Our traveling companions: The Boychicks

Marcel DuChamp and Magnifico are eager to be on their way to Texas. For Marcel, the return to his home state will be bittersweet. He still has the 38 bullet embedded in his hip from the time he bolted across the wrong stretch of pasture. And he hasn’t forgotten how he flunked out of assistance dog training. He has studied biology and he agrees with Kinky Friedman: How can you look at the Texas legislature and still believe in intelligent design?

Still, both boychicks have an invincible sense of adventure. Their ambition is to lie on rugs in motel rooms in all 48 contiguous states. And they don’t like to be left behind. Magnifico would follow us anywhere, straight into the jaws of hell itself. Marcel likes to go where there are women’s voices. On the street, he straightens up when he hears a woman and must meet her. They both seek the tantalizing scent left by other dogs and they literally trip all over each other to get to it first. Marcel always wins and then he paws the ground and kicks dirt behind him like a bull waiting to tear through his first red cape.