DOG-EARED with Lisa Davis EP #9: BOOK: A Dog Named Beautiful: A Marine, a Dog, and a Long Road Trip Home AUTHOR: Rob Kugler

Lisa is joined by Rob Kugler the author of A Dog Named Beautiful: A Marine, a Dog, and a Long Road Trip Home.

Rob starts off talking about the soul-crushing diagnosis that his wonderful dog Bella gets and how he decides to take the time Bella has and fill it full of travel and adventures as he travels with Bella throughout the US.  He also talks about family issues, the military, the gift of dogs, and so much more. 
   
BOOK DESCRIPTION:

An uplifting and unforgettable story of a US Marine, his extraordinary dog, and the road trip of a lifetime. 

When US Marine Rob Kugler returns from war not only had he given up a year of his life in service to his country, but he had also lost a brother in the fighting as well. Lost in grief, Rob finds solace and relief in the one thing that never fails to put a smile on his face: his chocolate lab, Bella. Exceptionally friendly, and always with - you wouldn’t believe it - a smile on her face, Bella is the friend Rob needs, and they spend their days exploring nature and taking photos. 

But then Bella develops a limp in her front leg. It’s cancer, and the prognosis isn’t good. Rob has a choice: either to let Bella go now, or amputate her cancer-riddled leg, and see what the next few months would bring. 

For Rob, the choice is a no-brainer, and instead of waiting at home for the cancer to spread, Rob and Bella pack their bags and hit the road. Life is short, but the road ahead is long and winding, and as they criss-cross the country Rob and Bella meet remarkable, life-changing men and women who are quick to make friends with this incredible three-legged dog.

CHECK OUT ROB LINKS & HIS RECOMMENDATIONS

1. The local family owned brick and mortar bookstore where listeners can purchase a personally inscribed copy while also a small local business. Waucoma Books. https://www.waucomabookstore.com/rob-kugler-signed-books

2. Kristen’s website. She put together a pretty awesome site that captured her roadtrip across the country with Franklin Waffles and it deserves to be a book of its own.   https://agoldenroad.com/

3. Though the foundations haven’t yet to be very active, with the sole donation of the #TeamBella Foundation being to SUNY Canton’s Veterinary program, 

Michael B. Doheny:

https://secure.givelively.org/donate/custer-county-foundation-inc/michael-b-doheny-foundation?fbclid=IwAR3kz0R7l9Xvfg4MIgDBDbkHyOb7mFWXCKSf3niI25Mpuxk795NufxrpAc8#_=_

Team Bella: 

https://secure.givelively.org/donate/custer-county-foundation-inc/team-bella-foundation

4. My “Photography” Instagram account. As I’m working on getting back into my photography and the soulful energy of intense gratitude being behind the lens puts me in, I’m working on publishing more photos on a separate account. That handle is @RKLifeIllustrated and the link is https://www.instagram.com/rklifeillustrated/ 

While any materials that are sold with Bella’s likeness will funnel a portion of proceeds to the #TeamBella foundation, all other photographs will funnel toward the Michael B Doheny foundation. Though, we aren't set up for sales yet, so this may be a moot point for now.  

Transcript

42:40

Owner: Lisa Davis
SUMMARY KEYWORDS 
bella , dog , rob , people , book , life , vet , thinking , left , places , walking , lives , animal , months , legs , mom , gofundme , treat , trip , decision, military, dogs 



Lisa 
0:07
I do not have a Does your dog do dot dot dot this week. But what I do have is an absolutely amazing guest, Rob Kugler, a dog named beautiful, the true story of the Labrador who taught a marine to love life again, Rob is a medically retired US Marine Staff Sergeant. He's a storyteller photographer and writer when he's not on the road. He lives in Nebraska in the Pacific Northwest in the US, Rob, I'm so thrilled to have you on!

Rob 

0:39
that's awesome. It's, it's great to be here. Just to follow up on the book story a little bit. It's been three years since the book came out. So it's, I'm pretty much you know, I am full time in the Pacific Northwest now

Lisa 
 Oh, nice. I asked the guest the same first question every time, which is when did your love of dogs begin?

Rob 
0:58
I had cats growing up? I wrote about that in the book. And that was one of the things that I lost in the editing battle. And I still love cats. And I never understood why people didn't like cats. There's a lot of people that are like they're either dog people or cat people. And I'm kind of more animal people. I don't have cats along with dogs for one, the dogs I have now wouldn't allow that.

