Black and White Sunday

I've wanted to participate in Black and White Sunday on many occasions but I've had trouble figuring out what makes a compelling black and white photo. For this week, I tried a photo with lots of contrast. Bright sunlight was filtering through the trees behind Shyla and appears like bokeh in the photo.

I like this one better than my past attempts but I'm still learning. I find myself wondering how Ansel Adams lived without color!

Happy Black and White Sunday!

Elk and Mountain Lions

Our normal "changing of the guard" in wildlife is underway. In the fall, the elk herd arrives, and eats the dry grass from the meadows around us. The elk herd is obvious. What is less obvious is the predators that lurk in the forests around the herd.

For the past couple of years, the herd has been arriving in small fragments much earlier than in past years. When they arrive, they're still in the tail end of the rutting season. The bulls act defensive about "their" cows and bugle occasionally.

On the day that I took these photos, about a week ago, the entire herd was together for the first time. We estimated about 90 elk were hanging out in one 100 acre meadow.

The biggest bull still seemed quite interested in the tail-ends of the cows.

The younger bulls were sneaking around the edges of the herd, avoiding the big guy.

The younger bulls sparred with each other, perhaps preparing for a future year when they could be the Kings. In the next photo, two sets of bulls are sparring - the very young ones in the foreground and two slightly bigger ones in the background.

It was clearly a practice sparring session. When one stumbled, the other waited for him to right himself.

With the arrival of the elk, more mountain lions prowl in our area. These photos were taken on the same day as the elk photos, but they were deep in the forest where the snow doesn't melt quickly. A mother mountain lion (far right) and her almost full-grown kitten (left) passed my trail camera.

This photo gives you a vision of how big the kitten is. I bet that he'll be striking out on his own before too long. Notice that mom is lingering, waiting for him.

Then, the kitten started acting goofy, lying on the ground and rubbing his ears. In the next photo, you can see that he has an ear tag in his right ear for an ongoing study in our area. However, I believe that this is the same pair as I posted about back in July, when this kitten had a transmitter and antenna attached to his left ear. Back then, he was rubbing his left ear obsessively, apparently trying to get rid of the transmitter.

It appears to me that he succeeded. There is no green transmitter and no antenna that I can see. Moreover, the tip of his left ear looks droopier than mountain lion ears usually look.

His rubbing still appeared to be focused on his left ear, either out of habit or because he hurt the ear when he ripped out the transmitter.

He kept at it for what seemed like a long time. Mom didn't reappear on camera.

He looked up a few times, letting me confirm that there was no transmitter in his left ear. I also liked seeing his handsome face.

I also thought that his left ear looked a little odd... but it's hard to be sure.

Finally, he shook as he stood up.

And, he was on his way, following his mother. This all took place about a half mile from where I captured photos of the pair in July.

In this session, the kitten had spent about 4 minutes fussing with his ear. Although I know that valuable information is being gained from the study, I have to wonder how much time and energy the kitten has spent rubbing his ear. So, from the point of view of the impact on each individual lion, I have some worries about the study.

I hope that you're having a fabulous Saturday!

See Beautiful

It is "See Beautiful" Friday again. The past month has flown by but it has not been an easy month. For me, it's been a month of relentless pain, forcing me to try hard to look for the beauty around me. It would be easy to hang my head and march through life, feeling like the world was bleak.

I feel lucky that I live in a place that I find so gloriously beautiful almost every day. The beauty in nature and in my dogs pulls me out of my despair, time and time again.

The Rocky Mountain area has tumultuous weather, including Chinook winds that sweep down out of the high mountains every winter. They've hit this week as you can tell by Shyla's ears. Although the wind is easy to hate, I convince myself that I love its fury every winter. I love the beauty of Shyla's ears flying in the wind.

This morning, we had the early morning light and the wind at the same time. Shyla was a good sport, letting me photograph her with flapping ears.

The lulls in the wind feel so peaceful.

This evening, the wind had died down, and we were treated to an incredible sunset over the mountains.

After the sun had gone down, the entire eastern sky turned pink and orange. It was Nature's glory on full display.

As we started to hike home, I glanced over my shoulder to the west. Oh my, the beauty was beyond words.

The moon added to the beauty, peeking through the dusky sky as a thin sliver.

The beauty of our world makes me so happy. I dreamed of living someplace like this when I was young. Now, I'm living the dream.

Happy!

Shyla plays hard. She never runs at half speed - it's always full speed ahead!

During our morning mountain bike rides, she seems to float across the meadows like an angel on Earth. Physically, she's at her absolute prime.

But, she can also look ferocious, completely by accident. This was the instant before a sneeze. It made me chuckle.

And, when she gets home from romping through the meadows, she snoozes in sun puddles with her brother. They are such good friends. Aside from the pair of littermates who were in our family years ago, these two have the strongest bond that I've seen.

As I looked at the photos from our day, I realized that Shyla completely loves her life, all parts of it, and I am so happy about that!

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Birthday to R

Believe it or not, our Cracker Dog, R, recently turned 6 years old!

