Yes, responsible dog guardians exist

Yesterday afternoon, K and I went "exploring" together. We went to an area that is mostly north-facing so we found only small shafts of sunlight filtering through the snow-bound forest. K's exuberance was infectious.

We were searching for animal signs to learn which species move through this area in the winter. In some parts of the forest, the wind had whipped the snow off the ground and to some faraway place.

In other areas, the wind had piled the snow knee-deep. K porpoised through that deep snow while wearing a snow beard.

She loves wriggling on wind-packed snow. I think that its crust scratches her back in a way that makes her euphoric.

We found lots of cool tracks in the snow showing us which animals use this area despite it being the coldest and snowiest place I've visited this winter. The elk herd had bedded down in the forest, leaving melted out ovals of snow and lots of scat. It looked like about 50 elk had slept close together. We saw almost no deer sign, and absolutely no coyote, mountain lion, or bobcat sign. Many small animals, including rabbits and squirrels had left tracks - it must be a safe place for those small animals with few predators lurking in the shadows.

Near the end of our hike, I spotted a fat and heavily furred rabbit and called K to me so she wouldn't bother him. She ignored him and bounded to me. Her three-toed paw is very obvious in this photo.

She stood calmly by my side while I took photos of the cute lagomorph. At first, he pinned his ears against his body, trying to be invisible.

Then, he began to realize that we weren't a threat and his ears perked up a little as he gave us a querulous look.

Finally, as we started to walk away, he looked gregarious. I imagine that he has a long, cold, and lonely winter in his rocky and snowy home. We were probably his first visitors in months. What a cute little guy!

This morning, I found a barrage of emails in my inbox concerning a nearby city's open space regulations. A vocal group wants dogs banned from as many parts of the land as possible. They lump all dog owners into the 'evil and irresponsible' category, a tendency that makes me sad and angry. I'm not attempting to claim that every dog owner is a saint - but it's also not true that every dog owner is irresponsible or that every dog is out of control. But, this group is so vocal that dogs are losing the right to walk on many trails in the city's open space.

My blood pressure dropped a few notches as I pedaled with K by my side to see the sun rise on our quiet and empty national forest land high above the city. I've noticed that the sun is cresting the eastern hills more to the north since the winter solstice. The best viewing spot has moved... substantially. Yes, springtime will occur again this year.

K stood atop a boulder near me surveying the land at sunrise. I think that she smelled the elk herd who grazed in a meadow below us. No, she did not chase them.

Her chocolate fur blazed almost red against the clear blue sky in the light of the rising sun.

If the rules and regulations from the nearest city ever reach our outpost, I'm moving. I simply couldn't live without my dogs on the trails with me. I should emphasize that I take my responsibility as their guardian extremely seriously. I work hard to train my dogs to be decent citizens who won't harass wildlife. And, when I think that we're in a situation where they might not be able to control themselves, I leash them. I know that I'm not the only one who is so careful. Why is every debate so polarized as "us versus them" these days?

Of course, it's a different world up here in the mountains than down in the city. K and I didn't see a single person or dog during our hike yesterday afternoon or our bike ride this morning. I like it that way.

We did see signs that our wildlife had been active overnight. Somehow, this deer with a broken antler managed to awaken R in the middle of the night and send him into a frenzy of barking. Are deer really loud enough to wake up a dog through closed windows?

Wordless Wednesday: Cerulian Morning

Coyote and dog body language

I love this photo, not for the obvious "coyote on a mission" in the foreground but for the coyotes in the background. One appears to be inviting the other to play using a classic "romping" posture that we've all seen our dogs use.

Coyotes look bigger than they actually are. When they stand under our birdfeeders, they look only slightly smaller than our dogs. However, the data say that adult coyotes range in size from 18 to 44 lbs. My dogs weigh around 60 lbs so much of the coyotes' bulk is fur.

I've been in a dry spell at my other wildlife cameras. I arrived at one of them today to discover that, for the first time since I set up the camera, the wind had blown away the snow so that I could see the pine-needle covered ground around the camera. My eyes were drawn like magnets to two piles of mountain lion scat just behind the camera. "Ah ha", I thought, "I do have a good spot here". I just need to adjust the camera in case the spot currently *behind* the camera is habitually used by mountain lions for scent marking. So, I did - and we'll see if my luck improves soon. It's a hobby that is teaching me patience, patience, patience.

K and I went for our sunrise snow bike ride today. The mountains glowed in the light of the sun just cresting the eastern hills.

I pedaled all the way to Hug Hill without getting bogged down in snow drifts, for the first time in at least a week. When we get to the top, K knows that I like to have her do tricks and other training games. Often, I just wait to see what trick she "offers" me. Today, K surprised me by offering an old favorite from before her toe amputation. She perched and balanced precariously atop a stump.

I didn't plan to ever ask her to do this one again because I thought that it might be too tough for her balance with a weakened paw. I'm glad that I was wrong!

Later in the day, we took a sunset hike. K rolled in the snow, a happy Labrador.

R got wind of the fact that someone was having fun without him and barreled into the scene with a cloud of flying snow. We sometimes call him the "fun police" because of his reaction when he discovers anything fun underway that he's not at the center of!

In the blink of an eye, snow-covered K was on her feet running with a supremely surprised look in her eyes.

Within a stride, she stopped and offered R some "calming signals". In the photo below, you can see that K is starting to lift her left front paw, a classic signal that a canine uses to try to bring down excitement or tension levels. Although it's hard to see in the photo, she also curled her body into a "C" and lowered her head, telling R to "cool it".

