With their two daughters having long ago left their family home to establish their own and raise their own young children, Barrie and his wife restored their family unit to greater than two once again by bringing three border collies into their home. The dogs are all from the same litter, two males, one female, and their characters are all divergent, but with one common trait: they were bred to be busy. They're working dogs, even if no longer used to herd sheep.

And such dogs are restless and easily bored if they're not challenged. They need to be busy and active, to be presented with situations they must deal with. They become dreadfully restless if they aren't walked frequently. So, in the morning Brenda takes them out for a long hike in the ravine, while Barrie usually walks them in the afternoon, and in the evening they both share what is for them a pleasurable obligation to their three charges. While they live in the community they're not in walking distance of the ravine, so they have to drive to one of the entrances.

These are dogs whose physiques are well honed as a result both of their breed characteristics and that they're actively engaged, frequently. Their nervous tension is kept to a minimum; they tend to charge off in three different directions while in the ravine, but respond instantly when they're called. Their training to be obedient is beyond dispute. They are verbally but calmly chastised when they disappoint and briefly but effusively praised by name and deed when they behave as they are meant to if they're accosted by an extraordinary event.

Barrie is somewhat like the dogs. He's a former special-duty RCMP officer; only in the 'former' category because he has little choice in the matter. He is tall, lean, muscular and given to extra-curricular activities like competitive running, intense bicycling, triathlon events; meeting his own challenges, just like his charges. When he began suffering mean headaches and episodes of nausea and dizziness, he knew something might be awfully wrong, but didn't begin to imagine the diagnosis would leave him reeling with the knowledge that he would soon be scheduled for brain surgery to relieve the buildup of water on his brain.

Now, post-surgery, a shunt has been implanted, and it is permanent. A line leads from the shunt that carries the water away from his brain to the inner cavity of his abdomen where his own body deals with the liquid to dispose of it; he produces about two-thirds of a litre of water a day. Eventually some parts of the apparatus that has been inserted into his body, from his brain to his nether regions, will have to be replaced; they will wear out. There is nothing that appears externally. There is a dire need to fine-tune the pressure gauging the amount and time-lapse of the drain, since he is still suffering those intense headaches once he stands or sits.

It's a bare few days since his surgery, when his cranium was opened and the shunt installed, but he misses his ravine walks with his dogs terribly. He plans to be back in operation by the coming week. And he regrets that he will have to go into retirement at an age and at a stage in his professional career that he never imagined would be interrupted at this point in his life.