My beloved German shepherd, Moxie, died a few weeks ago due to complications resulting from knee surgery.
I am gutted and heartbroken.
A screen doesn’t show tear-stains the way paper used to.
I’ve tried to write this a dozen times and broke down.
Just start with the fact – an orderly chronology of events – and take it from there…
The knee injury that precipitated the surgery occurred as Moxie ran happily and playfully through the sand about six weeks before as we three traveled through Baja California.
Upon crossing into Guatemala – Moxie’s birthplace and our adopted home for the six wonderful years before launching GoRUFFLY Around the World – we brought Moxie to our trusted veterinary doctor and friend, Dr. Diego at Especialidades Centro Veterinario.
Dr. Diego had diagnosed Moxie’s spinal stenosis condition more than two years before and was part of the surgical team that successfully treated her. A miraculous result that returned my then four-year-old nearly to puppyhood.
Welcoming her like an old friend, “Hola, Moxie,” he lifted her onto the examining table and proceeded with a full day of meticulous diagnostics, which included a thorough dental cleaning at Greg’s insistence, to evaluate her health and physical wellbeing.
The results were clear and conclusive that Moxie’s spine was stable. She was in excellent health for a 6 ½ year German shepherd.
Nevertheless, the X-rays revealed more recent evidence of degenerative joint disease, which suggests that she was genetically predisposed to suffer knee pain or injury.
According to Dr. Diego and my obsessive study of the blogs and forums, the degeneration and injury that Moxie suffered occurs in dogs of all ages, breeds, and activity levels. Nevertheless, German shepherds and other large breeds are especially prone to this and other hip and joint disorders.
Ever since Moxie was diagnosed with spinal stenosis as a four-year-old, we worried endlessly that it was just a harbinger of other premature health ailments to come.
We tried to channel that worry into prevention.
We made sure that Moxie received plenty of exercise and mental stimulation, and also adequate time for sleep and repose.
That’s not easy to do under any circumstances but much less while you’re traveling around the world and sleeping in a tent most nights. The GPS and activity tracker that she wore every day on her collar was an incredible tool for that.
We also started Moxie on hip and joint supplements from a very early age. For more than six years Siri has chimed in every day at six o’clock – and still does – with the reminder to give Moxie her supplements.
Ensuring Moxie had plenty of exercise, rest, and good nutrition was our daily ritual for those 6 ½ years. But still, worries about her joints, hips, and back always loomed in our minds.
Facing those worries, was the ‘correct’ response to slow down, do less, and be more careful? Should we play less fetch, keep her on-leash, and limit her freedom of movement?
We decided the opposite.
Instead, we chose to keep her tail wagging and her senses stimulated as much and as often and for as long as possible.
Live each day like time might be running out.
That’s one of the first profound ways that Moxie inspired us to live better and fuller. Greg and I might remember that we had a wonderful outing just yesterday, last weekend, or last month, but Moxie didn’t. Every day was a fresh start, a clean slate just begging to be scratched, clawed, chewed, dug up, gnawed, and pounced into submission.
But some days, I struggled to wake up and leap in the way Moxie wanted me too.
Maybe if I had a little crutch to lean on? Something that would help remind and inspire me to get Moxie and me off the couch and out the front door.
That’s how Moxie helped put me on the path to starting RUFFLY.
Dog gear that is beautiful, durable, and something else to help inspire me. Something that I was proud of – proud about who made it, where, and how. Something I would be proud to see my beloved puppy use or wear.
Values.
Beautiful, durable, and does good – that was something that would help inspire me to Live Extraordinary Together every day with Moxie.
That didn’t exist, so Greg and I decided to create it.
That became RUFFLY and everything it is came from my love for Moxie.
She also gave me something else that was life changing.
Greg and I were motorcycle riders whose favorite escape was to disappear for a week or two to ride, hike, camp, kayak, fish, backpack, or swim.
Our first trip of the ‘Moxie Era’ came several months in when she was already a lanky, awkward 50-pounder. A cursory Google searched confirmed there weren’t any practicable options for bringing a big dog safely on a motorcycle.
That first trip without her was a sad, sulking, homesick failure that we vowed never to repeat. Go by car next time or create a motorcycle dog carrier that fits a German shepherd.
Moxie herself didn’t throw down the gauntlet but she might as well have, and less than a year later we had created the K9 Moto Cockpit.
By the time Moxie was one and a half, we were riding everywhere together throughout Mexico and Central America: camping, backpacking up volcanoes, and finally, truly embracing what we meant when we came up with the phrase “Live Extraordinary Together“.
Moxie didn’t make us do all that, but, in a certain sense, she made it impossible for us not to.