It worked, and R rapidly calmed down. He and K are an interesting pair because R is so excitable and K gets overwhelmed by it. The body language that they use to negotiate fascinates me.

We headed for home as dusk fell, a tired and happy pack.

Silent and still forest

The air is still freezing but the wind is quiet today. I rolled out on my snow bike into gentle snow and silence with K by my side. It was novel not to hear whooshing sounds from wind buffeting the trees, creaking of trees threatening to fall, and flute-like whistling as wind rushed through narrow openings. It was so still that snowflakes accumulated on K's back as we stood on Hug Hill.

I circled the bare top of Hug Hill, whipped clean of snow by yesterday's wind, to search for tracks below the snow line down in the trees. Often, mountain lions traipse close to this summit on a route that follows the elk herd but I found no lion tracks today. As I searched, the snow stopped and sun shined. This photo shows the brief moment when the snowflakes clinging to K's fur hadn't yet melted in the sunshine.

Amazingly, when we were ready to rumble down the steep hill, I could see the Continental Divide which had been completely invisible behind clouds just minutes before.

In the afternoon, I took the Duo for a hike. I had only a short time so I let them run their hearts out. Here, K gave R a searching look as they waited for me to call them. It looks as if she's seeing him for the first time and is wondering, "Who is that guy?"!

Then, they sprang into action kicking glittering snow crystals up behind them. They focused on each other rather than on me.

After a few recalls to "prime" them in case of an emergency recall, I let them romp freely. I felt like the three of us were a tsunami rolling through the meadow.

K's playful side, which has been slow to return after her months of convalescence, briefly possessed her. She tucked her butt and zoomed in circles.

There's nothing like time playing with the dogs to energize me. They live in the moment, and I try to emulate them.

This morning, while checking wildlife camera memory cards, I discovered that a coyote had visited in the middle of the day yesterday. It's amazing how they emerge from the shadows, just outside our windows, yet no one in the house notices.

I've been working on identifying the individual coyotes who visit our clearing, and I'm starting to think that the pack includes about seven coyotes. One in the pack is injured and usually shows up alone. He has a big scab on his right hind carpus. I hope that he recovers well. The coyote shown below looks healthy to me.

I'm glad that they're part of our world.

A cold winter day in the forest

This morning, I had my first pining for springtime. The temperature was 15°F and the wind was howling out of the west. K and I rolled out just as the sun touched the top of a group of sky high aspen trees that I think of as "les amis". They do everything in sync and have delighted me for years.

 As I pedaled past this aspen grove, I looked down and saw that our bobcat had patrolled trail last night. His track was next to a dog track. In the photo, the dog track is on the top and the bobcat track on the bottom.

It appeared as if he'd been in our clearing. Unfortunately, he'd dodged my high quality camera and was photographed by my bargain camera - so the quality isn't too great. First, he marched directly in front of the pole that holds our bear-proof bird feeding system.

Then, he started hunting, probably for the rabbit whose photo I showed yesterday. You can see him sitting patiently in the upper right of the photo.

I don't think that he had a successful hunt because I saw no signs of a rabbit being killed. He continued out of our clearing to where K and I had first picked up his tracks. As we rode, we hit a part of the trail system that no one else has been using recently. The bobcat walked directly in my snowbike tracks. You can see one paw print on the right where he slightly missed the tire track and he sunk in more deeply than on the other steps.

Despite the diversion of the bobcat tracks, K and I arrived up on the ridge only slightly after sunrise. I think that K was still sleepy.

But, the painfully cold wind soon awakened her and had me whimpering from the pain in my fingertips. Woo, it was frigid up there!

We ran around a little to warm up and then captured a better photo, although the magical sunrise light had morphed from red to gold.

We looped around the ridge, with me constantly scanning for animal tracks. Lots of tracks pocked the snow, including bobcat, deer, and coyote, but no mountain lion.

I wondered if K was too cold to keep going so I asked her. Her look clearly said "more riding, please"!

So, we slogged through windpacked cement-like snow to Hug Hill where K ran some laps to stay warm.

Then, we barreled down the hill, avoiding the drifts which bring even a snowbike to a dangerously fast stop, and headed home.

I headed out for some more riding after dropping K at home. Oh my, it was a whirling and wild day out there. I spotted our local ski area where several people have told me yesterday was magnificent - perhaps the best day of skiing there *ever*. I'm happy for them in a bittersweet sort of way. My last day of telemark skiing was March 14, 2005, the day before I had several levels of my low back fused. Most winter days, I don't get sad about my skiing moratorium. But, I do miss it.

For the sake of my heart, I usually manage to focus on what I can do, snow bike along the beautiful ridge.

In the afternoon, I took the Duo for a romp. I lined them up for a practice recall, forcing R to start behind K.

But, it didn't take long for him to barge around her, while glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, and win the race.

So, I made him start even further back.

He didn't look happy about it.

This time, K held him off, arriving first despite his desperate churning through the loose snow on the sides of the trail to try to pass her.

R is, paws down, the most competitive dog who I've ever met. Even before K's injury, she tended to back off and let him win, just because his intensity overwhelms her. I always found her reticence to compete to be odd because K is definitely the boss around the house. Maybe winning running races doesn't matter very much to the top dog. It is extraordinarily important to R!

As we wound down toward home, a scent mesmerized K. This was one of those instances when I called her to prevent her from getting in trouble. That scent looked too interesting.

R didn't catch the same scent... but he sure looked handsome in the golden fading light.

It was a fun winter day but, I'll admit that I was starting to dream of warmer days.