Lisa 
1:20
And neither would mine. 

Rob 
1:22
It wouldn't be good for the cats. And then two, I do have a little bit of an allergy to them, which I didn't really know as much like there's part of my sickness as a kid kind of went away when I left home and wasn't living in a house with five cats. But I always saw I always wanted a dog. And it was kind of that that same thing. I was like, well, dogs do take more responsibility. You know, like cats, cats are really autonomous creatures, you can leave, your cat can be at home for days with water and a litter box and food and they don't need a fence, etcetera. I'm thinking about times that I used to walk to school, a dog had puppies, and I watched them grow. And I'd stop by and pet them every day. And the old man that leaves the house was like, you know, when he asked your mom, you know, you can have one if you want, you know, and I was like mama, she's like, this isn't happening. And neither would mine. My mom was was dating a guy that had a golden retriever. It was his sons, his adult sons. And I was taking care of that golden retriever for I don't know, like three months and was kind of adopting him. And then and then one day, he was gone. And the guy was, oh, yeah, well, my son took him back. And I didn't get to say goodbye. And that was you know, kind of like my first little like heartbreak of having a having a dog and then not Bella was my first dog, and my and my first real, real true love and in the animal world. And I say this, and some sometimes, I don't know if I say it the best way. But sometimes I think animals can help you so much with humanity, terms of dropping judgments, if you can have a relationship with an animal, and then realize that everything that they are made of, is the same thing that you're made of, because you don't see that until you have that with a certain animal. And then you'd like to soul animals. If you can see that in an animal How can you not see that in human beings that, that wherever we come from, it's the same place and then so that's that's kind of like what really drew me to animals through through Bella.

Lisa 
3:34
And I was in the same camp. My mom miraculously let us have a hamster named rascal. And all I wanted was a dog. All I wanted was a dog. And I didn't get my first dogs till I was 33. So I've had four dogs altogether, and blue. Everyone knows my pity blue. He's like my soulmate dog. And it's interesting, right? It's like I don't I loved Bailey and Bobo, and I love Benji. But sometimes you make a connection now. Now Bella was your first. So I can see that being like, oh, that's because it's your first but I'm wondering if other people out there are thinking well, yeah, I've had several but then this one, there was something about this dog. Right. So that's just a question to put out there. As

Rob 
4:14
soon as as soon as you started talking. I was like, Oh, wow. Okay. leases, leases. This is Lisa's thing. She's this is good. You're good. Yeah. Yeah. You're a person your personality. I can. This is good. You belong you belong.

Lisa 
4:29
I'm a lot. I'm a force. Yeah, well, that's me too. But I want to jump right into your book because it's incredible. So your book starts with you at the vet with Bella. And you know, it's never good news when they're like can can you come back here and come into this room and can we talk and somber looks and give us give us an idea of what was going on.