Over the next few years, we lived in a small house surrounded by a lush garden. Our tortoises roamed the grass; hens pecked at the shrubs and dirt; the squirrel, cats, and opossums crept and scurried atop the stone wall as Queen Moxie the Wicked prowled the grounds and claimed dominion over all she surveyed. Even the great koi and fat, sunbathing turtles that swam circles in the pond did so under short-fused Moxie’s watchful eye.
Then one morning, as Greg and I sat engrossed at our computers working obsessively to grow RUFFLY, I looked over at Moxie. Was she being just a bit lazy and overextending this midmorning nap?
“Now is the time to do something big before she gets too much older,” I remember telling Greg.
That was, in part, how I came up with the idea and the urgency to launch GoRUFFLY Around the World.
I am a lucky girl in at least two ways: I have an enormously supportive husband and I had a gorgeous, energetic beastie who was game for everything.
So we did it.
We launched the around-the-world journey to small fanfare in March of 2022 and that summer we reached the Arctic Ocean where my Moxie put her paws in the sea. She fetched driftwood in the shallows, dug out holes in the sand, and then rested her paws beside me at the edge of the world as we watched a gorgeous sunset that never happened.
The elation of that triumph was short-lived because, despite some initial media coverage, we were now almost broke, our credit cards nearly exhausted, and the gamble that RUFFLY sales would rise enough to support the expenses of this adventure was failing more and dismally each day.
Sales stagnant, social channels flatlined, and almost no one watched the weekly episode that took us two of the three workdays we had off the bikes each week. No complaints or sour grapes about it; just the facts that spelled disaster for our GoRUFFLY gamble.
After the Arctic Ocean, the original plan called for a triumphal ride across Canada to Toronto from where we would transport ourselves and equipment over to North Africa.
On second thought, here’s an idea: Why not turn south and ride to the bottom of South America instead? Tip to tip, top to bottom. Doesn’t that sound like the greater adventure to have next?
The truth is we were broke and there was no way we could afford to fly the three of us and two motorcycles to Spain, Morocco, or anywhere else.
Riding south was the only option because we had just enough ‘gas in the tank’ to reach Mexico, rent a cheap AirBnB, and make a last ditch effort to pull out of the months-long nosedive.
Suddenly, miraculously that’s exactly what happened.
I wish I could say we did it all by ourselves but I suspect all ‘self-made stories’ are a revisionist fiction.
My people-pleaser and low self-esteem have always been the loudest voices in my head. So naturally I was paralyzed with fear about what the ‘critics’ might grumble and gripe about whatever I might write, record, or post.
That meant I was speaking to avoid those imaginary critics rather than to share with any potential fans who might be interested and inspired by ponytailed lady errant riding around the world with her German shepherd on the back.
Boo-hoo compared to the ‘real’ problems that many people face but also an enormous obstacle if you’ve bet everything you have and your next decade of earnings that you can be your business’s ambassador and succeed with just a few months of cash runway to do it.
“Just be yourself and speak with your own authentic voice. Tell the big, bad, scary critics to go f★ck themselves sideways.”
Greg searched for a silver bullet way to say it so that it would move me to behavior change. His baggage, peccadillos, and eccentricities are different than mine, while people-pleasing and low self-esteem have been my bedrock materials for 30+ years.
Then we began meeting with Amber for a weekly session of what Greg likes to call ‘marketing therapy’. To his credit, he saw that we were too broke not to pay for the professional help we needed.
Beyond the ideas, feedback, and guidance she provided, her greatest gift was to grant me the permission I needed to find my authentic voice – and to stick with it even as the criticisms began rolling in.
At the same time, I finally began to notice something about Moxie, which had been there all along. For years I had watched the way she obeyed Greg’s commands and sought his affections.
“She loves you more than me,” I once said, which was an admission that felt like an arrow shaft into my heart.
“It’s an alpha thing,” Greg had tried to explain to my deaf ears. “She speaks a different love language.”
Now I saw it and I began to make changes.
I spoke commands with assertion and used a firm hand to guide her, leap her up into the Cockpit, and turn her around. She began to see me as the alpha and, not just obey rather than ignore, she increasingly sought my affections the way she only did with Greg before.
It had been a long six years of Moxie patiently waiting for me to learn this and, when I did, our bond became stronger and I began to share my authentic voice unfiltered.
Where only weeks before nothing we were trying was working – with the notable exception of actually reaching the Arctic Ocean by motorcycle with a German shepherd on the back – now we began to experience the reverse.
Growth on our social channels; a feature on CNN, CBS News, and other major outlets; a skyward arc in RUFFLY sales; and a string of wonderfully positive and enthusiastic testimonials from the first and second generation of K9 Moto Cockpit riders as they began taking their motorcycle copilots on adventures.
