Loosely inspired by the real Sunny, told as a legend rather than a record. See Sunny's memorial for the true story.
a fictional storybook, kept fondly at Gimlet Ridge
Every good boy deserves a legend, so here is Sunny's. Some of it happened. Most of it is embellished, invented, or borrowed from a dream a very loving family had about their dog. Grandpa's frisbees really did fly. The rest is just how it felt.
A made-up tale, spun from real memoriesThey say Sunny didn't so much arrive at Gimlet Ridge as pour in with the morning light — a small golden puddle of a puppy who landed in the grass, blinked twice, and decided the whole world was his to greet.
His sister Hiker, already Secretary of Defense of the entire property, looked at him for a long moment and sighed the sigh of an officer just handed a very enthusiastic new recruit. “Fine,” she said. “But you follow my lead.” He did not, really. But she loved him anyway.
Officially, Sunny was hired for exactly one job: keeping Hiker company, back in a strange, quiet spring when the whole world was staying close to home. Nobody wrote up the terms. Which was lucky, because Sunny would have ignored them completely.
Within a season the arrangement had flipped clean upside down. It was Sunny, not Hiker, who couldn't sit still — forever popping up to bound outside and check on the yard for no reason anyone could ever name. And every single time, no matter the hour, Hiker got up and followed him out the door, no questions asked. Nobody at Gimlet Ridge ever did figure out which one of them had really done the hiring.
There was a sound at Gimlet Ridge that meant a walk was coming, and it wasn't the leash or the door. It was one good shake, nose to tail, followed immediately by a full lap of the room with his head thrown all the way back, as if to announce the single greatest idea anyone in the history of the world had ever had: let's go, what are you waiting for.
He did this every single time. It never once occurred to him that everyone already knew a walk was coming. As far as Sunny was concerned, it was always breaking news, and he was always thrilled to be the one who broke it. Long after, it's still the kind of thing a person catches himself thinking about, out of nowhere, on an ordinary afternoon.
Every morning before the humans were fully awake, Sunny and Hiker slipped out with no leash at all, because Gimlet Ridge belonged to them and everybody knew it. They followed a map that existed only in their noses — past the old fence line, around the far pond, through the neighbor's yard for reasons that were never anybody's business but their own.
One stop never got skipped, rain or shine: past that old fence line ran a little stream, mostly forgettable except after a good hard storm, when it filled right up and became, if only for a day or two, the most interesting water on the property. No ramble was complete without a drink there. These days Hiker keeps the tradition going solo, nose down at the water's edge, same as it ever was.
The humans thought they were being clever with their little GPS tracker. What they never realized is the dogs had known about it the whole time, and simply enjoyed giving them a good story to follow.
Every collar at Gimlet Ridge carried one small piece of magic: a beep that meant come home now, and both dogs knew the spell by heart. Wander as far as they liked, the beep always brought them trotting back within minutes — usually.
There was exactly one exception, and it started with a deer at the neighborhood pond. Hiker gave chase first, Secretary of Defense to the core, and Sunny followed right behind her. When the beep sounded, Hiker came trotting back onto the trail exactly as trained. Sunny did not.
The family retraced their steps the whole way home, hearts in their throats, half expecting to search the county by flashlight. Instead they found him already there, waiting on the porch, looking faintly puzzled about what had taken everyone else so long. He never really needed the beep. He just always knew the way.
Every yard, if you look closely enough, has exactly one legendary rock. At Gimlet Ridge, Sunny made it his life's work to find it — and then find it again, and again, because the title kept changing hands.
He greeted every new candidate the same official way: one long lick, then a triumphant roll in the grass right beside it. The family judged these ceremonies from a respectful distance, using the only rule that mattered: a wet rock was a loved rock. By that measure, Gimlet Ridge was absolutely covered in champions. Most were quietly retired the moment a better one turned up. A very small, very serious few were never replaced at all.
What Sunny never figured out was where the retired champions actually went. Abe had been quietly slipping them into a storage box outside the door the whole time, mostly so a certain golden retriever would stop trotting them back over asking for one more throw. The box sat there for years, forgotten by everyone but Abe, until it finally got cleared out and gave up its secret: twenty rocks, every size and shape, an entire unretired hall of fame. They live along the front steps now, lined up in a row — twenty wet, loved rocks, standing guard right where visitors arrive. Gimlet Ridge never did find a better welcome sign.
