More: I lucked into Chee-choh's life when this beauty's former owner went to jail for reasons unknown. The Police dropped her and her nine pups off on May 2nd and on May 4th, they were in my home on The Upper Deschutes River in Oregon. The babies were in bad condition and Cheech(as I call her) had a thirty-inch hairless scar around her neck. Chee-choh and I nursed, nurtured, and loved the babies back to good health and in no time, they were swimming in the Deschutes like little kids at the best summer camp, ever. Chee-choh, on the other hand, would sit on my hip and bark as I threw a morning rooster tail, but would never fully tap her four paws into the water. So we called her the prettiest girl in the world, loved on her like we won the lottery, took her on unbridled woods walks among the ponderosa pines, and stopped at our favorite swimming spots. Then one day, after months of reminding her that this was her new life now and this new life included all of this and all of us and it's really real, she went for a swim in The Deschutes. This picture was in the late summer or early fall of 2023 and she had just finished her first swim. The way she held her head above the water, it looked like she was grinning from ear to ear while she did figure eights. We call it her 'Loops & Laps' and we cheer like new parents every time.