Success broke through as a slow trickle at first and then suddenly and all at once.
When a few months later in January we set off to resume the adventure, I was and we were a pack reborn.
A little older now perhaps, Moxie was fit, healthy, and energetic. Greg and I were – a little older too, perhaps – happier, lighter, and less anxious about the future.
The first weeks sloshed around and over us like a cup over-brimming with frothy new adventures: riding through the Baja sands, removing prickly pears from her paws, whale watching and exploring a silver mine, wild camping on the beach, and hunting iguanas among the trees.
This was exactly the adventure that GoRUFFLY was intended to be back when we launched it almost one year earlier.
Then Moxie injured her knee in February while running through a kilometer or two of sand near a stunningly gorgeous cactus preserve in Baja California.
It was probably a pulled muscle like she had experienced countless times before. But when it didn’t heal after a week or two, we made the first of a series of veterinary visits.
The first vet couldn’t detect anything wrong. Apparently, it’s not uncommon that a couple days after the initial injury the swelling subsides, and the patient can appear to walk and even run normally for a time.
A week after the first vet, the limp again returned but now we were making quick progress towards Guatemala, which is where Dr. Diego awaited us.
We sent him a video of Moxie limping and he suspected right away that she might have a knee injury.
“She’s fine while she’s laying reposed in the carrier,” he said. “So just limit her walking activity and no running. When you get here, we’ll do some tests and determine if surgery is necessary.”
The last four riding days brought us from Tabasco state in Mexico to where Moxie grew up in Panajachel, Guatemala – which is also where our RUFFLY team awaited our visit after a whole year away.
During that final riding stretch, we opted for hotels and AirBnBs in order to better control Moxie’s environment and restrict her activities.
On her last riding day – a phrase that breaks my heart now to write it – we were only a couple hours out from where she grew up in Panajachel, Guatemala when we encountered a fellow motorcycle dog rider. Pato was traveling from Mexico to Argentina with his dog Mika in a homemade carrier mounted to the luggage rack of his motorcycle.
“I follow you on social media and you truly helped inspire me to do this trip together!” Pato said.
Beaming from that wonderful encounter and indulging ourselves in optimistic thoughts of the adventures to come in Central and later South America, we were now only an hour or so out from Panajachel.
We made plans and the duplicitous gods laughed.
The rumble of their laugh made the sound of a chicken bus, which appeared behind us from around a curve and closed in fast. A ‘chicken bus’ is a converted yellow school bus, which has been painted, decorated in flashing lights, and converted for intra-urban commuting. It emerged suddenly from around the curve behind us, belching smoke, blaring horns, and popping engine brakes, whipping angrily through the turns like a Chinese dragon.
“Come over,” Greg said over the communicator. “This asshole wants to pass.”
Before I could signal and oblige, he cut in again: “Mother fuuuuu–!” and then his voice cut to silence.
The bus had merged into his lane and struck his motorcycle from the side. Greg was ejected, the two duffels he carried shot off, and his motorcycle flipped and struck hard on both sides.
In the 30 seconds it took me to turn around and double back, the chicken bus had slowed and then fled while Greg’s motorcycle lay keel up and rear wheel spinning along the highway’s margin and he lay face up and prostrate in a drainage ditch.
I pulled over, shouting curses to the chicken bus as it pulled away and trying to remain calm as I set the kickstand down so that my bike would collapse if Moxie grew agitating while waiting in the carrier.
The gods sniggered as I tried to kickstand the bike because the camber was too sharp, meaning I had to put the bike back in gear, ride forward a few meters, and try again.
Bystanders, Greg unconscious, police arrive, ambulance arrives.
Long, endless minutes without movement.
Then Greg alive and me gasping for air.
He shifted, asked what happened, and tried to remove his helmet. I stopped him, noticing his right hand smashed and badly contorted. I removed the helmet for him, understanding in a blood-rushing instant why the cheek pads have those emergency pull-out tabs.
The paramedics reviewed him and splinted and bandaged his hand. I let her down, lifted her over the ditch, and leashd her to a tree away from the highway.
The paramedics attended him while the bystanders helped me right Greg’s smashed bike.
I wanted him taken on a stretcher but he insisted on standing and lifting himself into the front seat of the ambulance.
They sped away and I arranged with the police to tow the motorcycle in their Helix flatbed to our K9 Moto Cockpit metal workshop just over an hour away in Panajachel.
The police-turned-Uhaul on their way, Moxie and I rode to the Sololá hospital where Greg’s wound was cleaned, x-rayed, and re-bandaged and he was bullshitting with the ER doctors.
An hour later the emergency was over.