Nobody at Gimlet Ridge was ever fully safe from the Sock Bandit, a notorious thief who struck exclusively from the laundry basket and exclusively when a chase was wanted — parading his loot past Abe just slowly enough to be caught, then vanishing in a blur of golden fur.
He was never once actually punished for these crimes. The victims kept asking for an encore.
One summer, a kind man arrived from across the ocean carrying, of all things, a stack of magical flying discs. Sunny took one look at Grandpa's frisbees and understood immediately: the most important discovery of his life. They played until the sun went down and then some.
To this day, in this story anyway, a frisbee thrown just right at Gimlet Ridge catches the evening light exactly the way it did that summer.
Every hero needs someone who matches their pace, and for Sunny that was Heidi from next door — the only creature at Gimlet Ridge who could zoom at his exact, ridiculous speed. The family called her his girlfriend, which embarrassed no one, least of all Sunny, who wore the title like a medal.
They ran the yard into a blur most evenings, until Sunny — ever the gentleman — would ease up near the end, just enough to let her catch him.
She still turns up some evenings even now, ambling over from next door to fall in step with Hiker instead, tracing out the same old loop up the fence line and back. There's always a scoop of chicken and rice waiting for her before she heads home again. Some friendships, it turns out, never really needed him to keep going — just a standing invitation.
For years nobody at Gimlet Ridge had thought to ask whose dog she actually was — until a scent worth dropping everything for sent her tearing into the woods one morning with Hiker and the Queen hot on her heels, and it took a stranger's bark to bring somebody outside to call her home. That somebody turned out to be Dave. The Queen's own Dave. Heidi, it turned out, had been living under the very same roof as royalty the whole time — and there's a third dog over there Gimlet Ridge hasn't even met yet. Everybody came home a little dusty and thoroughly pleased with themselves, mystery solved at last.
Handed an actual toy once, during a work crew's visit she'd come purely to supervise, Heidi looked at it the way a cat looks at a party hat — baffled, faintly put out, entirely unmoved. Games, company, an open door: those she understands completely. Objects have never once been the point.
Her invitation, it turns out, extends past the porch and straight into traffic. Spotted wandering a little too close to the road one rainy evening, she skipped the formalities entirely and just hopped through an open car door, riding the rest of the way home like the seat had always been hers. Something in that collar of hers has clearly stopped putting up a fight — which the household strongly suspects she considers less a malfunction than an open door.
Whenever Abe took up tools — a mower, a fence post, a hose that needed fixing — a certain golden supervisor would appear from nowhere, park himself in the nearest shade with a clear view of the work, and observe.
No job at Gimlet Ridge was ever truly finished without his approval.
Every evening Abe lit the firepit, a certain golden dog took up his post close enough to feel the warmth on his fur, tail thumping the ground like a drum each time a log popped. He was convinced, with his whole honest heart, that sparks were small orange things a fast enough dog could catch.
He never once caught one. He never once stopped trying, either. And he never left before the fire had burned itself all the way down to embers, because somebody at Gimlet Ridge had to see a job through to the end.
Grill nights ran a close second to the firepit in his book. Wherever the smoke drifted, that's exactly where he'd post up, tracking every shift in the wind like the job came with real stakes. The steak never once made it to his bowl. The principle of the thing mattered more.
Some nights called for a different kind of watch. Moths were apparently reason enough — he'd take up a post directly under the porch light after dark and get in the occasional halfhearted swipe at whatever fluttered past, more ceremony than hunt, and everyone at Gimlet Ridge understood that perfectly. Between the sparks, the smoke, and the moths, there was always some small orange or silver thing worth standing watch over, right up until the last ember.
On the rainiest, greyest mornings, when the whole world wanted nothing more than a nap, one smell could still get a golden retriever and his sister up off the floor: chicken and rice soup, simmering somewhere in the house.
It didn't have to be homemade, either. A rotisserie chicken, still warm in its plastic dome, worked the exact same trick with no rain and no stove required — one crinkle of the lid from clear across the house, and he was already at attention.
These days it's a solo performance, but Hiker still brings the same production every time — a slow, wounded stare at the stove worthy of an award, held until the bowl is set down and cooled with a stray ice cube or two, because patience past the first sniff has never once been demonstrated.
Legend has it the recipe works the same way on rainy days at the other end of the Rainbow Bridge, and that Sunny still shows up early, every single time.
