It started with a yellow lab named Olson.

We’d lost two dogs and a horse in six months. I told my husband we needed a break from caring for animals. A week later I walked in and found him crying. The house felt wrong without an animal in it. So, I emailed Passion 4 Paws and said, “We’re not ready to adopt. But we can foster a dog that needs a place to land.”

They sent Olson. He was calm, housebroken and followed me to the barn like he’d been doing it his whole life. I swore we wouldn’t keep the first foster pet. Then the adoption email came in. I didn’t open it for a week. When I did, I saw he was going to a widow who’d just lost her dog and wanted someone quiet to walk with. I knew he’d be cared for.

That was number one. We’re now on number 21.

Molly’s the current dog. She’s a retired bear-hunting coonhound who howls, bites and is mostly unimpressed with us. But she’s done 11 of the Adirondack High Peaks with me. She’s 12 now, so we top out at five miles. She fits our lives. The tough ones always do. We don’t have kids or other pets. We live on a dead-end dirt road with a barn. They can take their time here.

People assume I grew up in the country. I didn’t. I was born in Vermont but lived in a big city in Germany until I was eight. We moved back to an old farmhouse in Crown Point with a fireplace for heat and cobwebs everywhere. I wanted nothing to do with farm chores or horses. Then I got my first one at 10.

Now, the barn is my reset button. I’ve had my horse for nine years, since he was four months old. We just came back from the biggest show of his career — three great days and one terrible ride, and of course that’s the one I obsessed over. Horses have a way of telling you exactly who you are. With dogs I have endless patience; with him I’m a perfectionist who needs to be told to breathe.

I picked up hiking later. I finished the 46 High Peaks a few years ago and have two left for my winter badge. It wasn’t part of my childhood, but it became part of my life fast.

People ask how I balance nursing, hiking, horses, fostering. I don’t think of it as balancing anything. This is just the shape my life took, one dog and one ridge line at a time.

Denise McLaughlin is a nurse and certified diabetes educator at Elizabethtown Community Hospital. She has been with us for 11 years this June.