I’m in the same boat. I have a medium -big dog and I’ve had him for a third of my life. He is my most precious friend and I absolutely treasure him.

But I’m never getting another dog. Not because he’s going to break my heart when he leaves, but because of how much work and money goes into owning a dog.

The movie that came out semi recently was also really goddamn good

I was doing backcountry snowboarding on a mountain I grew up near. It’s not anywhere near an established ski resort so there’s no mapped out sections or any safety measures. I was with a group and we were mostly sticking together, but I didn’t want to wait for them to smoke a cigarette so I just went ahead.

The ride itself was a ton of fun and probably the craziest line I’ve ever hit. I bombed it out of the bottom because I could see there was a big flat section coming and I didn’t want to walk through the snow to get out. I rode as long and far as I could, but eventually stopped as I didn’t have enough speed. I was in the middle of a big clearing and didn’t see really any other tracks, but it was late spring and where I was was pretty icy. So I unstrapped and stepped off of my board, picked it up, and started walking toward our meeting spot.

Apparently the clearing I was in was not so much just a nice meadow. Nope, it was a pond. I don’t know how many steps I took before I just fell straight through the top layer. Now I don’t know if the water had just backed up there from an ice floe and then maybe the dam melted and it all went away, but what I do know is that I landed with my armpits on my board and I was dangling.

Thankfully I was a strong little shit, so I pulled myself right up and was able to spread my weight out using my board and otherwise. But when I looked into the hole I had made, it was like fifteen feet straight down to a bunch of big rocks. Had I fallen in, I have no idea if anyone would have been able to find me.

I wasn’t too scared then, but it hits me now and again how utterly close to death I was just then. Terrifying.