Hiker, Secretary of Defense of the entire property, was afraid of exactly one thing in this world, and it was not a stranger, or a thunderstorm, or even the vacuum cleaner. It was a single word: “shower.” Say it out loud — even quietly, even in a sentence about something else entirely — and she was gone before you finished it, vanished to whatever corner of the house felt safest that day.
Sunny watched her disappear at the sound of that word so many times that eventually he started disappearing too, right on her heels, without ever quite knowing why. He never had a single bad experience with a shower himself. He didn't need one. If Hiker said it was dangerous, that settled it. Some legacies are legendary rocks and flying frisbees. Others are simply knowing exactly when to run.
Not every good moment needs a chapter of its own — some are already perfect in just a paragraph or two. This page holds the ones from Sunny's own years at Gimlet Ridge, a little collection that grew for as long as he was here to fill it.
The Grass-Stain Ceremony. Find Sunny a patch of grass warmed by the afternoon sun, and he’d drop and roll belly-up right there, working his back into the blades like it was the most important business of the day. Hiker keeps the tradition alive these days, though her version is a lazier affair — two or three unhurried wiggles and she calls it finished. A Secretary of Defense does not waste good effort on ceremony.
A Very Scientific Breed Guess. Nobody at Gimlet Ridge ever paid for a DNA test, so the family settled the matter their own way: between a golden retriever with a maybe-Malinois streak and a black-coated Akita mix who could pass for brown in the right light, the two of them together were declared, officially and with great confidence, a good mix of Asian and European. No further evidence was ever required.
Saturday Mornings, By the Stove. Bacon hitting the pan on a Saturday meant one thing at Gimlet Ridge: a golden retriever materializing at Abe's feet, mid-deploy of the most convincing starving-orphan face anyone had ever seen. Abe swore, every single week, that this was the week he wouldn't cave. Every single week, a piece found its way down anyway.
A Familiar Whine. Hundreds of miles away, on a mountain trail steep enough to need both hands and feet, a stranger's dog whined at every single stop for a breather — and everyone within earshot who'd ever hiked with Sunny knew exactly which old habit that sound belonged to. Good dogs, it turns out, agree on very little except that a break is basically wasted time.
An Inside Job. Three mornings running, Hiker came home from her rounds with a neighbor's chicken, each one a little too warm to have been lying around very long. The family gave her the benefit of the doubt twice. The third morning closed the case. Sunny, for his part, seemed to know something was wrong before anyone else in the house did — he spent those days unusually clingy, and one night climbed all the way onto the bed to sleep curled on top of Xiaobin's head, the only time on record he ever did that. The Secretary of Defense, it turned out, had been moonlighting.
The Packing Ritual. A suitcase pulled out of the closet meant something entirely different than keys off the hook, and Sunny always knew the difference. He'd go quiet, trail Abe from room to room, and finally plant himself square on top of the open bag, like his own weight might be enough to stall the zipper a little longer. It never worked. Abe always laughed, gave him one more scratch behind the ears, and wrestled the thing shut anyway.
The Morning Mail Run. Every morning was a race down the long driveway to beat Abe to the mailbox, and Sunny took the job seriously enough to ignore his own top speed limits doing it. Whatever was sitting on top — usually just a flyer, sometimes a catalog — came trotting back in his mouth like the finest delivery Gimlet Ridge had ever received, occasionally a little more chewed than it left.
The Last Lap. Before Abe could finally call it a night, a certain golden dog always insisted on one more slow circuit first — a check of the back door, a pass through the mudroom, a long look out the front window, as if personally confirming the house was secure. Only then would he flop down against Abe's leg with a satisfied sigh, the official seal of approval on another day well handled.
Sentry Duty. He never once chased a single porch-rail squirrel in his life. Didn't need to. A long, unblinking stare from the top of the steps was apparently all it took, because the squirrel always lost its nerve and left first. Abe caught him at it more than once and just shook his head. Nobody at Gimlet Ridge ever had the heart to tell him it doesn't really count as winning if the other guy did all the running.
The Sprinkler Treaty. Hot afternoon, hose out, Abe up to his elbows washing the truck — and a certain golden retriever took that as an open invitation. Straight through the spray, every single time, followed by a full-body shake positioned just close enough to catch Abe with the runoff. Abe never once complained. Some treaties just aren't worth renegotiating.
Chasing the Shade. On the longest, hottest afternoons, a certain golden dog treated the porch like a chessboard, sliding himself out of the sun and into the next patch of shade every twenty minutes or so, precise as a sundial with opinions on the matter. By evening he'd have made his way clear around without ever once seeming to hurry.