Greg’s arm was splinted and bandaged while his motorcycle was safely parked at our metal workshop. Then a few members of our RUFFLY team brought his motorcycle luggage to our AirBnB rental and Greg greeted them with jokes about returning to Guatemala as the conquering hero despite his mangled bike and battered condition.
Eventually I ushered everyone out and the three of us were alone together. Moxie lay on her TenderPaw TREKKER at the foot of our bed and Greg slept with his bandaged arm propped on a pillow.
In the middle of the night I heard Moxie rise, shuffle through the house, lap at her water bowl, and then leap onto the living room sofa as a spit in the eye to her injured knees.
Hearing this, I hustled over and switched on the light to see her spread comfortably and paws draped lazily over the cushions.
“What a glorious beast you are, my Moxie!” I whispered in the darkness as she blinked drowsily at me.
The next day a hired driver took us to hand surgeon in the capitol and that evening Greg was admitted to the hospital for surgery. As they rolled him away he said, “Promise you’ll get to Moxie’s checkup on-time tomorrow and tell me what happens.”
A smashed hand and he’s thinking about what’s going to happen with Moxie.
Greg went in and came out a few hours later with five pins holding his hand together. It was a lot worse inside than the X-rays suggested, the doctor informed us afterward. Bone fragments everywhere and exposed muscle pulling the broken wrist apart.
“But I lined every back up, placed the pins to hold it together, and I’m very satisfied with the outcome,” he said and then he concluded, “If you rest it and let it heal, you’ll get full mobility back.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Diego performed a complete physical exam of Moxie and confirmed the need for knee surgery. A few days after Greg was released from the hospital, we returned to the veterinary hospital to admit Moxie for TPLO surgery.
She had always been absurdly excited to visit the vet and that time was no different. But this time, she fought hard on blasted knees and overpowered the orderly when he tried to lead her away after we said goodbye.
So, I accompanied her to the exam room, said a last goodbye, and that was the last time we saw her alive.
The knee surgery was performed successfully and over the subsequent days Moxie demonstrated every positive sign of recovery.
The veterinary doctors on duty sent us a voice recording by WhatsApp every morning and every evening with an update.
“The incision site is heeling well. We cleaned the wound and changed the bandages. We took her for a short walk. She had no trouble putting weight on the leg. She peed but didn’t poop. Everything is looking good and normal.”
Then, on the morning of the fifth day post-op, they noticed some inflammation around the surgery site. They gave her a common anti-inflammatory medication to which she seems to have had an adverse reaction.
“It’s not unusual and nothing to worry about and I’m flushing the medication from her system,” Dr. Diego explained. “But I advise you to come visit so the excitement helps stimulate her appetite.”
We organized a car and driver but, with the major highways blocked due to a national protest about changes to the tax code, we couldn’t leave until the late afternoon.
About two hours into the four-hour journey, Greg’s phone rang. Dr. Diego explained that Moxie had taken a sudden and terrible turn. All her tests and organ functions were normal but there was blood in her stools and her pressure was dropping.
“The last two hours have been really bad,” he said.
“Is there anything that we can do or authorize?” Greg asked.
“No. We’re doing everything we can but she’s not stabilizing and, honestly, I don’t know how long I can keep Moxie alive.”
Hearing that all other sounds dissolved momentarily and then returned at twice the volume.
We sat, muttering occasionally but mostly in silence, as the driver struggled to forge progress through the gridlock of the Guatemala City rush hour.
Less than an hour later, the phone rang again.
We never asked the official time of death because the timestamp of that call is when our hearts broke and Moxie left our lives forever.
There is no indication of mistake, error, or malpractice, nor am I interested in any way to pursue that line of inquiry. I know the doctors and staff to be knowledgeable, experienced, and wholeheartedly dedicated to the care and wellbeing of our better halves.
The successful spinal surgery they had performed years before granted Moxie new life and gave us the opportunity to make thousands more carefree memories together.
We visited Moxie one last time in the hospital, spoke with Dr. Diego, and then arranged for a cremation service.
“Would you like the box to be stained a particular color or her name engraved on the outside?” the receptionist asked.
Greg stood silent for a moment and then shook his head.
“Just her ashes in a plain wooden box,” he said, “We have her stained and engraved on our skin.”
We cried, bawled, sobbed, and sulked for the next several days. Then we collected her ashes and returned to Panajachel.
She is gone, we are here, I am gutted and heartbroken.
We are streaming live on Instagram on Wednesday, 19 April at 9pm Eastern / 6pm Pacific.
Please join us as we will share more about Greg’s motorcycle accident with a chicken bus, the injury that proceeded Moxie’s surgery, and the unfortunate complications that resulted in her death.
