What a day!

During our trip, we decided to spend some time in a new place where we'd never camped before or explored the trails. Things went a bit astray while we were there.

The weather continued to be tumultuous, with flash flood watches and lots of lightning. We were camped in a spot where the fog tended to settle.

It even got cold enough for our first taste of snow. Believe it or not, this was just a touch... there would more later in the trip.

On our first morning in the new spot, we awakened to hear Shyla doing the "freight train" sounds that come before vomiting. We managed to get her out of the LabMobile before we had a big indoor mess to clean up. When we went outside as she vomited, we saw that the LabMobile had a flat tire. It wasn't shaping up to be the greatest day of the trip, and the sun hadn't risen yet.

Alas, by lunchtime, Shyla had vomited about 15 times. She seemed forlorn and exhausted. It was time to find a vet before dehydration became an issue since Shyla couldn't even hold down water. Fortunately, the Runner had already put the spare tire on the LabMobile so we were able to go.

We quickly packed up the LabMobile and headed to the nearest town. Ironically, as we'd driven through it previously, the Runner had pointed out where the local vet hospital was. I'd laughed and said "but we don't need a vet!". Ha - the joke was on me.

We lucked out, and the vet could see us right away (even though we couldn't call ahead due to no cell phone service). On the way there, R had started drooling like an open faucet so we brought him to be examined too. The vet gave Shyla some fast-acting meds to stop the vomiting, and she gave both dogs antibiotics for their guts. She also sent us away with fluids to give Shyla subcutaneously if she became dehydrated. The vet was a little worried that Shyla had an intestinal obstruction, which would have meant that she'd keep vomiting despite the meds...

Thank goodness - both dogs seemed to improve almost immediately. Whew. We felt like we'd dodged a bullet.

We were all overjoyed.

We spent one more night close to that vet just in case we needed her again. She'd kindly even given us her pager number in case we needed her in the middle of the night. Everything still seemed fine the next morning and early afternoon so we headed back into the hinterlands.

And it snowed, a lot, at just slightly higher elevations than where we were camped. But more about that later!

I think it's the earliest that I've ever encountered a substantial snow even high in the Rockies.

Shyla and the rest of us were happy again!

A Bond

It takes time to build a bond of love with a dog. It's especially tricky when your last dog was a heart dog.

Over this past week, it's hit me quite suddenly that Shyla has become part of me. When she looks in my eyes, I utter those magic words, "I love you", without even thinking.

Together, we've fought our demons. Shyla's demons are all the peculiar aspects of normal human life that can terrify her. Mine are many - but she's helped me to begin to heal from losing K. Together, we are emerging from the shadows and finding our way.

When I spotted this view today, it reminded me of hope superimposed on cold reality. I love the juxtaposition of the swelling aspen buds and the snowy mountains. It's like the overlapping of my growing love for Shyla and the gradual healing of my heart from losing my K.

I feel lucky.

Ears and eyes

Shyla and I are racing out each morning, trying to catch the magic sunrise light while it's still at an hour that I can handle.

She has a favorite boulder. The odd thing is that it's one of the only boulders that K never stood on. So, this one is "Shyla's Boulder". 

This year, I've learned that the sunrise light hits this boulder around the winter solstice and then again around the spring equinox. It was cold and windy this morning, so we both sought sunny spots.

Shyla woke up in the middle of the night pawing at one ear. She wasn't her usual bundle of energy this morning...

Indeed, a trip to the vet told us that she had an ear infection. She was a superstar - so very courageous - at the vet, giving everyone kisses who came near her!

My vet mentioned again how happy she was that Shyla is spayed now. Apparently, many bitches around here go into heat at about the spring equinox (March 21).

I'm glad that Shyla never went into heat in the midst of the coyotes who live all around us. Here's a goofball youngster playing  for the camera in our clearing.

And, here's an adult who I believe has something wrong with his left eye. Notice the lack of eye shine in it.

Here is the same adult, with his right eye showing. It does have eye shine.

I believe that I've captured photos of this same individual near our house. Look at how little eye shine he has even in a bright white camera flash.

By contrast, here's a youngster with very shiny eyes.

Long time readers might remember that our alpha male coyote had a wound near his left eye last winter. It looked serious and perhaps infected. I wonder if he lost the sight in that eye, and now we are seeing his dull eye in my photos.

I think that he also lost his alpha status in our coyote pack. Last year, he always traveled right next to a female, and I believed that they were the breeding pair in our coyote pack. Only one pair per pack breeds, and the other coyotes help raise the pups. I'm betting that there's a new alpha male, and our coyote with the damaged eye is now a "helper".

As for my health, I found out the hospital's computer system crashed badly last week, and they do not know when it will be fixed (but it won't be soon). I'm quitting worrying about the biopsy (because the pathology report is lost in the computer someplace). There's no point in ruining perfectly good days over something out of my control.