Weathering It. When the thunder rolled in over Gimlet Ridge, there were two very different ways of handling it. One golden retriever made straight for the nearest shoulder and stayed there, unconvinced by any amount of reassurance. The other paced the room exactly once, decided the whole fuss wasn't worth her time, and settled back down the moment somebody told her it was fine. The Secretary of Defense, it turned out, filed thunderstorms under Not A Real Threat.
Puddle Patrol. Every puddle left behind by rain got the same treatment: a slow, thorough inspection, sniffed and studied by rules only a golden retriever ever knew, before he'd decide — puddle by puddle — whether it deserved a step in. Some judgments took longer than others.
Fair-Weather Feelings. Neither dog has ever much cared for getting properly soaked — golden retriever included, whatever the puddle-inspection routine might suggest. But let something worth checking into turn up in the middle of a downpour, and every reservation went straight out the window along with the dog. The Secretary of Defense inherited the policy exactly as written, fine print and all.
Last Call for Water. Every night before bed, one final nose-bump against the water bowl was standard procedure — and if the bowl came up light, he made sure everyone knew it, sloshing a little onto the floor for good measure. A golden retriever never went to sleep on an empty bowl, and neither, apparently, did the household.
A Favorite Patch of Sun. Given open grass and a clear afternoon, a certain golden retriever always knew exactly which patch of sun was his, and would stretch out in it like the spot had his name on it. On the next cool, bright day, the Secretary of Defense was spotted on patrol along that very same line between sun and shade — and more than one member of the household caught themselves looking for the golden shape that should have been stretched out right beside her.
The Ice Cube Special. Drop a stray ice cube on the kitchen floor on a hot afternoon and a certain golden retriever was on it before it finished spinning — pouncing, skidding a little on the tile, crunching the whole thing down like the freezer had just produced its finest delicacy yet. Nobody ever worked out the appeal. Nobody much needed to.
Vacuum Orders. Of all the noises Gimlet Ridge ever produced, the vacuum was the one a certain golden retriever refused to file under Fine, Actually. Every other alarm he could talk himself through from his post at Abe's side. The vacuum, never — he'd have evacuated straight to the office at the first click of the switch, taking up the exact same position Xiaobin and Hiker still hold down there on cleaning day.
Snow Day Protocol. Rain, he could take or leave. The first snow of the year was an entirely different matter — the instant it started falling, a certain golden retriever abandoned every last shred of dignity for pure, looping, snapping-at-flakes joy. Gimlet Ridge keeps a whole album of the evidence: golden dog, white yard, full sprint, year after year, never once slowing down for the camera.
A closed set now — but knowing Sunny, it was never short on material to begin withHiker taught him everything: how to sit, how to wait, how to find the best patch of sun. He never quite got the hang of walking with purpose the way she did — more of a nose-first, scout-a-little, circle-back kind of dog — but somehow they mapped every trail side by side anyway, morning after morning, for years.
These days, the mornings look a little different. But if you watch closely, Hiker still seems to leave a little room on the trail beside her — just in case.
That room doesn't stay empty for long. Send the two of them out on the same morning loop enough times and the pattern gives itself away: something in the trees catches Her Majesty's attention, she's gone after it before anyone can blink, and Hiker is never more than half a step behind — the same old partnership, just with a new name attached. Let the Queen peel off into the woods chasing something only she can see, though, and Hiker won't follow. She holds her post at the treeline instead, patient as anything, until her partner trots back out looking rather pleased with herself. No debrief ever gets offered. Two very different dogs, Xiaobin likes to say. Same very good team.
The day after Sunny left for the horizon, three goats wandered onto the Ridge from absolutely nowhere, and Hiker — Secretary of Defense to the last — marched out and escorted them off before anyone could even find a camera.
Officially, they were somebody's runaway goats. Unofficially — and this is the version the family prefers — they were a message: proof that Sunny sent ahead to keep an eye on the place.
Sunny's bed sat empty for exactly as long as Hiker could stand it, which turned out to be not very long at all. One quiet afternoon she climbed in, circled twice the way he always did, and settled into the exact dent he'd left behind, like she'd been meaning to try it for years and had simply been waiting for an opening.
