Black Dog Sunday

Our Black Dog, R, is having a wonderful summer but I haven't been getting many chances to take his photograph!

He is as intense as he's always been - I've never known any dog as intensely focused as R. In the next photo, I believe he was contemplating whether any rodent burrows were close enough for him to dig them up before I stopped him. He definitely was not focused on me!

After I got him moving, his focus returned to me and the games we were playing. He loves to do a high intensity recall!

He's been running with almost unbelievable grace given his very bad elbow. One reason might be that we were told by the orthopedist to shave a few pounds off of him, which we did very slowly over the spring and early summer. As you can see, he is quite skinny now. That's good for his elbow even if it means his tummy growls a little.

He's been running and swimming a lot with the Runner. Look at his musculature. I'm in awe of R!

It's always so hard to make health decisions for our dogs. In this case, we feel no worries about our choice to delay his elbow reconstructive surgery. We are looking forward to some big adventures in the high mountains later this summer, and we are thrilled that R will be able to play to his heart's content.

Summer Saturday!!!

Today is a glorious summer day - with sunshine and flowers.

My trail camera showed some of our young wildlife moving around. The next photo is the yearling moose calf who has acted as if he's been confused for the past few weeks. I could put together an entire video showing his travels. He keeps walking east for miles and miles. Then, for some reason, he makes a U-turn and comes right back to where his mom raised him last winter.

I will make that video sometime soon. It's so cool to have this guy in our forest. He's been staying well hidden from people. And, when I've glimpsed him, he quickly runs into the cover of the forest. He should move on at some point - finding his own territory. However, I'm starting to wonder if all the attractive moose territory near us is already taken by other moose.

Here was another young animal who came out of hiding the other day. Look how small that fawn is.

The fawn sniffed around the area, probably smelling some other animals, like moose and mountain lions, for the first time in his short life.

I adore this time of year - seeing the young animals who are so cute, and enjoying Nature's beauty which almost overwhelms me.

Happy Summer Saturday!

See Beautiful

True beauty is in the heart of the beholder. As time goes by, this girl's beauty grows each day in my eyes.

We are rapidly approaching a tough part of the calendar for me. Both of my past two chocolate Labs, K and Acadia, died on July 15. For the past couple of years, I've found myself trying hard to be happy through that date but not naturally happy - if that makes any sense.

Then, just yesterday, I realized that something has changed for me. I am seeing the amazing beauty of the evolving bond between me and Shyla, rather than focusing on the past. Of course, those angels, and particularly K, changed me forever. Perhaps, by being part of my life, they helped me reach this point with Shyla.

This year is incredibly different for me and Shyla. We are a team, and I can count on her to be by my side all the time. In the forest, we move like a pair who know each other well, and I arrive home feeling peaceful and happy after a ride. In contrast, just last summer, I came home from many bike rides wondering if we'd ever feel like a team.

I am so glad that both she and I stuck it out, working on our teamwork, to reach this peaceful and wonderful phase. It is beautiful.

And that has made Seeing Beautiful even easier for me this year.

Happy See Beautiful Friday to all of you.

Sunshine!

Today, we finally saw some sunshine for the first part of the day. Although clouds still hovered over the mountains and in the canyons, it was a joy.

Shyla and I thoroughly enjoyed a sunny ride!

Although the sun was shining, the world was still so wet that we got soaked despite the sunshine.

I was so happy to see the sun that I rode home to pick up R and take a few photos of him in the wildflowers. Full sunlight isn't best for a black dog photoshoot but it's better than pouring rain!

It was a good day for the Cordilleran Flycatcher couple who are nesting under our deck. Here's a photo of the male, keeping an eye on me, as he protected the nest.

He's been protecting the nest for a long time. The mother was incubating eggs for 19 days. Most years, the eggs hatch after 15 days. For that reason, I was getting worried that the eggs had been damaged by the cold and wet weather. But, yesterday, I saw one nestling by peeking through a crack in the deck, and I did a little happy dance. The mother is still hunkered down, keeping the nesting(s) warm.

Here was the mother on the first day of incubation. She left the nest so rarely during incubation that I wonder how she possibly got enough to eat. I didn't see the male feeding her at all over that time.

