Hi, I'm Willow Belden and you're listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.

We go into all kinds of situations with expectations.

They're shaped by our previous life experiences or by stories we hear,

movies we see. But a lot of times those expectations set us up for disappointment.

Because real life usually isn't like the movies, especially when it comes to relationships.

Today's episode is about expectations gone awry.

It's a story about a young woman named Paula Davis, who went to Alaska to work with sled dogs.

She'd always been good with dogs, and she had a sort of storybook vision for what her Alaskan life would be like.

It was a vision involving close-knit, loving relationships with the dogs she'd be working with.

But falling in love, whether with people or with animals, doesn't always work the way we think it should.

And sometimes, our expectations hold us back. I'll let Paula take it from here.

The first dog our family had was named Moosh. Moosh was a mutt. Her mom was a yellow lab,

and her dad was a short, fat beagle. My parents were young newlyweds, living in New Jersey, and they were supposed to be buying a car.

But there was an ad for puppies misplaced in the car section of the classifieds,

so they ended up with a dog instead of a car.

When I was born, Moosh was four.

She protested my arrival by eating a potted plant in the living room, but after that, we were good.

Moush and I were pretty much inseparable.

We played together, we napped on the floor together, we went on walks together.

She was my first friend.

When I was 10, Moosh had to be put to sleep. Mush's death was the first death that really hit me. I cried and wallowed and looked at old pictures of her. Our family had

lost a member, and I had lost a friend. A few years later, we got Duchess, a black lab.

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