Nobody taught her to. Nobody needed to. These days it's just Hiker's bed, the one that used to also be Sunny's, and everyone at Gimlet Ridge has quietly agreed there's still room enough in it for two, whenever he wants to visit.
A little dog named Rusty came to stay at Gimlet Ridge for a few days, on loan while his own family went to the beach. Everyone expected he'd shadow Hiker, the Secretary of Defense. Instead, by his first evening, he'd picked a different post: right at Abe's heel, wherever Abe went.
On his second night, when Abe stepped onto the porch and pulled the door shut, Rusty knocked — one small paw — until it opened, then trotted back to the couch like the matter was settled. Nobody taught him that. It was, after all, exactly what Sunny used to do. Maybe a very good boy, watching from his hill, passed a good trick down.
For weeks, the most important stick at Gimlet Ridge had simply vanished — a thick blue-and-white one, the very last treasure Sunny ever chose for himself, gone without so much as a footprint to explain it. The family searched the woods. The dogs sniffed every corner. Nothing.
Then one evening, the Smallest Recruit planted himself beside the old ottoman and refused to budge, refused to stop whining, refused to accept that the matter was closed. When someone finally moved it, there the stick was, tucked in the dark the whole time, waiting for exactly the right dog to find it.
Some say it was never really lost at all — just resting somewhere only a very good boy, watching closely from his hill, would know to send someone looking.
Years later, a strange and dignified dog began appearing at Gimlet Ridge, lingering in the very spot by the door that had always been his. They called her Duchess, then Ding Ding, and were surprised to learn she'd secretly been a queen named Bonnie all along. In this telling, she isn't a stranger at all. She is a friend Sunny sent ahead to keep an eye on the place.
Word travels fast at Gimlet Ridge, and word was this: without asking permission from anyone, the quiet stranger had been crowned. She would visit, and stay, and visit again, always drifting back to that same soft corner of the house, until the family began to suspect the walk home was a formality she'd simply decided not to observe anymore — more than once, somebody had to walk her the whole way back themselves, since a queen, it turns out, does not see herself out. Nobody at Gimlet Ridge really minded. A good house, they figured, should always have room for one more good dog to spoil — especially one a certain golden boy had personally approved from the start.
It didn't take long for Gimlet Ridge to admit the rest of the truth: she was never really leaving, not for good. So the humans sat down with her own people and worked out terms, the way you do with royalty — she would hold court at Gimlet Ridge whenever the family was home, and slip back to her own house whenever they weren't, keeping two addresses the way some dogs keep two nicknames. Nobody minded one bit, least of all Hiker, who'd long since made peace with sharing her office chair on a schedule.
Then one night, a fence that was supposed to keep her safe did exactly the opposite, and the Queen turned up at the door well before sunrise, crying instead of scratching to be let in — the alarm sounded, fittingly, by the Secretary of Defense herself, wide awake and barking before anyone else had even stirred. By the time the sun came up, the humans had made a decision they'd been quietly circling for weeks: two addresses was one too many for a queen this good. The terms have since been signed, sealed, and made official with her own people — no more shuttling, no more two addresses, no more walking her halfway home only to watch her turn right back around. She isn't visiting anymore. She's home, for good, on paper and everywhere else that counts. The couch spot Sunny once shared with Hiker every evening belongs to her now too, no coronation required — and she's picked up the family's other great tradition besides, the fine art of the dinner-table stare, a skill Hiker has spent years perfecting and apparently doesn't mind sharing.
Being home for good didn't make her any less of a mystery. Abe took to saying the quiet part out loud — that the Queen wasn't merely a friend sent ahead to mind the place, but the boy himself, come back around for another turn entirely. His evidence, offered solemnly: she'd arrived walking with the very same limp Sunny carried near the end, and set about proving herself every bit as impossible to get rid of. Xiaobin called it a crazy theory, and admitted, more than once, that she hoped it was true anyway. A proper vet visit eventually settled the one piece of the mystery that could actually be measured — she was younger than anyone had given her credit for, closer to twelve than the well-past-fourteen her old owner always guessed, and not inclined to act her age either way. The rest of the mystery, Gimlet Ridge decided, could stay exactly as unsolved as it liked.
That old limp never did become an excuse. Even on the days it flares up, the Queen still shows for the morning walk — three legs and all, no less determined to get where she's going; everyone at Gimlet Ridge has quietly decided that particular stubbornness must be catching. On the rare day it wins and she won't lift her head off the couch, the fix is one phone call away: Dave shows up with the good medicine before the hour's out, and by morning she's back to her usual self, no worse for the scare. It's the same quiet toughness Sunny showed once too, for a stretch on three legs nobody ever explained — one more small reason, as far as this telling is concerned, to believe the theory might hold up.
