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Chapter 1

EASY RIDER

Ready to ride, Opee pants with excitement. His helmet has a camera on top. (illustration credit 1.1)

April 2006, San Diego, California

Opee the Australian (sounds like AH-STRALE-YAN) shepherd cocks his head and listens. Has Mike entered the garage? The devoted dog jumps to his feet and runs toward the sound. Barking excitedly, he leaps onto the gas tank of Mike Schelin’s dirt bike. Opee’s pink tongue hangs out. His front paws rest on the handlebars.

Mike grins. He slips a helmet and goggles on the happy dog’s head. He hops on the bike behind Opee and kicks the starter with his heel. Off they go across the California desert.

Mike is a professional motocross (sounds like MOE-TOE-CROSS) racer. And so is Opee! Motocross is a form of cross-country motorcycle racing. Racers ride special motocross bikes, also called dirt bikes. They race on rugged tracks that are closed to normal traffic.

Mike and Opee’s story started when Mike Schelin was 35 years old. Things had not been going well for him lately and he was unhappy. Cheer up! he told himself. But he didn’t know how. So he sat down with a pad and pencil.

He made a list of all the things that made him feel good.

Later Mike read what he wrote. Hmm, he thought, dogs are first on my list. I need a job that lets me bring a dog to work.

Soon Mike quit his job selling computers and moved to San Diego, California. He met a man there who let Mike live in an old house for free. In return, Mike agreed to fix up the place. But something was missing. Mike needed a dog to keep him company.

He called a woman who had an Australian shepherd puppy for sale. They agreed to meet on a country road where 75 mailboxes stood in a row.

Mike spotted the mailboxes first. Then he saw a mother dog and puppy playing in the grass. The puppy had soft, floppy ears. His furry coat had patches of black, brown, and gray with white around his neck. His eyes were different colors. One was blue and the other was brown. Mike scooped him up, and slurp! The little furball stuck out his tongue and licked Mike’s face. Mike paid the woman and drove home with the puppy.

Mike didn’t think of the dog as a pet. He thought of him more as a friend, or even a brother. He named the pup Opee, his own nickname as a child.

The next day, Mike woke up to whining. “Are you hungry, fella?” Mike asked. He poured some kibble into a plastic bowl and fixed himself a cup of coffee.

The house was a mess. A table saw stood in the middle of the living room. Rows of bare wooden studs rose like jail bars at one end of the room. Piles of sweet-smelling sawdust littered the floor.

Mike grabbed a hammer and started to work. Opee followed behind, leaving paw prints in the dust. Later he curled up in Mike’s toolbox to sleep.

One day, Mike and Opee drove to the hardware store for supplies. When they got there, Mike set the puppy on a flatbed cart. “Stay,” he said. Opee did. Mike was surprised by how well he obeyed. “He just seemed to get it,” Mike said.

On weekends, Mike relaxed by riding his dirt bike in the desert. He took Opee with him. Mike thought Opee would enjoy running off-leash. Maybe he’d run after lizards and snakes. But Opee chased Mike instead. He chased him uphill and downhill. Over bumps and pits and in clouds of dust. The dog never stopped.

Mike decided to buy a quad—a four-wheeled off-road motorbike with a seat big enough for two. Now Opee could ride along! But how to keep the dust out of Opee’s eyes? Mike had an idea. First he cut a slit in the middle of a sock. Then he slipped a pair of goggles through the slit and tied the ends of the sock under Opee’s chin. Perfect! Opee jumped onto the seat and off they went.

Motorbikes are loud. Other dogs might have hated the noise. They might have jumped off the seat in fear. Not Opee.

One Sunday Mike didn’t go to the desert. Instead, he wanted to ride his street bike to Santa Barbara, another city in California. His street bike is a big, rumbling Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Mike hadn’t ridden the Harley in a while. So he took it for a test-drive around the block.

“Opee was at the gate going crazy,” Mike said. “He was barking and jumping.” The minute Mike let his dog loose, Opee surprised him by jumping up on the gas tank. “Okay,” Mike said, hugging his dog. “I’ll take you for a spin.”

Mike started slow. The dog didn’t blink. Mike went faster. The dog stayed put. When the speed reached 50 miles an hour (81 km/h), Opee crouched down closer to the bike. When the road curved, Opee leaned into the turns. This dog is a natural, Mike thought.

Mike hurried home and dashed into the house. Grabbing his extra helmet, he sawed a chunk out of the back so it would fit around Opee’s head. Then he put the helmet, goggles, and a backpack on the pup. They were about to leave when Mike had another thought. He found some rope and tied Opee to him, just in case the dog lost his balance.

To Santa Barbara and back is 300 miles (483 km)—a long trip on a motorcycle. Mike wondered how long Opee would last.

Surprise! Opee made it the entire way.

(illustration credit 1.2)