Rob 
4:48
Bella had a limp in her front left like I'd taken her to the vets. We had just recently found out when Bella is like going on. I guess she's going on eight years old. time that she loved to go down slides. And we would go up the pot, you know, go to the park. And then and sometimes she would go down herself. Other times she was bark at me and said no, like, want to ride on my lap. And one of the times, I was showing it to my mom, where we had met up a little town in Nebraska, Bella, went to run up this slide and slipped, versus going up the stairs, which he usually did. And then it wasn't too long after they like a couple days after that, that she started limping a little bit. So that's what I thought it was, I thought she had injured herself. And that's one of the things that I'm trying to learn if going into a veterinarian or even even a doctor's office for myself, is to explain the problem and try not to give them too much of my guess of what happened. Because then, because the doctor treated it as an injury. For months, I was following everything that they were saying, you know, like, Hey, this is you know, this is an injury. So let's do just minimize play. And here's some maybe some rebuttal. So I was keeping her from playing as much as I could for months. And that's not easy to do with a very happy Spry Labrador, you know, right? I take her in again, and then it's like, I get the same these things take time, I called and left a message a few weeks later saying, Hey, I'm still not seeing any improvement. And then there was kind of like a short answer, you know, like these, these orthopedic injuries take time? Well, I'm done with that vet, because this is taking too long. And we're not doing anything. So let's find a vet that maybe has like physical therapy or something, because so that we can do something because this isn't, this just isn't working, she's not healing, we find a new vet, and we talked to the physical therapist, and we had done X rays at the very beginning of that meeting, and then we're talking to him. And then so then as I'm talking to him, that's when the vet comes back out. And then she says, you know, hey, I'm going to need to talk to you in the, in the back room about those x rays. And I was like, right away, I knew I was like, this bad. I don't I don't know what, you know, I don't know what it's gonna be, but nothing. Nothing good is ever talked about in the back room. She's like, Yeah, so as you can see here, this is this is, as you can see these like, spider webby clouds off of the top of her humerus. And she's like, so this is all osteosarcoma. And unfortunately, this is the worst news I can give you because this is already metastasized into her lungs. And by the time it's there, you're looking at three to six months, probably three. And she goes, she's not limping because of injury. She's limping because of pain. This is a very painful thing, you're going to need to make the decision that you should probably amputate this leg. Or you should just think about putting her down pretty soon, her attitude had not changed at all, from when she was two, you know, besides being a little less, a little less wild of a, you know? Yeah. But, you know, you could see it in her eyes, that there was so much life left, you could see it just in her spirit, you could feel her spirit. And I was like, well, putting her down is not an option. So I went home to make the you know, to work on making the decision. And one of one of the things that really helped was I found a group called tripods, T R I P A WDS. Oh, I like that. And, and then it was just an entire community of people with dogs with three legs, and a huge amount of them was from osteosarcoma. It was just proof of quality of life. That's what you're thinking about, right? Like what is the quality of life and because you don't want to do something to your dog, there's there are certain things, certain decisions that you have to make that may really change the quality of life and in a bad way. So that it may not be worth it. And then this this was just proven to not be one so we made the decision. Then that surgery when the surgery happened, I was still feeling bad on my way. Like when I dropped her off and because she was just like she loved the vet. You know and so then she's like all happy when I take it I go Hey everybody, and I'm like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. You are about to chop your leg off. When I when I picked her up. The vet told me that now she's gonna need help because she's still drugged, etc. But then I heard her in the back. I heard the vet in the back. Oh my gosh, she just got right up. And Bella comes she comes off and on her one leg. You know, I think the one thing I wasn't I wasn't thinking about was how big the scar was going to be. So she shaved like her so it was from the middle of her chest but you know it comes All the way up because I got to take the shoulder blade too. So it comes all the way back to the center of the back. So as you know, it's a pretty, you know, Frankenstein looking site. But she she came right into me. And then she leaned into me in this way. That wasn't like, what did you there was no. Oh my God, why am I here? What am I doing? You know, like, oh, this was so scary. It really seemed like, Oh, thank you for taking that pain away.

Lisa 
10:30
When I read that I thought, oh my gosh, that is so incredibly beautiful. You know, I love the story, Rob, about when you got home that night, and she went out to pee and then she just plopped right on the ground. And then you went in and got a sleeping bag. And I think one of the things that I took away from the book is that living in the moment, finding your purpose, being mindful, being aware. And I just thought it was so beautiful, because you appreciated all these little things. Yeah. Without

Rob 
11:00
from human loss in my own life. Previously, if I hadn't had lost two siblings, before I was 30. Was it because it lost I lost my brother at 25. And then I lost my sister 32. And they were both killed. Immediately. My brother and I racked by an explosive device, and then my sister in a car crash. And there was no goodbye. There was no warning. Being told that my time with Bella had a very short time limit. There was like a gift, you know, recently been been divorced and had had left a career and was starting a new and was just finishing school I was in a place to where What are you doing next? And then I'm like, Well, I guess this is it. Because when when again in my life, well, I have no other responsibilities.

