Black Dog Sunday

Our Black Dog has had a rough couple of weeks. He's been reluctant to go for runs, and sometimes even to go for a walk. He's been checked out by our vet who thinks that he's in physical pain - in his spine and bad elbow. We've started him on some medication that may help.

With that in mind, we weren't sure whether to do our traditional fall hike up to some lakes high in the mountains. It's not a very long hike but it involves a fair bit of hopping over obstacles and rocky ground.

We decided to try it. We thought that we'd let our Black Dog decide how far we went. After all, at just a couple of weeks shy of 12 years old, the odds were low that the hike would get easier for him in coming years.

The easy part was getting to the lake shown above. The harder part was an off-trail scramble to the lake that we've dubbed "Dog Leap Lake". R rose to the occasion. He never showed any lack of enthusiasm, and he seemed to easily make it to Dog Leap Lake, as he's done for every year of his life.

And, he was excited to play in the water once we got there.

He retrieved tennis balls, perhaps his favorite game on Earth.

And he kept going back for more!

We cut the retrieving game a bit short to make sure that R had the energy to get back to the trailhead. No problem - he did it without a problem.

He seemed to pay a price for the fun afternoon in the mountains, as he adamantly didn't want to exercise the next morning. That's okay. I paid a price too, in terms of spine pain, but it was worth it. I think that our Black Dog and I have a similar approach to life.

Happy Black Dog Sunday.