He's now the lead dog, the elder statesdog, and the wise dog! After flourishing under the tutelage of K, he now is teaching Shyla the ways of the world.

But, don't you worry. He still has his goofy side. I tried to take a nice portrait of him during his birthday hike, and this was the look that he gave me! The Runner has trained him well!

When R plays with his little sister, he still gets the craziest looks on his face that almost scare me.

One of the things that R has re-found since Shyla arrived is playing. K was a serious dog who focused on humans, and she didn't play with R very much. In contrast, Shyla adores wrestling and racing with R. Shyla is so fast that she has forced R to raise his game to a whole new level. I think that sticking out his tongue must help R run faster!

R is now our link with the past. He's known two elder generations of our family's Labs in his lifetime. Of course, he knew K. And, some of you may remember our yellow lab, S, who was about 14 years old when R burst onto the scene. For some reason, the links between generations of dogs are very important to us humans. It makes us feel as if our current dogs were partly shaped by our very first dogs.

I've loved every generation of dogs in our family, and I love this one. R might seem like a crazy tough guy but, in fact, he's sensitive and sweet. That's become even more obvious as he's moved into the role of the older brother.

Happy Birthday to R!!!! Here's Shyla singing Happy Birthday to him!

For his birthday, R and Shyla have been sharing a steak that they've eaten a little bit of each night. They'll finish it off tonight! Yum!

A Huge Breakthrough for Shyla

Something extraordinary has happened. Shyla, who was so afraid of strangers and most of the world when she arrived with us 14 months ago, has become a rambunctious outgoing dog!

We went to a training class yesterday, one that we haven't attended since before the floods. As soon as we arrived at the park where the class was being held, I could tell that Shyla was happier and more outgoing than I've ever seen in her in town. She didn't shy away from the screaming children in the parking lot or the stroller that we passed as we exited the car. In fact, she handled many of her former fear triggers (even skateboards!) incredibly smoothly throughout our time in that park. Unbelievable!

Then, when we arrived in the training group, Shyla acted like a rambunctious Lab puppy, desperately wanting to meet every person. When a person paid attention to her, she almost wiggled out of her skin with happiness. In fact, my biggest training issue was preventing her from jumping on people!

It was truly incredible to watch Shyla. I knew that she was acting goofy and out of control. However, honestly, I didn't care that she was being "badly behaved". I was too busy being thrilled to see the real Shyla finally shine through. I always knew how loving she is but I was never sure, until now, that she'd find the courage to show her true nature to people who she didn't know well.

I give my trainer tons of credit for this breakthrough. My trainer taught me about never forcing Shyla to "face her fears" but rather teaching Shyla that she always had the choice of retreating if she felt scared. It's a whole new way of training fearful dogs, and it really works! It lets the fearful dog decide how fast they want to learn about the world. It puts the process in their control.

We went to town again today for my physical therapy appointment, and I saw that yesterday was no fluke. Shyla was a social butterfly, wanting to make friends with everyone in the waiting room. I started the "next phase" of training which is to teach Shyla how to have "appropriate interactions" with people. Because she hasn't wanted to approach strangers until now, I haven't yet taught her how to behave when she meets people. It seemed today as if she will learn fast. Sitting earns her lots of pats while acting like a wild puppy makes people back away. She was sitting like crazy by the end of today, wanting people to pat her!

I am so proud of my girl. She's faced her demons and she's come so far. And, in the process, she's won my heart completely.

Last, but not least, I want to send the Power of the Paw to our friend Tweedles. She has been very sick, and we want to lend our hearts in support of her and her family. Stay strong, Tweedles, we are all with you. We took this photo especially for you...

Black and White Sunday: Black Bear and Cub

I mentioned last week that my trail cameras captured photos and footage of a black bear mother and her cub. I've dubbed this mother bear "Mabel". These photos astounded me because the pair has gained so much weight since we last saw footage of them. Here is Mabel arriving in front of a bear marking tree. It looks to me as if she was lying in a bed of leaves for a while and many of them are stuck to her fur.

A short time later, her cub arrived. This cub is in superb shape for the start of winter. S/he has so much fat!

Then, mom exited the picture while her cub stood up to sniff (and perhaps mark) the tree.

I was lucky enough to capture footage of them in three different locations. The photos above are from the last location. I put together a video that shows them in three different spots along a mile or so walk.

You can enjoy the video here or at Youtube.

I suspect that Mabel and her cub are tucked away, starting their winter snooze now. During an outing the other day, I found bear cub tracks heading toward the bear den that I know so well because it was used by a bear family a few years ago. My fingers are crossed that one of our bear families will choose that den so that we can watch them this winter! It's a big enough den for a whole family!

Days to Savor

We are having a glorious last hurrah of autumn this weekend. Shyla and I were out in a warm (30°F) sunrise this morning.

After the clocks "fall back", sunrise will be tougher to see for a little while so we lived it up!

I brought along one of Shyla's favorite toys, and we played in the golden light.

This photo is the definition of happiness for a retriever!

Now, we're off to take a walk for sunset. This is a weekend to be savored!