Mara returns to the Mountains

[Bill Ryan]

Well, here's more.

I posted on Monday that the previous day we'd reached this dizzy height, farther than I'd ever imagined was possible.



A couple of days ago, we went higher still. The photos below were taken at our earlier high point, just under the final pyramid of the 15,000 ft mountain. The white arrow shows where we climbed to this time, a good 200-300 ft higher. Mara was utterly happy, not in the tiniest bit tired or fazed. She even wanted to keep going higher still. It was all astonishingly easy.

Higher still would have meant leaving the steep grass and moving on to rocks and scree/talus, rather more challenging for even a highly enthusiastic and agile blind dog. But my earlier guess that we'd have maybe a very slim and unlikely 1% chance of ever reaching the top has now risen to 10%. I do actually think she might do it. It'd only be a steep and steady 30 minutes more to get there.

But of course, a dog has no mountaineering ambition (the 'ambition' is really my own, and I have to be careful not to project that all on her!), and she's as happy as can be wherever she is out there. Again, there was no forcing her at all, and we just happened to naturally reach that spot because I was again accompanying my friends.

[avid]

Appreciate your fantastic efforts to keep Mara safe, please, take no chances after all your wonderful work, she’s not a puppy, and enjoys within her abilities, you’ve given her a new lease of life, brilliant for Mara 🐕‍🦺 Take care both ❤️❤️

[thepainterdoug]

Bill I made this oil sketch for you. hope you like? I will send to you when dry.
painter doug

Mara/ oil on panel 8x10

[Icare]

Doug, that's just beautiful!

[Pam]

Posted by thepainterdoug (here)
Bill I made this oil sketch for you. hope you like? I will send to you when dry.
painter doug

Mara/ oil on panel 8x10

Dearest Doug, that is so very beautiful, I am deeply touched by this, she is our mascot and deserves such a beautiful tribute to her spirit!!! a celebration to her and all the other dogs who have given so freely and asked so little.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by thepainterdoug (here)
Bill I made this oil sketch for you. hope you like? I will send to you when dry.
painter doug

Mara/ oil on panel 8x10

Doug, that's just so great... what a very wonderful painting!!!

[Casey Claar]

Doug. So amazing. You are so surprising with your paintings. I echo what everyone else has said.

[Bill Ryan]

The puma has clearly given up and gone to another valley. Here's a family of wild llamas on the skyline, which just wouldn't be there if there was a puma around. I've not seen llamas in the valley for a while, but here they are back again. You can see them right in the middle of the photo:



Enlarged:



And to celebrate, here's Mara way, WAY high up, her new record high point. (Much higher than the llamas!)



(High-resolution image here, fun to look at on a big screen)
https://projectavalon.net/Quitahuayco_high_point_panorama_20_Sept_2023.jpg

[Harmony]

What a wonderful picture. Mara seems to be knowing and sensing everything around her and feeling very much at home again. The water flow and levels of the lakes running into each other and all the wild flowers bring life and movement to that moment in "time"

[Bill Ryan]

Hello, Everyone ...a trivial fun update. Mara and I going to the Puma Valley (but now with no puma, for sure ) has now become a regular thing. Since our first careful, tentative trip there (accompanied by the drone to capture the occasion), we've been back there 25 times.

But I thought this might be interesting to share: a little video, just over a minute long, which I took for a friend a couple days ago because we were exchanging stories about dogs getting muddy. (In Mara's case, VERY. )

It's all unremarkable, except that of course Mara is blind. Looking at the video, no-one might believe that she can't see a thing. You can see how happy and confident she is: she deftly avoids all the big tufts of alpine grass, knowing exactly where they all are. She also knows exactly where I am, doesn't bump into me, and heads directly down to the little lake for a muddy swim which she always loves.

The audio is on, and you can hear that I don't call her at all. I'm just standing there silently with the camera.

Every now and then she stops and looks around, as if to get her bearings on some kind of radar. But she's using other senses than her eyes. (Smell? Hearing? Something else? Who knows. But it all works perfectly for her.)


https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_in_the_mud.mp4 (30 Mb)

[pyrangello]

She's one happy dog in a happy home. Really enjoyable to see this bill. Its funny the wetter and dirtier these pups get the more happy they are.

[Matthew]

Thanks for the update! I have a question for you Bill if I may?: I remember you had a method for checking her blindness. Do you recheck the state of her blindness as time goes on? I'm glad she's happy! Makes my day to see your videos of her in the mountains.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Matthew (here)
Thanks for the update! I have a question for you Bill if I may?: I remember you had a method for checking her blindness. Do you recheck the state of her blindness as time goes on?

Ha. Yes, I do check every now and then — because sometimes it's just so hard to believe.

