Bethany and Jason & Wilhelm, Brychwyn and Huxley

Who is in the photo at right?

The Cascadian Nomads: two active humans, Bethany and Jason, and three busy canines, Wilhelm, Brychwyn and Huxley. Bethany gets paid to be a physiology/fitness nerd and Jason makes a living as an A/V geek. Wilhelm is a 6-year-old miniature dachshund, Brychwyn is a 2 1/2-year-old Cardigan Welsh Corgi and Huxley is a 1 1/2-year-old rough collie. Everyone is a boy except Bethany. We all blog with our crazy psittacine, Leo (not pictured and also a boy) at Cascadian Nomads.

What's the occasion for Coffee with a Canine?

This is the first weekend that we have been in town in a while. Fiddlehead Fine Foods and Cafe serves our favorite coffee and has great biscuits. Sometimes it is nice to just be in the 'hood.

What's brewing?

This is Seattle, after all, so we started with Velton's Bonsai Blend mocha's (Bethany's was iced and Jason's was hot) and we ended with cups of Velton's Twilight Blend. If we didn't need sleep, we'd drink Velton's coffee 24 hours a day!

Any treats for you or your dogs on this occasion?

We won a bag of Chewed Shoes Peanut Butter Bacon Bites at a Doney Clinic fundraiser that have been the dogs absolute favorite "I will do anything for that" treat. We had exactly three left so this seemed like the perfect occasion for the dogs to enjoy them!

How did your dogs get their names? Any nicknames?

All the dogs call names come from their breeds country of origin and their kennel names are all songs from Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks." Wilhelm [photo left] truly came to us by "A Simple Twist of Fate," nothing describes Brychwyn better than "Tangled Up In Blue" and Huxley's dam is named Storm so he had to be "Shelter From the Storm." We also like the meanings of their call names: Wilhelm means "protector," Brychwyn means "speckled holy one" and Huxley means "outdoors-man." If we listed all of their nicknames, our coffee would get cold.

How were you and your dogs united?

We got Wilhelm as Jason's first puppy and as a dog for Tynan (our founding dog; a rescued Chesapeake bay retriever/lab mix) to share all of his wisdom with. Wilhelm was devastated when Tynan died so we got Brychwyn to keep him company. And we got Huxley [photo right] to be our big dog and watch over us all as our shepherd. It kind of takes two dogs to fill the huge void Tynan left. Wilhelm loves his new pack and there is so much joy in training and traveling with such a diverse group.

Where do your dogs most like to visit on an outing?

Definitely the pet store (we have three within walking distance.) Even if we don't have a plan to run a pet store errand, when we round the corner on a pet store block, the dogs try to lead us there!

Do the dogs have any non-canine pet pals?

Gryphon is our sage, 19-year-old cat who shares his many years of life experience with the dogs, Amelia is our agile, 5-year-old kitty who plays tag and wrestles with the dogs and Leo is our Triton cockatoo who drops food to and yells at the dogs. Leo also does a great impression of a squeaky toy.

Squirrel, cat, postman...?

Definitely squirrel. Our neighborhood mail carriers give the dogs treats.

Squeaky toy, ball, stick...?

Stick: readily available no matter where we roam.

What is each dog's best quality?

Wilhelm is a genius who tries to hide it and get by on his adorable looks. Brychwyn [photo left] is a genius who wishes his brains were more obvious than his good looks (and he tries to tell us all but we just hear barking.) Huxley is a genius who will very soon turn the door knob with his snout and leave us to go to college for a doctorate in Manipulative Psychology. Those are their best personality qualities... their best physical qualities is that they all have the cutest, fluffy butts and adorable feet!

If your dogs could change one thing about other Cascadians, what would it be?

They'd like to see no more illegally unleashed dogs. Maybe they just feed off of us human Cascadian Nomads being upset by illegally unleashed dogs, but it does bother the dogs to see it happen (they bark and whine... Walk interrupted!) And if Cascadians don't stop illegally unleashing, then dogs will stop being welcomed in as many places in Cascadia and we know our dogs wouldn't want that.

If Hollywood made a movie about your life in which your dogs could speak, which actors should do their voices?

Huxley: Mike "Stuart McKenzie" Meyers
Brychwyn: Wallace "Vizzini" Shawn
Wilhelm: Mark "Neidermeyer" Metcalf

If your dogs could answer only one question in English, what would you ask them?

Why? And they'd likely answer "because," we'd all get a good chuckle and snuggle up for a nap. Or, they might be totally frank and explain all of life's/dogs mysteries, we'd all get a good chuckle and snuggle up for a nap.

Visit the Cascadian Nomads website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

--Marshal Zeringue