Good news about R

Good news today - R's test for leukemia/lymphoma came back as normal. We're relieved about that, but there is still the issue of figuring out why his blood cells have been increasingly abnormal over the past 6 months. We'll be consulting some more experts, without a doubt. But, for today, we're relieved.

Here R is sitting next to his sister during an evening hike. Several of you have asked if Shyla is "petite", and indeed she is. She recently gained about 6 lbs of muscle but she still is a very small Labrador. I love her size (48 lbs).

We took last week off from socialization training in town while Shyla recovered from her spay surgery. Now, the only remaining sign of her surgery is her shaved patch.

So, we restarted Shyla's socialization training in town on Saturday and again today. Unfortunately, it has not gone as well as I hoped. Her sensitivity to loud sounds seems amped up, and her fearful reactions to strange people and objects seems to have become more extreme again.

Today, we spent an hour with our awesome trainer in town, and she agreed that Shyla has slid substantially backward compared to a couple of weeks ago. I have to admit that I'm feeling a bit discouraged. I like to believe that, if I try hard enough, I can achieve whatever goals I make. Yet, that's not necessarily true when it comes to socializing Shyla, at least not yet. I knew, when I met Shyla, that overcoming an isolated puppyhood is extremely difficult but I threw my heart into it.

We may still achieve that goal but I'm also beginning to accept that we may not. In any case, I'm not giving up yet. My trainer has seen dogs who started out more fearful than Shyla who eventually, after a year or more of training, became normal dogs who could handle everything that life threw at them.

The good news is that, no matter what, we have grown to love Shyla, and we're blessed to have her in our life, even if she's not comfortable with some parts of the bustling world. Moreover, she adores the mountains, forests, and meadows where she spends the majority of her time. She's never scared when she's out in nature.

I won't go into details about her basic training of everyday essential behaviors (heel, stay, etc.) or the details of her new "tricks", except to say that her "basic" training is still going stunningly well. I realized today that her vocabulary of "commands" now exceeds 20!

And she has grown to adore playing retrieving games. Most mornings, I bring a retrieving toy on our snowbike ride but I forgot today. Shyla found a stick, and brought it to me for a game of fetch. She now is almost obsessed with playing fetch, enthusiastically returning the object to my hand time and time again. That's a huge contrast to her apathy about retrieving when I first met her.

 Look at the fire in her eyes!

So, life is a mixed bag right now. We are grateful that R doesn't seem to have cancer. We are grateful that Shyla adores life in the mountains and training games. And, we hope that she can eventually adapt to the bustle of the human world. No matter what, we'll keep loving and caring for our Labraduo.

News from the Rockies

It's already been quite a week in terms of dog news. We haven't heard about R's test yet... but I do have another piece of news. Shyla was spayed yesterday. She had a laparoscopic spay, and it seems to be an absolutely amazing surgery compared to a traditional spay. She has two tiny incisions on her belly, one where they inserted a camera and one where they inserted surgical instruments. The incisions are so small that Shyla doesn't seem to have noticed them.

Shyla is already acting as if she has no pain whatsoever. The challenge will be to keep her relatively quiet until the end of the week while she heals internally and externally. She's allowed to return to her normal level of activity 5 days post-surgery.

This morning, Shyla was ready to take a short and slow walk with me to see the sunrise. We actually arrived at our view spot early, and we saw incredible alpenglow on the Continental Divide.

Then, we looked to the east just as the sun was cresting the hills.

I was so happy to have Shyla watching the sunrise with me - I missed her yesterday. After seeing how rapidly she has felt good after this surgery, I think that all our future female dogs will have laparoscopic spays rather than traditional ones.

I didn't want her to stretch her belly or to run so we did a sedentary training game. I had her hold a rope toy and then I asked her to wave to me at the same time.

Pretty good - especially for a dog who was having surgery less than 24 hours before this photo!

I think that the hardest part of the procedure for Shyla was being at the vet clinic for the day without us. Each time I called to check on her, I was told that she was doing great physically but seemed scared. They said that she was scared of the people working there and of noises.

The good news was that, by the end of the day, she'd overcome her fear of "her" technician and was giving the tech kisses. Nonetheless, I'm glad it's over and that Shyla seems very happy now. After all the ups and downs of teaching her to navigate the "real world", I was quite worried that the psychological aspects of the surgery (being "alone" at the clinic for the day) would scar her. Based on her demeanor today, I think that she's going to be just fine.

There is preliminary evidence that neutering at an older age than is usual in the US might help the body's joints to mature correctly and prevent cancers later in life. Initially, my goal was to wait until Shyla was 18 months old before spaying her. However, I received warnings from local vets about the wildlife dangers to a dog in heat. My nightmare vision was of a pack of coyotes howling outside our house 24 hours a day if Shyla were to go into heat. Apparently, that kind of thing does happen (although my nightmare was greatly exaggerated compared to reality). So, we decided to prevent that scenario from happening by spaying Shyla a little earlier than planned.