Lisa 
12:02
I'm so sorry, Rob, about your brother and your sister. And of course about Bella, I am really glad though that you were able to take that trip with her. There's a conversation I've heard many times about people talking about the differences between having someone you love who's dying, and there's a process and you know, versus somebody dying quickly in an accident. And you've just talked about both of those scenarios. Talk to us about how you feel,

Rob 
12:29
there's definitely some gifts of knowing that someone is going because the time that you get in the mental space that you're in, because you just know and there is something beautiful about knowing, hey, you've got to pay attention, there isn't maybe some other time it is a right now, towards the end. It's like harder when you know that it's happening. Versus someone that's, you know, a death that just happens because when the death is just happens, you don't have to watch it. So having to be there and seeing the end, and then seeing if there's a potential struggle or with an animal having to make the decision. Am I going to help you at the end? And there's so many people, myself included, like, hey, please go in your sleep for me. So I don't have to make that decision. And then with Bella, you know, that was told that, hey, you're not going to want to see how she's going to go. It won't be comfortable for her. And we suggest that you should help her go. So we did that some people have that didn't know the story if they've just kind of heard a little bit about Bella and I and might have their own preconceptions. Someone said like, oh, well, he drugged his dog along, you know, while she was dying and or kept her alive for his own selfish reasons. That wasn't the case with us. Because chemo you can do all these, you know, all these things. And we didn't do those things. And we just went out and we're living because we knew that it was terminal and you cannot beat death. And at the end at the very end we did try to treat this tumor that it came in our mouth because it was just eating away. Like it was it was rapid, just ugly and violence. And as we tried to so we did take some time at the end to try to stop that because she had so much more life in her everywhere else that I was like well let's stop this because it was just going to eat through her jaw. And if we stop that real quick name, it can continue. She didn't last too much long after we did treat that and that was that was hard. I just so grateful to the people that contributed to the GoFundMe because we were able to just go with the best treatments available. We were Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado and I fell in love with the the veterinary staff there. It felt like such a family. My friend was like, let me start a GoFundMe. Let me start a GoFundMe. I was like, no, no, no. And then and then she just convinced me to because she's like, Rob, people want to be a part of this. Yeah. Do this for them.

Lisa 
15:22
And yeah, no, I think a GoFundMe is awesome.

Rob 
15:25
And and then so really do, let her do it. And then we did things to where we sent people, personal photos of Bella prints, you know, that was like kind of a tear. Once you got to a certain point, I stopped it, and then started sharing other people's and we were able to use I met a woman that was in nursing school and her she was treating her boxer who had lymphoma. And she was thinking about dropping out of nursing school to be able to pay for her dog's treatment. And then immediately I was like, that's when I knew was like, well, not here, hold on. And a day, we filled her GoFundMe and was able to pay for her dogs treatment. See, that's incredible love that was like, I was like this is what a purpose this is to be able to talk to a veterinarian and say, Well, what is the best path and make that so then I wanted to be able to present that to for other people. And then that's where it was so great to be able to help raise money for other people so that they could do the same because our veterinary costs are just out of this world in this country. And there's there's people that you know, there's a lot of animals that don't get the treatment because of that.

Lisa 
16:32
Yeah, Rob, you really did the best Bye, Bella, you were there for her. You took everything into account that was going on with her and you gave her such a wonderful and yourself such an incredible experience. You know, I love Rob how multi layered the book is. You have these beautiful, amazing experiences with Bella and you take her all these incredible places. And then you talk about your childhood and you write this my own story started long before Bella came into my life. It started with a broken home a home without any dog even though I longed for one. I know now that when I was a child, a teen and even a young man, when I experienced loss and heartache, I was actually longing for this land of acceptance, this land of love and belonging. So Rob, your parents already came to their relationship with children from previous marriages. And then they had you what was that like? And how did that affect your self esteem?

Rob 
17:27
It had a lot of different facets to it. One, it was kind of awesome to have so many siblings to start off with my mom's kids were about the same age as my dad's kids. 12 years older than me seven years older than me and five years older than me, when my parents split just almost three, then it was kind of it was easy to never feel like I belonged fully anywhere. Because even though I had these brothers and sisters that accepted me and no one had the same situation that I did. You know, like, I got a different dad. And my, my dad's kids had a different mom, I would go to my dad's in the summer, my dad's kids would go back to their mom, even though I felt like I didn't have that sense of belonging. And that's something that's still a part of me. Always. Even at 40 years old, I still look look for that.

Lisa 
18:18
Do you think that played into your love of dogs is to have something that was yours and was special?

Rob 
18:24
Yes. I didn't realize it until Bella was older. And I had gotten divorced. And it was just me and her especially after she was diagnosed. You know, I knew she was terminal. I was I'd realized that I had never had such a full connection. That was it was us there was ours fully.
 