Typically, the babies leave the nest around 2 weeks after hatching. However, nothing seems "typical" this year. Their development might be slowed by the lack of insects flying around for their parents to snag. The insects disappeared when the cold rain started many days ago. Here's a photo of mom getting ready to go out and catch some flies.

I'm hoping that we return to normal weather soon, for the sake of my sanity and for the sake of the wildlife, including our resident Flycatchers!

Wordless Wednesday: Rainy but Beautiful

Rain, bears, and bobcats!

This early summer has been extraordinary in the sheer quantity of rain that has fallen. Usually, summer days follow a predictable pattern of sunshine in the morning and thunder storms in the afternoon. This year, it's been raining all day long, including during my morning bike ride.

Shyla doesn't seem to mind because it's so nice and cool when it's raining. However, I actually get cold during our rides. It was 48° and raining this morning. The world is soaked!

I am wondering if this crazy weather is part of the reason why the bears are having trouble finding natural food. I don't remember any other year when there were NO berries on any buffalo berry bushes in July. Usually, Buffalo Berries are a staple for our bears at this time of year. I feel so sorry for the bears.

All that I can do is keep watching the bears and learning more about their behavior. It seems that I understand them a little better each year so I can be more effective in talking with neighbors about why the bears are behaving a certain way.

For example, when I tell people that our biggest bear, Tiny, has lived in our area for at least 5 years without any complaints from people about him until this food-starved year, it seems as if they begin to understand that he's simply a hungry bear and not some vicious monster.

I believe that, as a community, we need to do everything in our power to help the bears make it through this year without being killed for bad behavior. E.g., lock down the trash, lock all house windows and doors, lock all car doors, and make birdfood and compost inaccessible to bears. Did you know that compost is poisonous to all mammals, including our dogs and bears? Leaving it unprotected is a terribly selfish act.

I feel so passionately about protecting our bears because I've been watching the bears via my trail cameras for a half a decade. It makes me feel much more empathy for them than most people.

Although bear mating season is winding down, my trail camera captured some fascinating footage of a young female bear marking a tree, and then a bobcat marking the same tree about a day later.

Bears mark trees by rubbing against them with their backs and often urinating at the same time.

Usually, bobcats mark things closer to the ground. In this photo, a bobcat is rubbing his face on the rock and ground at the base of a bear marking tree.

To my surprise, I captured footage of a bobcat marking a bear marking tree by standing on his hind legs and rubbing his face as high on the tree as he could. As you'll see in the video, a bobcat stretched himself out to be very tall to mark the same tree as the bear. I have never seen anything like this before!!!!

You can watch the video here or at Youtube.

I love learning new things about our wildlife. And, in the case of bears, knowing them better helps me to advocate for protecting them more effectively.

Positive Training - The Recall

Today is the Positive Training Blog Hop! I haven't talked much about training here recently primarily because Shyla's socialization has come so far that we haven't had many big changes recently. Today, instead of socialization, I'll talk out our recall training.

Just today, I had reason to be very thankful that I practice recalls with Shyla daily.

I have no doubt that Shyla knows what I mean when I call "Shyla, Come!". I don't keep count - but my guess is that we do at least 10 recalls every morning.

For almost every recall, she instantly propels herself toward me with incredible enthusiasm.

And, when she arrives next to me, we have a treat party!

Since she's become so good at recalls, I've raised my standard. She needs to run to me FAST to be rewarded by a treat party.

Today, it was pouring rain, and my enthusiasm was lagging. That might have been part of why her first couple of recalls were lackluster. When I see her trotting slowly rather than galloping fast for a recall, I say "try again". Somehow, she's learned exactly what "try again" means (I didn't purposely teach her it). Shyla then goes back to where ever she was when I called her and awaits another recall. I remind her to "stay", and then I tease her by excitedly talking to her and doing a countdown: "three, two, one, SHYLA COME!".

That almost always works - producing a very fast recall.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I had special reason to be thankful for our work on recalls today. As it poured rain, we came out of the forest into a clearing and a mother deer with her fawn were standing just in front of us. Last year, we had a bad incident in almost exactly the same situation where Shyla chased and deeply scared the fawn. I was horrified, and I wrote about how frustrated I was with my "teenaged dog".

