I took Hachi out on a mountain bike ride. That is one of the amazing gifts of living where we do. There's so much private space that a reactive pup can be off-leash with me!
It was the happiest that I've ever seen Hachi during a solo outing with me. He didn't seem worried. He didn't seem wary. He ran like the wind and with such happiness.
It was a slice of time with Hachi that I used to only dream of.
As I ride my bike through our glorious autumn world, I am stopped in my tracks by the beauty. These days, the autumn joy makes me look back at other joyful parts of my life.
Black Dog Joy will never leave me.
I must say a huge thank you to commenters who pointed out that chokecherries can be poisonous to dogs after I wrote about Shyla gorging on them. I'd erroneously assumed that chokecherries are fine for dogs because bears and coyotes both eat them. Dogs are in the same family as those animals, which led to my false sense of security.
Here's an example of a bear scat at this time of year. It is composed almost entirely of chokecherry pits. And it's the biggest black bear scat that I've ever seen! That's my foot next to it.
After your comments alerted me to the danger of chokecherries to dogs, I searched the internet, turning up site after site that said that they could be fatal. I don't know how Shyla dodged that catastrophe despite having poop that looked almost like that bear's. But she did, and I am so grateful for it. Thanks to all of you, we are not allowing her to eat chokecherries anymore. That is a challenge, since the bushes are all over our land but we're managing to do it.
Over the past week, autumn has arrived, and Shyla is here to enjoy it. She loves the cooler weather. She dashes through the aspen groves in a picturesque way that causes me to pull out my camera.
A couple of nights ago, both the Runner and I were out getting the garden ready for the cold and for the bear. I was putting frost blankets on our beds, hoping that the frost would not kill everything. The Runner was putting up an electric fence, hoping to deter the bear from eating the whole garden. We both succeeded.
As we worked, we heard the ethereal sound of an elk bugling on the hillside above us. His high pitched bellow echoed off the valley walls. It is the season when elk are busy making calves. One male gathers a group of female elk, and he works so hard to keep them with him and to prevent other bull elk from mating with them. Indeed, a bull elk who successfully keeps a harem with him might not survive the coming winter. He even forgoes eating in his quest.
Bull elk also adorn themselves with mud, grass, and urine to attract the cow elk. That started in late September in two wallows in a side valley near our house. Check out the crazy behavior of the bull elk in a video from very close to our home in Lab Valley.
We woke up the other day to find that a mama moose and her calf had spent the night in the meadow by our house. They surprised the Runner and Shyla when they went out for Shyla's dawn walk. The four eyes shining at them were a bit shocking.
We thought that they'd leave after being disturbed but they stayed nestled in the tall grass for a long time. Poor Hachi had to wait until they departed before he could go out for his first morning pee. He barks at moose so vociferously that it would've been dangerous to take him out. They didn't leave until hours after we'd all gotten out of bed.
Eventually they stood up and sidled toward the creek.
I am so thankful for our wildlife. They are an incredible part of living in Lab Valley. And, I'm saying that even though a bear ate a lot of our garden last night. He ate about half of the lettuce but left the rest of the stuff alone. The Runner got the parts for an electric fence and set it up today. We hope that Mr. Bear is deterred. I have a trail cam set up so we can know if he shows up tonight.
I love our bears, moose, elk, lions, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, and turkeys.
It's fall in Labrador Valley. Like most places, the leaves are changing and the world is an oil painting of golds and reds. Unlike most places, we have bull elk bugling in the air. A bull elk has chosen this valley for gathering and maintaining his harem.
On Friday afternoon, I was on the deck, and the high pitched elk sound called "bugling" emanated from the slope behind me. The glorious sound of a bull elk continued until it was time to take the dogs for their evening hike. We chose to go up the slope opposite the one where we thought that the elk were so that we could get a wider view.
As we crossed the creek, we looked back toward the house. There was a bull elk with his gigantic rack thrown back herding at least a dozen cow elk. They were only 50-100 yards from the house. We stopped to watch for a bit.
I have video from a trail camera of this bull elk and his harem. He bugles as he tries to keep his harem under control. Enjoy watching the crazy energy of the elk rut!
It's been a good week for Hachi. We've been focused on helping Hachi get ready for the next time that he needs to go to the vet. In the short term, we'll rely on sedation for him to be examined by a vet.
In the longer term, we're breaking down the hard parts of going to the vet into tiny steps. Here is the list of issues that scare Hachi in a vet visit. 1) Going to an unfamiliar place, 2) going to a place that smells like a vet hospital, 3) needing to be in a small room with an unfamiliar person (the vet or tech), 4) needing to be handled. If you combine all those things, you've got a dog in a vet hospital being examined by a vet.
We are working on exercises to address each of those issues. For example, to work on going to an unfamiliar place, we'll start with a friend's house where we'll walk through their door (no one will be in the house) and give Hachi a bunch of treats just inside the door. Then, we'll leave. Simple but important.
Over the coming weeks, I'll tell you a bit more about the specific exercises that we're doing to address each of the hard parts of going to the vet.
And, in the biggest news, we've been experimenting with letting Hachi and Shyla be together off-leash on our deck when there are no food items around. They don't seem to even notice that anything is different from the past. That's exactly what we were hoping for!
In the meantime, Hachi is loving being outdoors in our glorious autumn weather.
Our Black Dog loved all the seasons.
Black Dog joy lives on.
Shyla has a new nickname: "The Chokecherry Queen". This week, both pups discovered that they like chokecherries. Hachi was the first to discover them, eating bunches at a time. Shyla observed him gobbling the cherries, and she tried them. Now, she's obsessed with them - to the point of preferring to gorge on chokecherries rather than going for a hike!
The one thing that she'll ignore the chokecherries for is to cover my back when I'm photographing tiny flowers and autumn leaves.
And she adores being my photography model.
She's my best friend. Happy Shyla Saturday.
Our evening walks have wowed us recently. The level of wildlife activity is amazing. Due to the wildlife, we always keep the dogs on leash around sunrise and sunset at this time of year. The bears are eating the many acres of chokecherries in Lab Valley, and they love to appear around sunset.
The other evening, we were walking down the valley when we saw two bears emerge from an aspen grove. They both stopped in their tracks to focus on our pack. Hachi immediately started to bark so the the Runner backed him away from the bears.
Shyla has tons of experience observing bears with me so she stayed silent. I asked her to do a "down stay" next to me, and I pulled out my camera. Here were the bears watching us.
As soon as the cub got there, she started climbing. At first, she climbed only a few feet off the ground and then she stopped seemingly waiting for her mom.
The cub climbed smoothly and rapidly high into the tree while mom sat at the base of the tree.
I think that I've seen this pair before, via a trail camera at a water hole and a couple of bear marking trees. Check out the video if you have time.
Life has been so hectic this fall that I feel deep gratitude for the quiet time we had high in the mountains in August. I mountain biked ribbon-like trails in the mountains each day.
Some days, storms appeared suddenly when I was far from camp. I'd pedal hard to try to beat them back to camp. Most days, I did.
Scenes from the day of a long bike ride in the San Juan Mountains.
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| Peanut Gallery watching me! |
Deep in a gulch, there's a trail used by bears. It has bear marking trees along its sides. But bears are not the only ones who use it. Indeed, after mating season, other species dominate it. This year, a mama moose and her calf used it regularly. A humongous bull elk also frequented it. A light-footed bobcat trotted past it. And you'll see the rest in the video.
