world was his and it was wonderful.

He had a particular gift for finding the most aggressively foul things to roll in. Dead things, mostly. He would trot back looking so pleased with himself it was impossible to stay annoyed. Once, memorably, he found fresh beaver musk and committed to it completely. The drive home was windows all the way down, all of us with our heads half out, trying not to breathe. The lake bath that followed was freezing cold, and the look on his face was one of such theatrical shame that we laughed the whole way through it.

There was the time he leapt clear over a mother rattlesnake and a whole clutch of hatchlings without breaking stride. Completely oblivious.

Many years of visits. Many years of him, ahead of me on the trail, nose down, absolutely certain that whatever was around the next corner was going to be the best thing ever.

This day in April, it had to be different.

Emma and I exchanged a glance as we were getting ready. We didn't have to say it. It was just agreed, quietly, between us.

I called Otto to the door, clipped on his leash, and took him for a slow walk in town. When we got back, I unclipped him and watched him make his way to the couch and settle in beside his dad (watching The Masters). I leaned down and kissed that loyal silver snout. The one I have steadily been kissing the colour off of for many years now. And he was asleep before we even hit the road.

Emma and I got in the truck and drove to the Barrens. Without him.

There is a first time for everything. This was a hard first. 

Otto one early April when the water was still low.

Within the first kilometre we unwittingly crept up on a mating pair of Sandhill Cranes. These enormous, prehistoric-looking birds are a fairly rare sight in Muskoka, so it feels like a gift whenever you happen to see one. A little further down the trail we stopped on the bridge over the marsh. A tadpole, surprisingly large for this early in the season. New red growth along the edge. Pitcher plants, just waking up. I made a note to come back in a few weeks before they are hidden by the grasses that will inevitably fill in around them.

At the end of the boardwalk, I looked up at the narrow trail ahead. A steep, rocky, uneven incline. And then I looked at my daughter.

"We'd have had to carry him from here, Em."

He's not heavy. Maybe 45 or 50 pounds. But I couldn't have managed it. And even without the tricky terrain, the distance would have been too much now. He has aged a lot in the last year. A few weeks ago I took him on an easy, flat four-kilometre walk and he was stiff and sore for days after. I vowed not to do that to him again.

We will bring him back to the Barrens. On another day, for a shorter visit. We will listen to the peepers at Highland Pond, watch the birds move through, and let him simply be there with us in that place that holds so many of our happiest hours together. That will be enough. More than enough.

When we got home, he didn't hear us come in.

He never does anymore.

I took my boots off, hung up my jacket, got a glass of water, and he was still asleep on the couch when I sat down beside him. It was the weight of me settling next to him that finally woke him.

Otto "watching The Masters" with Dad.

And then, without even lifting his head fully, his whole body lit up. Eyes wide, tail vibrating, that unmistakable Otto aliveness.

I stroked his velvety ears. My comfort. And he didn't even know we'd been gone.