Today, Shyla took about 3 steps towards the mom and fawn before I said "Shyla Come!". And, she turned on a dime to return to my side. We had the biggest treat party of our lives!!!! Seriously, Shyla seemed in disbelief at how many tiny treats I gave her, one by one, while I told her what an amazingly good dog she is!!!

I  believe that recalls are the most important part of training because a good recall can keep a dog (and the wildlife) safe. Consequently, we are participating in Susan Garrett's Brilliant Recalls program.

As I read through the program's materials, I realized that I've totally neglected training recalls around the distractions that can happen indoors - like food dropped on the ground, guests at the door, or wild animals walking by outside the windows. It will be lots of fun to try using Susan Garrett's techniques to train a good indoor recall.

But, it'll never be quite as much fun as recalls in meadows full of flowers.

I am still marveling at how well Shyla did today with the deer and fawn. Back when I first learned about "positive training", I didn't honestly believe that a dog would learn to leave something so exciting simply by using positive reinforcement. Now, almost a decade later, I believe it.

Silhouette Sunday

This silhouette tells the story of our summer. The "monsoon" arrived in May, and it has stayed. Almost every afternoon (and sometimes in the morning), the thunderclouds form out over the mountains.

By evening, they often have migrated to the eastern horizon, like in this photo. They glow orange or pink as the sun sets to the west.

Two evenings ago, I saw sky scene like this emerging to the east. Shyla and I hurried toward a good vantage point, with Shyla on leash. Thank goodness she was on leash because we almost walked straight into the local mother moose who has a new calf.

The mama moose was immediately very stressed out by our presence. I stopped in my tracks, backing away, and then turned around to go home. No silhouette photos that evening. A protective mother moose is not to be taken lightly!

But, I had a few silhouette photos that I hadn't shared yet from more than a week ago. Those slightly older photos make up this post.

Happy Silhouette Sunday!

Happy Independence Day

Happy 4th from us to you!

Stay safe from the loud booms.

And enjoy the beauty of summer!

Sharing our World

I am astounded that it is already 4th of July weekend.

While I sometimes complain about the rain, it is keeping the wildflowers blooming - and that's a wonderful thing!

It's getting to the time of year when bear food, like berries, should start flourishing. However, the usual foods are not appearing yet. For example, every year about now, buffalo berries usually turn deep red and weigh down the branches of their bushes. However, this year, I don't even see green berries yet.

I am hearing rumors of bears trying to find food near houses, and people calling for the trapping and "euthanizing" (i.e., shooting) of bears. It makes me sad and angry. Should a bear be killed because it followed its nose to the food that you left outside? I think not.

I wish that people who choose to live in the mountains would take responsibility for the wildlife with whom they share the habitat. For the sake of bears, that means locking down all food sources, and taking responsibility if you make a mistake that lures a bear close to your house.

To be honest, I fear for our biggest bear, Tiny. He's such a huge bear that he scares people far more than other bears. And the descriptions I've read of sightings make me fear that he's continuing to go near houses. My heart sinks when I imagine a world without Tiny marking trees and fathering cubs in our neck of the woods.

I am hoping that the voices of reason - the voices that say that we need to learn to live with magnificent animals like Tiny - eventually sway public thought. I am hoping that the obvious brute strength of Tiny doesn't mean that he is killed by humans.

I, for one, want to share my world with the wildlife, even the ones who have the physical capabilities to kill me if they so choose. In fact, today, I almost crossed paths with a mountain lion. I found her photo at a trail camera, and it showed that she'd been there just minutes before me.

I never saw her today, although she was probably nearby. For me, it's wonderful knowing that these large predators can share the world with us, being invisible ghosts of the forest when they want to be.

Happy Friday!

Rainy and Sunny Thursday

Today has been a very odd summer day for our neck of the woods. The sun will shine and then the world turns dark. In the next instant, a steady rain falls, drenching mountain bikers, dogs, and flowers.

Just as fast, the rain will stop, and the sun will shine, quickly drying a mountain biker's clothes, making the rain a distant memory. We rode through the storms and played in the flowers when the sun shined.

After one shower, I noticed the beauty of the a drenched Columbine.

After the next shower, I noticed the wild roses with raindrops on them.

Then, a steady rain ambushed me. Between that rain and some fatigue, it seemed to be time to call it a day. Time to rest.

And now it looks nice enough to sit on the deck. A strange but beautiful day...

Wordless Wednesday