Dr. JUDY SPOT 
18:50
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Lisa 
20:15
You really delve into some of your negative self talk and feeling like a failure and you write in the book, quote, friends insist I've developed three personalities over the years. There's a fun likeable me a leader who was sure of what he wanted in life, but then there was a pissed off guy, even uncontrollable, this guy wants to punch you in the face for looking at him wrong. Then there's a guy who's super depressed mopey and lethargy. Yeah,

Rob 
20:37
yeah. So I actually, for whatever reason that the editor really didn't like the fact that I had named those, but my friends had named them is Rob, Roy, and Ron. So Rob, Rob is me. Oh, yeah. Rob is me. And then Roy is Roy. You know what I mean? Don't mess with ROI, man. Yeah. Thinking that Yeah. And my buddy took me out to a bar in Chicago. And they play bags, like cornhole competitively, and someone was tossing bags. And then I'm standing there with my buddies. And the guy from across the room. tries he just wings that like a baseball, wings a bag. He's he's trying to throw it at my buddy, but he misses and it hits me in the face. And then I have been nothing but jokey. Happy Rob. And then this thing hits me in the face. And then boom, Ron looks back. You know, and just like, I mean, I'm like, Who the through that? It's on. And then when I saw that, and then this dude was like, Oh, I was going for it. And then it just went right back. And then but my buddy was like, oh, man, I was like, he's like, Ron, Ron just came to the party, didn't he? Yeah, yeah.

Lisa 
21:44
Well, how was it that Bella just brought out you? Right, Rob without the other stuff? What were some of the lessons you learned, right during your travels that helped you with this?

Rob 
21:55
I mean, just Bella herself for one, she was just so intuitive. You know, if I'd ever gotten upset, you know, if I was driving, and then something you know, like a road rage you moments or something. Again, she didn't she never judged anything that came out of me, she would come to me, and then nozzle me and say, Hey, I'm here. Be here with me. Everything's everything's okay. And then just her contact her touch her wet nose. Her nudging of my hands to pet her was a therapy that can't be bought, can't be taught can't be prescribed. Other than get a lab, she was just special. At that point. I think it was her intuition to know if anything was off with me that she would come and you know, throw me a life preserver and say, hey, here I am. anchor yourself, ground yourself. With me. That's That's why people have emotional support dogs. She was not officially that. But she was 100% that for me. Tell us about some of the places that you went, we got to go to some really amazing places across the country. And some of them that were kind of surprised were the Dakotas, actually, there's some really great parks in South and North Dakota, Theodore Roosevelt State Park. I've seen wild horses that live on like 1000s, of pasture land in Nebraska, which is, you know, an amazing thing to see. See the wild horses that were running, and like to come across them and like where you've got to stop because they are running across the road. You have to see that and Ella with her head out the window is we're just driving through and seeing, you know, bison and groundhogs and coyotes like, Bella, not only did we have our relationship with each other, and that was amazing. But she also was a segue of bridge to people along the way.

Lisa 
23:50
Now, I know that being in the military was very important to you. What was that experience? Like?

Rob 
23:55
The military gave me that sense of belonging I feel like that I was looking for you know, and even though I had good friends growing up, there was there was a sense of pride. You know, I'm not I'm not sure where I would have ended up if I didn't join the military feel like there was also just like this sense of service, this sense of a larger purpose and really feeling like you belong to something that was making a difference in the world that I think that that's that's what's harder about when when people get out. It's not always what some people think of vets like what's their hardest burden is only like combat vets with PTSD and like that's maybe a stereotype of the veteran that's struggling but a lot of times like even one of my one of my best friends locally here, Kevin Bunnell, he lost both of his legs and to grenade attack. He's a stud he walks around on prosthetics. He is crazy the difference of how you're treated in a wheelchair, he will tell you straight up he goes, Oh, man, I miss my brothers way more than I miss my legs.

Lisa 
25:08
Oh, wow, that's powerful. And

Rob 
25:11
because it's the, it's that that family that you build like my, my best friends are the buddies that I met on my way to boot camp 23 years ago here and a couple of months, we evolved in hospitals, you know, for each other's babies, because that was also really so great about my journey with Bella is that along our trip, and then like through social media, and Facebook, people could see us and then and then invite us in. And it was most always the military community.

Lisa 
25:40
Tell us about some of the places that you went and some of the people you came across, particularly the woman dressed in nearly all black lady interesting story.

