Dog-gone

On nice days when I'm not babysitting, I like to take Gabe out to the pasture where he is safe to run free without a leash.  He usually doesn't get out of my sight, and when he does go over a rise or down into a valley where he can't see me, he realizes it pretty quickly and comes running back as fast as his short legs will carry him, grateful to find I haven't disappeared.  Today was one of those nice days.

He ran down a portion of this roadway through the woods to the bottom, and when he paused I thought about heading down to the back of our place.  I actually started down, but only got to the point where he is in this picture and thought better of it.  Going down is easy, even for a person with knee problems.  But coming back up is another story.  

Gabe led the way to the top.  

Once there, I found a place in the leaves level enough to lie on, without too many bumps.  There's something comforting about laying against good Mother Earth, thinking of all the people who have touched her in the same way in the past.  Gabe snuggled against my leg chewing on random weeds and sticks as I lay there.

Today I took a makeshift leash along because of something that happened during our last session in the pasture.  

The dead-end road we live on is named "Old Canyon Road", for good reason.  The back portion of our property has deep, deep gullies washed throughout, ditches deep enough to hide a two-story house in.  Our hill is made up of windblown sandy soil, and eventually if there are no preventative measures taken, will probably all wash away.  Not in my lifetime, of course; but I've certainly seen a lot of ground stolen by erosion since we moved here in 1975.  We've had several cows and calves end up in the bottom of a gully and need some serious help getting out.  

As I walked back toward the house the other day, Gabe was running here and there ahead of me, approached the edge of a canyon, and dropped out of sight.  My heart sank, because some of those straight-up-and-down walls of dirt are so deep that any creature falling to the bottom could be injured or killed.  

As luck would have it, in this particular spot it was only about a six-foot-straight-down drop, and Gabe was just fine when I peered over the edge.  Unfortunately, I didn't know how I was going to retrieve him.  Twenty years ago I'd have slid down with no problem, holding onto roots and brush as I lowered myself.  I'd have gotten out of there somehow, back then.  Not so, now.  If I'd gotten down there I'd have had a hard time figuring out any way to get out.  I thought about going to the house and getting Cliff, to see if he could figure any way of rescuing my dog.  But where would Gabe be when I returned?  I doubt he'd have waiting patiently for twenty minutes or so until I returned.  By this time he was wanting out of the mess he was in, but try as he might, he couldn't climb up to me.  However, he could climb to within about four feet of me.  I lay down on my stomach, extending my upper body over that ravine as much as I dared, reached down, grabbed his collar and pulled him up.  Whew.  I almost felt like a superhero.  

Maybe I should start carrying my cell phone when I go to the pasture.  

Today as we were almost at the point of passing that ravine I hooked the leash onto his collar and let him go look down into the trap he'd fallen into.  I thought perhaps if he became familiar with the lay of the land, he wouldn't go running and diving into the pit again.  However, he was stretching his head down sniffing as though he had nothing to fear.  I don't think he'll ever figure out the cause-and-effect process that got him in such a mess the other day.  I took these pictures of him inspecting the sight of his fall, but they really don't show how deep and dangerous it is there.

This pup has a lot to learn if he's going to live a long, healthy life.  He has no qualms about running under a moving vehicle, either.  

Get a puppy, they said.  It'll be fun, they said.  

Ha!