Otterpop went to the dentist yesterday. She survived it, although I could hear her howling when I walked in the door to pick her up. She’s minus some teeth and was in a really bad mood.

I took these two on a hike up the other side of the mountain after we dropped her off. It’s not a place to take a big pack of dogs or too many little ones, there’s a long steep drop to the creek and it’s dark and creepy on the way there. Maybe a big pack of dogs would be safer, but it seems wrong to make a lot of ruckus in there.

A big Ridgeback ran up to us on the way down the hill. She had a collar, so I figured she had a person, and hoped that person was all right. She was friendly, and about as tall as me. We kept going down the hill, and I could hear her, every so often, somewhere behind us. I picked up a heavy, sharp stick, just to have it.

We stopped at the creek for a while. Still water there, it’s an important creek for water, hits a big pipe when it ends near the sea and I think it’s water we drink, eventually, after it gets tanked in the water plant. It’s a creek with a lot of history, it’s a creek that’s a project to get to.

The Ridgeback and her person caught up eventually. Another lady, just like me, leashes wrapped round her, another dog with her. Same clothes, same hair, same reasons for being there. Her Ridgeback was two, just like Banksy. I threw the stick for Banksy in the creek and all the dogs splashed around a while.

We were talking, she got the big dog because a mountain lion killed her corgi last year. The Ridgeback’s treed two of them recently, a useful dog to have in this part of the mountain. There’s a den, she told me, on the other side of the creek.

She told me how to find the path I can never find, on the other side of the creek, she wasn’t taking that way right now. She gave directions just like me. Up the hill, look for a fir tree, just before a redwood, then one more redwood below it. There’s a tiny deer path, take that, it’s the path.

I’ve seen that deer path before, and followed it, but it went the wrong way and faded to nothing. She said try it again, stay on it, eventually you’ll wrap back down the other side of the slope and come back to the creek, to the north. There is a den up there somewhere, though. Coyotes, not the problem down here, it’s the cats.

I tied Gustavo to me, and we set off. Banksy stayed close and I found the path, does look like a deer track but I knew it was the one, the fir, the redwood, the other redwood. Was an ok time for pumas, they sleep at this time of the morning. But I still kept Gooey tied to me. We followed the deer track, using patience to trust it was the way, and it did go up and down on the slope but eventually turned back down to the north side of the creek and got me to where I wanted to be, where I knew where the other path was that would take me back up to the woods at the top.

We don’t walk in here a lot, the cats feel too close. But when the water’s low and we can cross the creek, it’s hard to avoid walking down there, I can’t help it. So just sometimes, we go in quiet and carefully and they might be watching us, or hopefully, they’re sleeping. A chance to take.