Max lived in a house in the country with his friends Melissa, Melanie, Delinda and Loren. He knew it was his job to protect them and keep them safe and he did his job very well. He loved his human family, but there was something missing in his life. His humans couldn’t run twenty miles through the forest. His humans never wanted to chase squirrels or roll in the manure pile behind the big barn where the cows lived.
Max liked to ride in the car and visit strange places. He liked the smells of the buffalo in Yellowstone, but his human friends couldn’t smell them and had no idea what each smell meant. He liked to visit Granny and tease her dog Baron, but Baron never played with him and hated being teased. Chasing seagulls at the ocean was the best fun ever. Max knew that his life was good and wasn’t quite certain what was missing.
One day, when Max decided to be a Bad Dog and go for a run all by himself, he smelled a wonderful new smell. He crawled though the brush on his belly. Soon, his nose met another nose.
Something inside Max melted and felt warm and happy. “I rolled in the Manure Pile. Do you want to come with me?” Max had never asked a girl on a date before and waited anxiously for her answer.
“I can’t get out. See these wires. They keep me shut in this yard.”
“Oh that. That’s only a fence. Wait a moment, and I’ll dig you out.”
When the girl dog saw how Max was digging under the fence, she dug on her side, and in no time at all she was free to roll in the Manure Pile with Max. After they rolled in the Manure Pile they ran for five miles through the forest. They sat on a ridge above her house and watched the sun go down. Of course, Max walked his new girlfriend home and kissed her goodnight at her front door.
From this day on, whenever Max didn’t need to be protecting his family, he opened the door and went to see his girlfriend. Some days she would be locked in the house, but she learned that she could tell her family she needed to go potty or barf and they would let her out so she could crawl under the fence and go roll in the Manure Pile then chase squirrels and run through the forest with Max.
Once when Max went to the hole under the fence he found it full of bricks. His girlfriend sighed and told him, “My humans put wire on the ground all around the yard. I don’t think I can dig so far to get out.”
“Do you have a gate?”
She nodded.
Max chuckled, “Gates are easy. I’ll have you out in a second.” True to his word Max ran around the fence until he found his love waiting at the gate. He flipped the latch and the two lovers went for a long run in the woods. They knew they were lovers and they loved each other dearly, but they could never have children because they’d “been to the vet.”
When Max’s family needed to move to a new home, Delinda talked to Princess’s family who had called Delinda frequently on the phone to complain about Max taking their white poodle to roll in the manure pile and run in the woods. Delinda explained that they needed to move, but hated to separate Max from Princess. Delinda offered buy Princess so she could move with them. Princess’s family refused to give her up, so in the end, Max moved with his family and never saw his love again.