Before his younger sister’s wedding in Santa Barbara, Andrew Muse was in Moab setting up a rope swing atop Looking Glass Rock, a natural amphitheater formation with a keyhole on one side that betrays a view to the south. Andrew and his friend had set up a rope swing and were preparing to belay Andrew down to swing out into space above the red desert below. Andrew had mounted a climbing-grade harness on his golden retriever, Booter, who edged up to his owner as Andrew clipped him in. “He trusted me beyond what I’d even seen another dog trust somebody. He was not a pet to me; he was so much more. He was an extension of who I am.”
After Andrew wrapped his legs around Booter’s torso, the two fell into space, their weight propelling them in the direction of the sun and the horizon. Booter and Andrew oscillated in the motionless desert atmosphere until their pendulum’s energy ran out, at which point they were brought to a stop. “Booter loved it,” Andrew said.” There was not point he didn’t want to do it, even as we climbed to swing out over and over again. He loved these adventures just as much as I did.” Having been blown away at the level of trust and companionship Booter had given his human partner, Andrew had plans to breed him, to birth more little golden adventurers.
After Booter and he had surfed a few little waves together on the same board on the way back from the wedding, Andrew had stopped driving on the highway and glanced down from the windscreen for a quick drink of water. The rear end of a tractor-trailer was smashing into his truck, only six inches from his right shoulder, when he looked up again. For two hundred yards the two vehicles rode in this horrific synchrony as the trailer crashed through the truck all the way to the end of the truck bed. Andrew faltered. “It was like the scene of a fucking movie.” Now the truck was ablaze. The door was beyond his reach. At last, a passing vehicle stopped.
Following his extraction from the wrecked truck, Andrew discovered that Booter was still breathing despite not being conscious. When paramedics arrived, Andrew begged them to save Booter instead of offering assistance. They rigged up some oxygen to him. His breathing got more labored. They tried CPR. Still, the breathing slowed. Andrew attempted a mouth-to-mouth exchange. However, Booter—Andrew’s ideal friend—passed away there in the pitch-black darkness by the side of the Utah highway. He had just been laying contentedly next to his best friend as they returned from yet another excursion when his life swiftly evaporated.
Although Andrew had always desired a dog, he didn’t get one until he was 22 years old and had a stable job that allowed him to bring his dog to work. He wanted to provide his dog with a secure life and detested it when people picked up canines on a whim. Andrew looked at a few breeders and shelters before locating a litter that would cost him less than two hours’ drive from his Park City home. When he went to check them out, the dog that would become Booter was “the coolest–just calm, cool, and collected.” Sucking on Andrew’s then-girlfriend’s thumb, he dozed out in her lap. A few weeks later, when Andrew returned to pick up his new dog and place him in.
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