Royalty, it turns out, is not excused from an occasional bad week. The Queen went off her food and then off everything else besides, and there was no question of waiting it out — not at Gimlet Ridge, not with Sunny's own diagnosis still sitting in everyone's memory. Off she went to that same clinic, Abe checking in by phone the whole way from a desk back in the city, and the verdict this time came back nothing like before: an infection, no kidneys involved, nothing close to that old news. She came home with a round of medicine and a follow-up booked for the next day, while Xiaobin sat a while longer than she needed to in that same waiting room, thinking of a golden retriever who'd once sat in those very same chairs. By the follow-up, the Queen had already called off her own protest — drinking water strictly on her own recognizance, climbing in and out of the car like the whole ordeal belonged to somebody else. The vet signed off on skipping the fluids altogether. Xiaobin had chicken and rice going on the stove before five the next morning, the same tradition Sunny and Hiker grew up on, served this time to a patient who'd very much earned it.
The comeback took its own sweet time after that, and Gimlet Ridge let it. There were mornings the Queen needed real convincing just to get off the couch, and once she did, it was a slower lap than her usual round — more sniffing than sprinting, a pause at every bush, an appetite on the way back that said more than any report from the vet could. Heidi turned up more than once during the slow stretch, nose practically vibrating with the question, and every time Xiaobin waved her off with the same two words — sick, no — Heidi took it in stride and went looking for Hiker instead, apparently deciding a lazy genius made fine company when the Queen couldn't be bothered. Then, one morning, Her Majesty simply got up on her own, no convincing required, and set off down the trail at something a good deal closer to a trot than a walk — proof enough, as far as Gimlet Ridge was concerned, that the bad week was officially behind her. Heidi caught the new pace at once and finally got the thing she'd been angling for all along, a real run, side by side, before Xiaobin called the game to a close. Abe heard the full report from his desk in the city and delivered his verdict without a moment's hesitation: one lucky dog, plain as that, the kind of luck that comes from pushing your way into exactly the right house at exactly the right time. Nobody at Gimlet Ridge felt much need to argue with him — least of all the one who'd once been handed a very similar verdict herself, a long time ago, by a very good boy who never did get the chance to meet her.
These days she snores straight through the night right alongside the Secretary of Defense, which nobody at Gimlet Ridge has the heart to complain about. And everyone has quietly agreed: when the Queen finally makes her own trip up the hill someday, a very good boy is going to want the full report. Judging by the week she's just had, she'll have plenty to tell him.
Somewhere along the way, the family settled on an official title for Hiker's approach to the world: the lazy genius. It was not a demotion. The Secretary of Defense still logged every threat that crossed the yard — but somewhere between one alert and the next, she had quietly perfected the art of doing absolutely nothing at all.
Her housemate, a dignified old queen roughly twice her age, could out-hustle her by lunchtime most days. Hiker did not seem bothered by this in the slightest. Being outworked by a fourteen-year-old, she seemed to say with every unbothered yawn, was not a failure of energy. It was a triumph of strategy. Somewhere on a hill nearby, a golden retriever who never once slowed down for anything was reportedly still laughing about it.
The collecting didn't stop when Sunny did — it just followed the Secretary of Defense to her next set of duties, and then kept right on multiplying as the house filled back up around her. This page holds the small good moments from Hiker's own continuing watch and everything that's arrived with the growing crew since — the Queen, Heidi, Annie, and whoever turns up after them — added to as they turn up.
The Exchange Program. When Abe traded the porch for an office for a stretch, Hiker packed her bags — figuratively, since she owns none — and went on a short assignment of her own, boarding for a few days with hiking friends and their small dog. She came home with new gossip and, presumably, several professional opinions about the other dog's patrol technique. Field reports from her hosts described a healthy appetite and a great deal of sleeping, which they chalked up to settling in. Gimlet Ridge knew better — that's just Hiker, on assignment or off. When the assignment finally ended and everyone reassembled back at the Ridge, Hiker made her feelings about the whole arrangement known with a full day of pointed sulking, as if being sent anywhere at all, however nice, was an offense the household would need to answer for.