She doesn't notice, react, or flinch at all if I suddenly quickly wave my hand very close to her face, as if to (nearly!) hit her. She has no idea my hand is there, moving very close to her eyes.

The vet does this too, and tells me it's a simple, surefire test. He's also placed her in a dark room and flashed bright lights at her eyes, and there's no reaction whatsoever. She has no idea that's happening.

In the vet's surgery, where she gets a little nervous and excited and it's also an unfamiliar environment, I have to have her on a short lead or else she just clumsily crashes into all the walls and doors.

She seems to do exceptionally well with her navigation when she's happy and relaxed, like when she's at home here in the house (she never bumps into anything, as she has her detailed internal cognitive map) — or in the mountains, where she's equally at home and seems to know and understand everything that's around her.

[Bill Ryan]

Hello, Everyone: Every year Mara and I hold true to three traditional hike days — Christmas, New Year, and my birthday — which we make sure we never miss, come hell or high water.

Today, we encountered the high water.

We set out to the Puma Valley, a hike which Mara knows extremely well and always loves. To get there, we have to negotiate a little rocky waterfall, which Mara is now very used to. She knows exactly when she's there, and she always flops down to swim in the little pool and have a cool drink before we continue.

But this morning, after several days of heavy rain, it was like this:

https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Water...1_Jan_2024.mp4



NO WAY were we going to cross that today.

So that was our high point. I enjoyed my traditional tiny cake! And Mara, bless her, was rather glad to get away from the deafening noise of the water, which was as loud as it sounds on the video.

[Pris]

.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Is Mara touching your leg? For heaven's sake.

You both look incredibly happy!


Cheers!

[Harmony]

Mara is such a dear dog and staying close with all the noise of the water fall. The weather looked marvellous after the welcome rain.


Your back pack, Bill, has wonderful padding, I should keep my eye out for a pack like that, maybe something smaller though, it looks so comfortable to wear. Wonderful photos

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Pris (here)
Is Mara touching your leg? For heaven's sake.

Posted by Harmony (here)
Mara is such a dear dog and staying close with all the noise of the waterfall.

Yes, Mara was a little frightened. She wasn't on a lead (we trust each other totally), but was staying very close to me all the time.

She's100% blind and can't see a thing. But she's a highly experienced mountain dog, and sensed the danger that the situation in that spot had completely changed.

Usually, she wades across that section very easily, picking her way across the dry rocks all on her own, always stopping to cool herself in one of the little shallow pools. Here's a little video from one of our previous trips there:

https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill?Mara_...2_Nov_2023.mp4



But yesterday, here's where we were, sitting (safely!) maybe 10-15 feet from the edge of the cascade which had swollen dramatically.



Like Mara, I have a good sense of what's safe and what's not. So now the rainy season has started, I'm thinking we may have to abandon the Puma Valley completely for a while and go exploring elsewhere. But there are MANY other places Mara will be able to handle perfectly well now.

~~~~

This is all very trivial! But it was just a fun New Year's post, and maybe for some readers here this is all an interesting minor diversion from the many more serious issues that do surround us all.

[grapevine]

You both look very YOUNG Bill and so I'm minded to ask what you typically eat in a day, apart from a little cake now and then Walking and fresh air obviously agrees with you both.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Miller (here)
You both look very YOUNG Bill and so I'm minded to ask what you typically eat in a day, apart from a little cake now and then Walking and fresh air obviously agrees with you both.

Ha. Well, we both FEEL young!

Mara eats almost nothing but chicken pieces, and even if I give her something else, chicken is what she always wants. She's a 100% high-protein dog. I never, ever, ever, give her commercial dog food. (Dogs in the wild don't eat cereal.)

Like Mara, I eat a lot of protein (and a lot of fat, very deliberately), and my carbs are almost only ever rice cakes and sweet potatoes. I have occasional rich mixed salads, and lots of nuts. I add chia seeds to everything. Two cups of coffee a day in the morning, raw milk, kefir, NO wheat or sugar (not even chocolate any more), not much fruit (but orange juice and V8 veggie juice occasionally), zero alcohol. Lots of different supplements, but taken quite sparingly, spread out just one each every 2 or 3 days.

And tiny cakes three times a year.

I'm in good shape, thankful to have no health problems at all, knees, muscles and joints are all working fine, and I still don't wear glasses. (I do wear specialised high mountain UV glasses almost all the time when hiking now, routine protection ever since I badly burned my eyes in an off-the-scale UV day a few years ago.) I make sure I'm in the mountains 2-3 times a week — and having a happy, active mountain dog really helps to keep that up.

[thepainterdoug]

Bill, all good to hear and Happy new Year. Hey, Im trying to write music and you keep sending painting subject matter !lol

Great pics!! You, the waterfall and Mara.