A Severe Disturbance!

You have come through in a huge way with suggestions and offers of help with R's surgery, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. At this point, we are in a holding pattern, awaiting replies from surgeons. There's a strong chance that we'll be traveling someplace to have the surgery done. Because I am very stressed out about R's elbow, I am going to try to write about something else today! How about that?

We're in a scary weather pattern. Here, at 8200' in the Rockies, it hit 62° yesterday, and we have wind gusts that the meteorologists say have hit 100 mph at times. The warmth is the scary part - it's supposed to be winter here.

As you can imagine, our snowpack is disappearing fast. In shaded areas and on north-facing slopes, there's still a lot of snow. However, some sunny spots have no snow at all.

Shyla loves snow so she seeks out snow patches in mostly dry meadows for playing.

She loves taking flying leaps whenever she's near snow. She catches me by surprise sometimes with her ability to fly.

 

Thank goodness she can make safe landings.

Our weather is being called a "severe wind event" by the National Weather Service. The forest is a cacophony of noise these days. The wind howls through the treetops, and I can hear trees squeaking and crackling as they feel the brunt of the wind. Each day, we see newly fallen trees in the forest around us.

It's been clear to me that wind is still scary for Shyla. The signs are subtle. Shyla is happy and relaxed as long as she and I are together, with no one else around, even if we are being buffeted by the wind.

However, she relapses into the behavior of a very fearful dog when other people and dogs are near us in the howling wind. This phenomenon is called "trigger stacking", meaning that she is simultaneously dealing with more than one thing that is stressful. Either one alone - the wind or the strangers - would be manageable. However, she cannot cope with both simultaneously.

I'm making a big point of using rarely-traveled routes and being out early so that Shyla doesn't have to deal with outsiders. Today, we didn't see anyone at all during our snowbike ride. That was perfect for Shyla! (and for me too!).

I feel so lucky to be her safe harbor. She has a heart of gold.