Most days we walk on Macmillan Road. Sometimes we take the path there off into the woods, sometimes we stay on the road if the bugs are too bad in the woods. It’s been a wicked summer for bugs, it is beginning to ease up, the clouds of gnats and mosquitoes seem to be thinning.

Halfway up the road, a mutt named Buster comes charging out of his yard and down to the edge of the path. He pops his head through the bushes barking furiously and then he sees Frieda, staring at him in her let’s-do-it-what-are-you-waiting-for-posture that has frozen many a human and animal, and then Buster turns and vanishes back into the woods.

Every day is training day for me, every activity is a training experience, so we sit in the road and stay for three minutes while I walk up the road and into the shade and take my photo. Frieda does not move, she watches me closely, she is a working dog, every day she does things she has never done before, we are in our sixth year of training, it will never be over.

Red and Lenore know the photo drill, they sit and pose and wait until I give them the all clear, “you are free.”