Rob 
25:49
So we got to go to some really amazing places across the country. And some of them that were kind of surprised were the Dakotas, actually, there's some really great parks in South and North Dakota. Like Custer, Custer State Park in South Dakota, beautiful area. And I think a Sylvan Lake, I think is a particular like, they're not for sure, if that was there, or if it was in Colorado, but up on North, there's the Theodore Roosevelt State Park, I've seen wild horses that live on like 1000s, of pasture land in Nebraska, you know, an amazing thing to see. But to see the wild horses that were running, and like to come across them and like where you've got to stop because they are running across the road. And you have to see that and Ella with her head out the window is we're just driving through and seeing, you know, bison and groundhogs and coyotes like, getting ready to hunt the groundhogs right there. Those Those experiences were amazing. And my nephew was able to join me there, which was, which was huge. For me, it was he had just graduated high school, and that was kind of like my, my graduation gift to him was to take him on a trip, then. And I'm sitting then he got to be a part of the trip with Bella, which was, you know, amazing there as well. But when we're going east, we went north in the winter, which seems, you know, contradictory. But what was beautiful about it is that when you go to places in the winter that people usually leave them. It, it opens up for a lot of solitude, we got to go to a lot of places and hike a lot of trails that no one was on not a single person. And it kind of helped the entire mood of Bella and eyes, you know, final months, which was us being together. It was Bald Mountain in upstate New York. There's a fire tower there that Bella and I hiked to. And it was the first time that I had seen terrain where roots are growing, like surface level, and they're growing over rocks. And it was just like the beauty of seeing big trees with their roots, you know, like, oh, yeah, you know, like, we get to see their roots, because then it just becomes more of like, you see the organism you see the life. And then Bella watching Bella, make the decisions, like the cerebral factor of her knowing that she is just not running wildly as you know, four legged dogs scrambling around like she's like, she's got to look at this stuff, and make the decision of how she's going to make it. And then I just watching observing her, we were afforded a lot of off leash time. Again, no one was around, it was easy to do that because it was like not like she was running up to somebody or running up to someone else's dog. But also, it kind of helped that she was only on three legs because she was passed. 

Lisa 
29:04
that's a good point.

Rob 
29:05
It was it was on our way to New Hampshire. And that was one of the things we got to meet up with a lot of veterans along the way through the communities that I had been a part of veterans kind of have a special akin with dogs. And and I think a lot of it has to do with our buddy systems. You know, like we someone's always got to have your six, you always go out in pairs, you know, so, so being alone, being alone. It makes you you know, a little vulnerable. You should always have someone with you dogs, dogs can be that, you know, and especially, especially a dog that you have that with there's a particular town and I apologize I can't picture the town. I mean, oh that's important. But it's in the works. You know, we're in the Northeast. So the sky is gray. There As you know, kind of like low hanging fog, I'm driving I see I see this woman walking and she's got, you know, like a black trench coat, I think a purple stocking cap, when when burn cheeks. I just noticed her walking along a road to where if sometimes you've seen someone walking on a particular stretch of road, and then you think about where the last two places are, like, Man, how long has this person been walking, right. And that just kind of, in my end, I mean, like, just kind of stuck in the rain a little bit, but didn't look like she needed a ride look like she was on her own path. And then as I'm driving through the nearby town that comes up in the half a mile or so I just see on the corner of my eye this this beautiful red door. And it's it belongs to a church. And so then I, I pull off and I take take pictures of this church, there's the way that it was weathered, there was just something about it to me, that I thought of like a vampire wedding would be, you know, yeah. If filmed here, you know, you know, I'm decently friendly. And I would say I was, I'm very friendly, decently approachable. When you have a dog and you have a good relationship with your dog and your dog is friendly. And people see that people. I mean, people have overtly said, you can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their dog, Bella, not only did we have our relationship with each other, and that was amazing. But she also was a Segway of bridge to people along the way. Oh, yeah. And so then we say our goodbyes, then I'm, you know, continuing northeast, you know, because my plan is, I'm covering all 50 states here. So my plan is to get up to Maine coming out of the town. And then I see another building. I'm like, wow, what is what is this? So I go to take a picture or you know, pull over there. But then what I see is this train station and I see a placard there that it's one of the oldest operating train stations in America. Oh, wow. And then for anybody that's like, Well, what about Bella at the time, Bella is either out with me while I'm you know, like while we're looking at things, or she has the back the entire back of my four runner with the seats laid down. It's like her chariot like she had a mobile dog house and she loved nothing in the car to have her head out the window. If she wasn't out with me. She'd be snuggled up content in the car that also helped with staying in the cold. Because it's way easier to be in the cold with your with your dog.

