The following morning was the first day of the Touring Pro Division World Finals. It started out like every other day in Las Vegas. Echo woke Renee up for her morning walk. When they returned from the potty walk, Renee took a shower and went to wake up Horatio.

The three of them went to the restaurant for breakfast. After eating is when things got a little different. Renee left her brother and Echo at the restaurant so that Renee could run to the T-Mobile Arena to grab the Border Patrol bite suit.

With the bite suit in hand, the three of them called a taxi to head to South Point Casino to do the demo and hang out with the bull riders.

As they approached the casino, Renee noticed the vast amount of bullpens with bulls inside of them. She quickly unrolled the window. She wanted to smell the bulls. She grew up on a farm.

Her mother was a French teacher at the local college, but they had a farm with cows, goats, horses, and chickens. She greatly missed the smell of the cows. They had about a hundred head of cattle.

Taking a deep breath, Renee looked over at her brother.

"What, H. I grew up with cows, and I miss the smell of them."
Her brother didn't say a word. He just shook his head and chuckled softly.

While in the Taxicab, Horatio could hear his sister talking, but he couldn't understand the language that she was speaking.

Curious, he asks her a question.

"What language are you speaking out of curiosity?"

Renee's answer was not what her brother was expecting.

"Portuguese, a lot of the riders are Brazilian, and they speak Portuguese in Brazil. I have a mind for languages, as I am sure you are aware of. In fact, I speak six languages besides English. I speak French, Spanish, Russian, Farsi, Dari, and Pashto. Picking up Portuguese was easy since I already speak French and Spanish."

"This way, I can talk to the riders, and I will not need a translator to do it. I've been learning it for the last year. You know I have insomnia, so to past the time at night, I have been learning Portuguese."

Now Horatio couldn't argue with his sister since he only speaks really English. Conversational Spanish, but he is by no means fluent in it.

Pulling up to the casino, neither Horatio nor Renee knew where they were going. Just as Renee was approaching a casino worker to ask, they both heard a familiar voice.

Turning around, they find Shorty. Shorty and Renee were best friends since preschool. As they were walking, the two friends started talking about the old days.

"Do you still sit at the bottom of the swimming pool just to mess with people? Do you still make people more scared of you than any bully?"

"I remember when we were in third grade in PE. The new kid who was a bully was mad at you for beating him in both wrestling and martial arts.
So during the month of swimming, he held you down in the pool until you stopped moving."

"The teacher came in after I pulled you out. I was doing CPR on you, and the teacher asked the class who it was that did it. Without hesitation, everyone pointed out the new kid out. They were more scared of you than the bully."

"Since then, you trained yourself to hold your breath for longer than anyone else. You would stop moving, and they thought that you passed out. Only for you to come up out of the water and land a solid left hook on them." Shorty finishes talking to Renee and waits for her reaction.

"Yes, I still do that. I scared my brother more times than anyone else. I do remember you saving me. I also remember when I saved you.

Remember when you were getting attacked by my bull in our Junior year in high school. He wanted to kill you so bad. I had to get on my horse and rope him. Sierra and I needed to drag him away. He was mighty pissed that he couldn't get to you."

"Sierra died two months ago. She ended up serving five years at the border and eight years with New Orleans PD. She fell down in her pasture and broke her shoulder. They needed to put her down."

"That mare saved your life and my life when I was fourteen years old. She attacked a mountain lion that wanted to kill me. She saved many at the border and NOPD." Renee finished talking to Shorty.

Finishing the conversation as they get to the location of the Western Gift Expo. Shorty left the two others. He needed to go to Flint's show Outside the Barrel.

"Where is the Marine's booth?" Renee asked the greeter stationed at the entrance of the Expo.

"Go left and all the way to the end of the row. It is just around the corner. You can't miss it." The greeter finished with a question.

"Are you here to do the police dog demo? Ty told us you'd be here yesterday afternoon."

"Yes, I guess that the bite suit gave it away. That isn't for two hours, though. Thought that I might go over and do the Marine's pull-up challenge."

"I was a Marine, and I was the one who set their record for pull-ups. For the record, I am a little out of shape, but I know that I can do at least five hundred pull-ups and eight hundred push-ups."

She brought Horatio and Echo with her to the Marines booth. Renee starts to do pull-ups. One of the older Marines started to count out loud. After a while, a crowd had built up around the table.

When the counter was up to four hundred, everyone in the building must have been in the crowd: all the riders and the fans were there counting Renee's pull-ups.

When everyone reached five hundred, Renee drops down to the ground. By this time, she is slightly out of breath.

While Renee was doing the pull-ups, Flint Rasmussen approached
Horatio to talk to him.

Renee had noticed that happen but had no idea what they talked about since Flint had left before she had finished her challenge.

"What did Flint want?" Renee asked Horatio, but he never answered her question.

The time of the demo was upon them. Shorty came out wearing the bite suit. Renee had already told him what to do and how to get Echo playing her favorite game.

When Renee gave the dog the protect command, Echo ran after the bullfighter. Shorty may have been used to a bull chasing him, but that is nothing compared to a police dog chasing him.

He knew it was coming, but the dog's bite and strength still took him by surprise. Echo hitting him felt like getting hit by a Mack Truck. Shorty got knocked down, and Echo was holding on, and he couldn't shake her.
After a few minutes of Echo biting and shaking, Renee walks up and tells the police canine the release command.

"Aus, Echo… Aus." A command that the dog responded to immediately.
With Echo, playing with her rope toy was her reward. Renee helps her friend up. "A huge thank you to Shorty Gorham," Renee tells the crowd as she helps her friend up and out of the bite suit.

As the crowd dissipates, the two friends talk candidly about what happened.

"Echo can hit harder than a lot of the bulls I fight. Honestly, I would rather fight a bull any day than face a police dog. You can avoid the bulls to a point, but you can't avoid that fur missile." Shorty tells his friend.

Getting to his feet, Shorty looks at his old friend. By this time, the day was almost over. This was going to be the first night of the Touring Pro Division of the PBR World Finals.

"What are you guys doing for tonight's event?" Shorty asks Renee.

"Well, Horatio, Echo, and I were planning on watching it from the stands," Renee responds to her childhood friend.

"That will not do. You guys will be my guests for the next week," Shorty tells Renee.

"Do you have a pair of boots and Wrangler Jeans like you always use to wear?" Shorty casually asks his friend.

"No, since joining the Marines, I only wear cargo pants and combat boots. Why?"

"You can't wear that to a rodeo event, Smidge," Shorty says, winking at his friend.

"I just need to take you to Boot Barn to get you a pair of boots and jeans for the week. You too, Horatio."

Shorty was the first to comment on the fact that H was wearing a casual suit every day.

Walking into Boot Barn, Renee was surprised by the sheer size of the building.

Renee was never a picky girl. She wore what was comfortable. Due to her small size, it was hard for her to find her size in the woman's department. Walking into the junior section, she quickly found her size.

Renee was an x-small in tops and a size 14/16 junior pants. She was a size 7 in boots, so that was the easy part of this excursion.

Renee quickly settled on a pair of black fatbaby boots by Ariat. She picked out a black pair of Wrangler jeans and a couple of long-sleeved button-down plaid western shirts. Adding a black leather belt to match her jeans and boots.

Horatio picked a pair of black wrangler jeans that looked a bit more dress than the other ones. His boots were black dress boots.