New Orders. The Exchange Program didn't last long. These days, when Abe's week takes him back to the city, Hiker doesn't pack a thing — she holds Gimlet Ridge down herself, right alongside Xiaobin, home base fully staffed and secure until the weekend. Turns out the assignment she wanted all along was never leaving in the first place.
Reruns. Turns out New Orders wasn't even a new order. Long before Abe took the office route out of the house, Gimlet Ridge ran the exact same play in reverse — Abe holding the home front with Hiker while Xiaobin was the one commuting off to a city job every morning, for well over a year. The uniforms have traded hands more than once since. The post has never once gone unmanned.
A Secret Former Life. Nobody at Gimlet Ridge much remembered it, but the Secretary of Defense wasn't always headquartered in the country — her rookie year was spent entirely in the city, daycare on weekdays, sidewalks instead of trails. The truth came out the night she finally went back, for her very first overnight stay at Abe's place downtown: she worked the whole condo hallway like she'd never left it, every scent on file catalogued and a few new ones added under her own name, only mildly rattled once the building finally went quiet for the night. She came home the next afternoon with a pup cup to show for her trouble and absolutely no comment on the record about her double life.
The Occupation. A pair of squirrels once got it into their heads that Xiaobin's car made a fine place to set up house. The Secretary of Defense disagreed, and made her disagreement known from a post in the office window for the better part of a day, eyes fixed on the driveway like the fate of Gimlet Ridge hung in the balance. The squirrels, eventually, got the message.
Eleven Miles, No Complaints Filed. It had been a while since the Secretary of Defense pulled a full day of trail duty, and when the orders finally came down — eleven miles, no advance warning — she didn't so much as blink. She saw off a pair of deer before the trail had properly woken up, sampled every stream along the route on general principle, and came home legitimately, gloriously exhausted — the kind of tired that earns a dinner with nothing skipped. Somewhere on a hill nearby, a golden retriever who never once needed a warm-up lap was reportedly very impressed.
Picking Her Battles. Heidi stopped by one Saturday night angling for a game, and the Secretary of Defense gave her exactly three polite sniffs before turning in for the night — not worth the energy. A black bear showed up a few hours later for a drink out of her water bowl, and that got an entirely different verdict: barked off the porch before it finished its first sip, no committee meeting required. Some visitors get a shrug. Others get the full alarm. She has never once needed help telling the difference.
The Inspection Crew. A crew of workers turned up at Gimlet Ridge to get some work done, and the Secretary of Defense responded exactly as protocol demands — full alarm, every truck logged, no exceptions. Then somebody scratched behind her ears, and the whole operation dissolved into wagging tails and open-door hospitality on the spot. A second crew came back days later to finish the job, and the Secretary of Defense filed the identical report — full alarm at the trucks, total surrender at the first scratch, protocol observed to the letter both times.
The Sniff Tour. Back in the city for an evening visit, the Secretary of Defense treated the whole trip like unfinished fieldwork — nose down through the neighborhood, cataloguing every dog she hadn't met yet, of which there were apparently many. She noted, with visible disapproval, that city dogs keep themselves a good deal more guarded than anyone back at Gimlet Ridge ever bothers to be, where everybody already knows everybody. The condo itself she still filed as a temporary posting at best, and made her opinion of it known the moment the car doors opened.
Twelve Miles, Manners Included. The Secretary of Defense followed her eleven-mile debut with an even tougher assignment — twelve miles of rock and switchback, and she led the whole way, flagging only over the final stretch. What impressed the household more than the mileage was the diplomacy: every stranger on the trail got one polite once-over and nothing further, unless they offered a hand first, in which case all business dissolved into wagging. Somewhere at the Rainbow Bridge, a golden retriever who never once met a stranger was reportedly taking notes.
Lightning Struck Twice. It was a big year for storms at Gimlet Ridge — big enough that one bolt found a tree by the driveway and left it too scorched to keep standing, smoke smell and all, until Abe spent an afternoon cutting it down and hauling it clear. Out on a trail not long after, more than a few other trees turned up wearing the same black marks, and not even the tallest ones, which is the kind of detail that sticks with a person. The Secretary of Defense heard the whole report and filed it exactly where she files every other thunderstorm: under Not Her Problem.
Holding the Line. Let the rain come down hard enough, and the Secretary of Defense simply declines to participate — no walk required to get her outside in the first place, so she'd rather hold it for hours than step one paw into the downpour. Gimlet Ridge has long since learned not to argue with the strategy.