We know that we have coyotes all around us based on my wildlife camera photos. I capture photos of them near our house every single night, and that was a big part of why I worried so much.

In any case, a big hurdle for Shyla is now behind us. She can recover this week and then get back to her normal very active life!

Sunrise and mountain lions

I'm trying to climb up high fast enough to see our December sunrises during Shyla's hike each morning. So far, the clouds have been the story of the sunrises...

It was amazing how fast my state of mind changed after I learned that the vets truly don't think that Shyla has bone cancer or a bone infection. All of a sudden, I was whining about an 8 week recovery. I realized that I needed an "attitude adjustment" this morning. It's something that will heal, and that is awesome news! It could have been catastrophic news.

My vet verified that the recovery process still has 8 weeks to go. To figure out how fast to increase Shyla's activity, our vet said to quantify Shyla's normal level of activity. Then, I should incrementally increase her activity (both total hiking distance and off-leash time) by 1/8 each week so that she reaches "normal" by the end of the recovery time. That makes sense to me.

Since the recovery will go on for a long time, I decided to start teaching Shyla some of the non-strenuous parts of agility before the agility course is literally hidden under the snow. The teeter-totter is quite scary for some dogs. I teach it by propping both ends of it up so that it is like a solid ramp to start with. I am teaching Shyla to walk back and forth on it so that it becomes familiar. The lower end of the ramp is only 1.5' off the ground so it's not a big jump for her.

Soon, I'll change the "props" on both ends so that the teeter-totter tips by 1" or so as Shyla goes over the fulcrum. Then, I'll gradually make the tipping action bigger and bigger. By this technique, K learned to love the teeter-totter in short order despite being a slightly fearful dog.

In other news, it turns out that the mountain lions are enjoying the early morning hours just like me and Shyla! But, they get themselves to remote terrain by the time the sun rises. A big male visited a scent post that I've been monitoring for three years continuously.

He arrived and spotted the soft red glow from the camera.

He walked over to check it out.

He turned back toward the base of the tree - which has been marked by approximately a zillion animals in three years.

He paused at the base, sniffing the scents.

Then he did something unique. He circled the tree.

Finally, he scraped the ground with his huge hind paws, and doubtless left a few drops of urine to announce that he is the undisputed King.

Then, he departed. He followed a "standard" mountain lion route. I've followed their tracks in the snow along this route on many occasions. It doesn't go on any trails. Rather, the route skirts the trails, keeping the lions out of sight of the trails. Over the course of his journey through our neck of the woods, he visited a couple of other trail cameras but I'll save those photos for another day!

A male mountain lion will be aggressive toward mountain lion kittens and even their mothers so I wonder if there was any interaction between this guy and the female who we've been following. Based on how fast he moved through the forest, I'm guessing not.

I do believe that the sudden influx of mountain lions has to do with the huge elk herd (about 150-strong) gracing our neck of the woods right now.

Lions love elk and so do I, but for different reasons!

Have Patience

Shyla is still recuperating, as my vet has reminded me, and she has to stay on a leash except for 2 minutes out of every hike. Apparently, her leg has what appears to be an old fracture from a "blunt force injury" so the biggest rule is to avoid letting Shyla bang her leg on a log or anything else.

We did a reconaissance hike this morning, looking for signs of wildlife. We found an amazing bear day bed, with a scat next to it, while the weather was still good. As we emerged from the depths of the forest after our exploring, Shyla said, "Please, please, let me run!".  I had to reply with "not yet, girl - have patience".

Then, the snow started to fly as Shyla and I arrived in the meadow where she's allowed to run for a couple of minutes each day. This photo was an accident but I love the effect of the slow shutter speed on the snowflakes on her head.
Then, it was time to run. Shyla seems to have realized that she gets a very short time to go wild each day. Yesterday, she appeared to have a Zen moment of contemplation while I asked her to sit-stay before running.

But then, less than a half second later, she was off like a runaway freight train.

Her ears were pinned backward by the wind of her running.

What an athlete. I can't wait until she can mountain bike with me.

The pattern was similar this morning, except for the flying snow. For her two minutes, she sprinted in circles around me like a high speed greyhound racer. I interrupted her to practice recalls or sudden "downs", but aside from that, she just zoomed!

Until she's allowed to bike with me, we'll keep on hiking, gradually increasing our overall distance and the time that Shyla spends off leash. In the vet's most recent message, she seemed to imply that Shyla had to "take it easy" for another 6-8 weeks! Holy Moly - we may not survive if that's true! And, there may be no zippers left in any jackets in our house! I called to clarify (hoping that the message was wrong) but I haven't heard back yet.

I guess that the upside is that we have lots of time for training, to teach Shyla to come when called even when some of the temptations of our forest are nearby. I'm already amazed at Shyla's obedience around wild animals so we have a good foundation!

I'm so glad that the big bull elk, who bugled all autumn at sunrise and sunset, survived the hunting seasons!