"My Dogs Hate My Travel" by Yuki Costelo

“Okay, smile!”

Three dogs stare back at me with varying degrees of betrayal.

Kenai, my husky-malamute mix, looks utterly offended that I have once again asked him to pose next to my luggage. Ahnah, my Norwegian Elkhound mix, gives me the unmistakable look of someone questioning every life choice that has led her to this moment. Tala, my Doberman, is already contemplating an escape.

Although, to be fair, Kenai is slightly distracted by the treat in my hand. The other two look as though I have just taken away their absolute favorite toys and tossed them into a wood chipper. You'd think, after seven years of this, we'd all be used to it. We aren't!

My dogs have learned that luggage means one thing: Mom is leaving.

And they absolutely hate it.

The funny thing is, most of my travel isn't glamorous vacation travel. In fact, the majority of it is for work. Very rarely do I get to travel simply because I want to go somewhere. What can I say? I'm a workaholic.

I'm also someone who thoroughly enjoys spending the money I make traveling on spoiling my fuzzy children. I tell them that's why I travel so much. I travel so I can buy them the good dog food. The toys. The treats. All the ridiculous things they don't actually need but somehow convince me they absolutely deserve. I tell them I'm doing this for them. They don't care.

As far as they're concerned, Mom disappears for a really, really long time. Sometimes it's only a week. Sometimes, in reality, it's closer to a month.

Luckily, my father and my husband are home to make sure the dogs continue living their best lives while I'm gone. So while I may be somewhere halfway around the world, they're at home being spoiled rotten.

Still, I joke that I live out of suitcases. And honestly, that's not entirely inaccurate. After enough years on the road, I've gotten very good at unpacking a suitcase in a hotel room and turning it into something functional. I have a mental—and sometimes very literal—list of hotels I like in different corners of the world, usually ranked at least partially by their proximity to good restaurants. I keep lists of restaurants that coworkers ask me to share whenever they travel.

I know random landmarks, strange little facts, and bits of local history from places I never expected to visit. My life is, more often than not, on the road. Or on a plane. Or on a train.

But apparently none of that matters to my dogs. To them, luggage is the enemy.

The moment I start dragging my suitcases upstairs to pack, the protests begin. Kenai has perfected what I call “inconvenient husky industries.” His specialty is pretending to sleep directly in whatever path I need to use to get to my room.

Need to go upstairs? He's there.

Need to get around the bed? He's there.

Need to carry a suitcase through a doorway? Somehow, he's there too.

Ahnah and Tala take a different approach. They sit directly in front of my suitcases, staring at me as if their mere presence will make the luggage disappear. If we don't acknowledge the bags, perhaps Mom won't be able to leave.

Even my late dogs, Athena and Mako, participated in the anti-travel campaign. They tried stealing my bags.Hiding my bags. Generally making it as difficult as possible for me to leave the house.

Athena, in particular, had one favorite target: my messenger bag from Scruffy Dog Trading. I've had that bag for seven years.And apparently, so did she.

Athena was a woolly husky, which makes me think she was determined to be the only scruffy dog in my life—even though Kenai is pretty scruffy himself.

For whatever reason, that messenger bag was the one she always wanted to steal and hide. Maybe she knew it was my favorite travel bag. Maybe she knew how many places it had been.

Or maybe she was jealous. Because that bag has had quite the life.

It came with me on one of my rare, precious vacations to the Philippines, where I saw a volcano in a lake inside a volcano.

It came with me on a work trip more than 700 miles above the Arctic Circle.

It has crossed borders, airports, train stations, hotel lobbies, conference rooms, and countless miles of unfamiliar roads.

And every patch on the flap tells a little piece of that story.

I like collecting something from the places I visit and putting it on the bag. Nothing particularly fancy. Just little reminders of where I've been and the ridiculous amount of traveling I've managed to cram into the last seven years.

The patches have slowly turned the bag into something of a travel diary.

It may have retired from its life as my everyday work bag, but it has absolutely not retired from traveling. That job belongs to it for as long as it can handle me.

“Can you please look at mummy?”

I try again.

Kenai responds with another enormous huff, clearly offended that he has been forced to participate in this photoshoot. Tala attempts to make her escape. Ahnah gives me the look of death.

And somehow, in the middle of all three dogs and their collective outrage, sits my old messenger bag from Scruffy Dog Trading. Ready to go. Again.

I finally get something resembling a decent picture. I glance at my watch. That's my cue. I grab the handles of my luggage and swing the messenger bag over my shoulder.

The dogs know what happens next.

So do I.

For them, Mom is disappearing again.

For me, it's another airport, another hotel, another city, another story waiting to be added to the collection of patches on that bag.

I give the dogs one last look.

They stare back.

No smiles.

Of course not.

Time to go.