The Soggy Newcomer. A dog named Annie turned up one afternoon after a long absence, dripping wet as if she'd swum the whole way over, and dove straight into a full-tilt play session with Heidi and the Queen. The Secretary of Defense joined right in, trading a round or two of good-natured play-fighting with Her Majesty for old times' sake. Gimlet Ridge, it turns out, always has room in the yard for one more good, soggy guest.
First Trip to Town. The Queen's first-ever visit to the city arrived without much warning, and she handled it like she'd been doing it for years — not one whine on the whole ride in, a personal best that a certain golden retriever, for all his other talents, never once managed to match. On the sidewalk she outwalked Hiker outright, leash held loose and steady while the Secretary of Defense pulled every which way as usual. Abe got quite the surprise, answering his door to find both his girls standing there.
A Dog By That Name. The trip home from town came with a reward worth the whole drive — a share of rotisserie chicken for both girls, gone from the Queen's bowl so fast nobody's entirely sure she chewed. That evening's walk turned into a cameo appearance: neighbor Dave rolled past on his ATV with four of his five kids aboard, every one of them hollering for Bonnie by name, and she took off after the convoy like she'd been personally summoned. Once it rolled on, she vanished into the darkening woods on business of her own, with Hiker right on her heels until both of them trotted back out, no worse for the adventure.
Too Nice to Come In. The first real cool snap of the season rolled in and only got better from there, and dinnertime has suffered for it — call Hiker in with the one word that's never once failed before, "chicken," and these days she just doesn't bother showing up, the yard being the better offer by a wide margin. The Queen found her own way to mark the season: trailing Xiaobin from room to room all afternoon, errand to errand, before landing on the couch for a long, satisfied, thoroughly unapologetic snore.
A Pause by the Truck. Mike came by to fix a loose porch board, same as he’s done a dozen times before, and lingered a beat too long by his truck door — waiting, by the look of it, for a golden blur to come tearing across the yard the way it always used to. Abe told him Sunny was up at the Rainbow Bridge now. Mike nodded like a man who understood better than most — he and his wife had said their own goodbye, to a dog of fourteen years, just a few weeks back — and got to work on the board anyway, the way good neighbors do.
New Equipment, No Takers. Xiaobin and Abe took up pickleball together for the first time this season, and Abe found his competitive streak before the first serve even landed. The paddles have since multiplied around the house, along with a scattering of stray balls — and neither the Secretary of Defense nor the Queen has shown the faintest interest in a single one of them, a reaction that would have been unthinkable to a certain golden retriever, who never once met a ball he didn’t consider his personal property.
Security Detail, Expanded. The morning patrol picked up a third officer this week: Annie heard the call, fell into step on the walk home, and simply never filed the paperwork to leave again. These days all three — the Secretary of Defense, the Queen, and the newest recruit — hold down the home office together while Xiaobin works, a staffing level she has taken to describing, with some pride, as excellent security. Two mornings running, the same unlucky deer got the full honor guard clear to the edge of the woods and not one step further.
Away Orders. A family trip to North Carolina came up on short notice, and the Secretary of Defense packed right in — leash-free life doesn’t come with much luggage. The Queen stayed behind on home assignment with her own people, a posting she’s held before and always returns from without complaint, and Gimlet Ridge carried on expecting her back the usual way: eventually, and completely unbothered.
Home Before the Humans. The trip to North Carolina didn’t survive the on-ramp — a bad feeling about the car sent Abe and Xiaobin turning around before the first hour was up, and the day went to finding a new one instead, niece-visit rescheduled for another time. The Queen had her own opinion about staying put at Dave’s a moment longer than necessary: dropped off the night before for an early start that never happened, she simply walked herself back to the door the next morning, no escort required, and had to be walked right back again once the whole trip fell through. By nightfall everyone was right back where they started — Xiaobin, Abe, the Secretary of Defense, and Her Majesty, together at Gimlet Ridge, with nothing to show for the day but a new car in the driveway. Some dogs, it turns out, always know the way home, whether or not anybody asked them to find it.
This page has room for more — Gimlet Ridge never seems to run outAnd so, in this story, Sunny watches Gimlet Ridge from the top of a hill that only very good boys can find — a stick always close by, a frisbee within reach, and a whole yard's worth of rocks still waiting to be judged. He is never far. He never really was.
Good boy. Good rock. Good life. The very best kind of story — the kind that's still being written.