Shyla (The Super Dog) Saturday

Shyla is my right-hand dog. We share so many parts of life. Today, we searched for mountain lion scrapes (scent marks) together. She's amazing at finding them. I never taught her how to do it. Rather, with her keen sense of smell, she was curious about them from Day 1. Then, she observed my interest in them - and the rest is history. We make a great team. I know generally where to look, and she can pinpoint the locations of the scrapes.

There's another very useful behavior that I never formally taught her. As you know, she's my most frequent photo subject. These images are from that fantabulous mountainside of yellow flowers that we saw high in the Rockies just about two weeks ago. The sea of flowers was almost as tall as Shyla.

Often, when she's my subject, I call her to me for a galloping photo with her ears flying in the air.

Because she's Shyla the Super Dog, I don't have to physically lead her back to her starting place in order to try again (I never get it right the first time). Miraculously, over the years, she and I informally worked out a system where I say "go, go" after she runs to me. She knows that "go, go" means to go back to the same starting place and wait for instructions. She's incredible to work with, and I'm so spoiled by her.

Shyla and I have reached that sweet spot in life where we can almost read each other's minds. We can work together seamlessly, as long as we both have the same goal. I remember this phase of life with Angel K but, sadly, her life ended due to cancer soon after we reached it. I hope that Shyla and I have lots of years left together. She'll turn eight soon.

Happy Shyla Saturday. I love my girl.