Lisa 
32:29
Oh, yeah. Cuz you stayed in your car, which was named Ruthie. Yeah,
 
Rob 
32:32
yeah. Which I still have. I still have Ruthie in this. Because there's times where it's like, we bought a new vehicle. And I should sell Ruthie. Just just because like, that's what you should do. You know what I mean? Right. But I can't I can't I can't let her go. Yeah. I mean, you know Bella's hairs on the roof, you know.

Lisa 
32:51
So you see this woman again,

Rob 
32:53
she actually saw her voice comes from behind, you know, is, so you like our train station, turn back and, and then it's the woman that I saw walking in, she took me on this walk. And the path that existed was a path that she had created from years of these walks, many times, I found myself in a place where I'm like, Wow, I can't believe whatever has happened in my life has led me to this point. And then just here I am walking, you know, with this woman, maybe, maybe 50s. We're just walking past these boats in this boat yard that we got into from a hole in the fence. And we're walking on this path. And she's obviously friendly enough to where she is not a hermit in the terms of, you know, antisocial. But she tells me that she just lives by herself and what sounds like, you know, it's going to continue on this path. I don't know if you know what the state of it is. But I was just so fired just by the fact that she had left society and found happiness, and whatever it is that she does, and just living in solitude, and Isabella and I had that so much. And that's what I felt like kind of we had done was kind of left society in a way even the fact of just the nine to five that if you're going to do anything, maybe you're going to have one week vacation a year. So that is the standard. If you're doing anything else, then you're an outsider, as I was taking pictures of things there and taking pictures of the boats and and taking pictures of of her interacting with Bella. You know, she reminded me she's like, Okay, now we can put the camera down. Now let's be here, what a better teacher than her you know, someone that's like, remember, leave all the busyness and then and when you when you shut a lot of things off then you can see so much more. And that is one of the things that what that trip was about was we saw so much and and just with eyes wide open and with the ability to go down that road to to walk down that path to follow that landmark that monument to go see what it is. That's something that I'm still trying to maintain. In my own life, and as as things have gotten busier and busier, it is so much more rare to be able to turn off that road. And you know, to take the time to go see something. And so I'm trying to trying to hold on to those lessons and trying to find ways in my life to be able to do that, because I want to show that to my children.

Lisa 
35:21
I think what's so what's so incredible is that you did get to have that experience with Bella. And so many people don't, right. And I think you can still incorporate those things in your life with your kids and the three dogs you have now, but it's gonna look different, right? And it's about I think balancing expectations and taking the lessons that you've learned and applying them maybe if it is only a week off, like what can you do during that week? Or even better yet, what are little things you can do every day, I mean, after this, I'm going up to a beautiful place where the ocean is to take my dog, and then I'm going to pick up my daughter from school and then you know, it's 55 flippin degrees, which is insane. Last week, it was negative, right, the negative 25 went till I mean, whatever, New England is insane. But I digress. I think it's about taking the things that you learned which one of them and I thought this was great you write quote, through all of your travels and experience, you realize something very profound about yourself, I'm at my best when serving others. And that you can take Yeah, and whatever the next, you know, career is or job is you have that in you because you had all these amazing experiences with both

Rob 
36:31
well, and and that reminds me of what I need to take my own advice that I offer others when when people ask me, or tell me like, I wish I could do this with my dog. I've read your book, I wish I could do that. I wish I could have done that with my dog, I wish I could do that. You don't need the grand trip to make it happen. You can do these things in your own backyard. Like literally your own backyard. You know, you can do these in your living room, you can do these things in your backyard into the larger sense of just what's reachable and an afternoon drive. Do what you can to find what's accessible to you. And then still have those moments, I had the opportunity to do the big trip. So I took it. But you don't need the big trip, to have those experiences and to have those moments. Which is hilarious, because listen to yourself, Robert.

Lisa 
37:25
I know but it's hard because you who doesn't want to do it again. I want to do it. I mean, I'm already thinking about when I can do it with blue. I think it would be absolutely amazing. You know, one of the things too that I was so moved by as you talked about, right that you're becoming an unofficial therapist for 1000s of people desperate to talk about their dying dogs and it's really hard to talk about our dogs and they're dying. I cry regularly just thinking about my dogs leaving and my husband's like on the right here and he's like Mr. mindful. And I'm like, Yeah, I know. I know. But I get overwhelmed. So I think so many of us do. There was a something I saw on Tik Tok there was this, you see the dogs expression and they're in the car and the owners and the or their parent is in the front seat. And they're they're crying and the dogs like like about, you know, when you're not here anymore, the dogs like will turn around. I'm right here like what what are you talking about? It it's so poignant. And I think the more we can find joy, so I am trying to do that last, it's like, well, that's kind of silly. He's right here.

Rob 
38:27
Yeah, don't start mourning the loss of what's what of what you have. And that, that is that is hard, especially when you've when you've already experienced the loss. And you know what that pain is?

Lisa 
38:38
I have? Yes. Rob, this has been such an amazing conversation. I just have the last question I have for you is what do you hope people take away from the book?

Rob 
38:47
Yeah, of course. That's a that's a great one. Thanks for asking. You know, for me, I I think that a big lesson is that is that there's life after loss. There's a lot that layers in with grief, and everybody grieves in their own way. But I think for me that what I've learned the most about it is that it's something that can be taken as a as a perspective change or as something to view the world more gracefully, more gratefully as well with more gratitude just knowing how limited our time is given the best tribute to those that we've lost by finding as much joy in the time that we have left and I think that that's probably the biggest message that I would like people to take from there because I'm guessing anyone that's reading the book already understands anything that I would say about you know, dogs being made from the same Stardust that we are finding that most people already come to the to the book with that energy.

Lisa 
39:46
Is that a rooster by the way? Yeah, I heard three times I like it. Okay, okay. hallucinating I'm like why do I keep hearing rooster? No, I like leaving it in any animals are welcome here on dog eared as Paco.

Rob 
39:57
That's our neighbors rooster. We get eggs to get On Off from his incessant crowing.

Lisa 
40:05
People have got to get this book again. Rob Kugler, a dog named beautiful, the true story of the Labrador who taught a marine to love life again. And what was the other title? Rob?

Rob 
40:16
That one's in the UK that you just read in the US it was printed a marine dog and a long road trip home.

Lisa 
40:23
They're both really good. All right, tell us all the places we can find you and your photography and your book and anything else that you'd like to share.

Rob 
40:32
Just at Rob Kugler is my Instagram, our OB KU G L, E, R. And if you go back far enough, you can find all of the Bellas journey. But right now you're going to see the happy ending. And I think we've kind of saved that for the book, right? So but again, you'll you'll see, yes, you'll see that there, if you go, you'll get a spoiler alert, then I have a photography Instagram page, which is our K. Life illustrated, which is also my website, RK life illustrated.com, which needs a lot of work. So you know, maybe just maybe just stick to the Instagram one if you if you just want to see photos. Also, if you want to buy the book, Barnes and Noble usually has it. But I'm a big proponent of local bookstores. So see if your own local bookstore has it or if they would order it for you. And then if you'd like signed copies, my local bookstore here in Hood River will koma books. And I think Lisa, you're going to put a link for that. Yeah, that'll be in the show notes. Okay, I have a stamp, a custom made stamp of Bella's paw print that I also stamp Oh, books with. So you get those paw print with the books. So sweet. And then I also liked that too, because they're a locally owned, literal mom and pops bookstore fought to keep it open here in town. And it's just been a part of people's lives here for a long time. And so it's just, it's just awesome. And to form relationships with them. I sign them and they ship them.

Lisa 
41:59
Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, Rob, it's been such a pleasure getting to know you. And I absolutely love the book. I highly encourage everybody again, a dog named beautiful, the true story of Labrador who taught a marine to love life. Again, be sure to follow Rob, check out his link, get his book, support that local bookstore. Also keep coming back to dogeared. I just I'm having so much fun with this show. I've met so many incredible people, and I get to hear about so many incredible dogs. Also check out health power. You're both on the same platform and rate review and subscribe. Also, follow me at Lisa Davis on social media. Thanks so much.