Mara returns to the Mountains

[Pris]

.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

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.

Absolutely heartwarming, Bill. Not trivial for me at all haha! This is spiritually enriching in ways I can't describe. As I watch your story unfold in real time, I find it similar to the story of "Puff, the Magic Dragon"... but with a twist. Your story has a 'happy ending'!

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Ha. Well, we both FEEL young!

...

I'm in good shape, thankful to have no health problems at all....

...

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.

[wondering]

The words,"happy, active mountain dog", are wonderful to hear. Who'd have thought that many months ago?! Such a joy.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by wondering (here)
The words,"happy, active mountain dog", are wonderful to hear. Who'd have thought that many months ago?! Such a joy.

Nothing new or specially interesting today, except that the waterfall torrent has now returned to normal levels and so we were able to cross it (both ways!) with no trouble. The first image below is just a photo, and the second a 40 second video showing how very easily Mara now copes with it all.
(Please ignore the fuzzy blob on the video, just some water on the lens)

The only reason I'm posting this is because I'm beginning to realize that quite a lot of people really do quite enjoy checking into this very trivial but very good-news thread!




https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Bill_...6_Jan_2024.mp4

[bojancan]

Dogs have given us their absolute all... we know, that we are centre of their universe.... I think, we are also the focus of their love and faith... also trust!
They serve us everyday in return for all scraps we are dealing in life.... it's the best deal, man has ever made!!!

Wishing you well, Bill and Mara!

[Pam]

Bill, This is not trivial in the least. There is so much goodness and wonder in this. The companionship,trust and friendship of you and Mara is beyond inspiring. This is the beauty that I live for these days. This is unconditional love manifest in the world in a beautiful love story. This is the story is the stuff that keeps me going these days. Please don't ever feel that little stories are not huge in sending out and showing us and reminding us that love and kindness along with loyalty still exist in this world. All of the traits that were honored in times past still exist today.

This is one of those stories.

[Pam]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

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.

I know this is a bit late in responding. You are doing the right thing with what you feed her. I don't want to go off topic but we need to be very discerning with our animal friends about what we are feeding them and what medicines they are given. Particularly in the US, they are modifying the vaccines and have increased the amounts that are given. A huge number of dogs are dying expectantly from some rare respiratory illness in my area. I believe it correlates with the "new and improved" medications.

In the US, veterinary medicine has drastically changed to mimic the type of profit driven model used for humans and we have all seen how well that is working out. Feeding your animal friends natural food if you can and using discernment is important. I also am aware that food has become very expensive in some areas so that is an extra challenge. Generally feeding a dog real food can mean feeding them less so there is that. And of course there is huge nourishment in the total bone, not to mention the benefit of chewing. Sorry if this is off topic but I was so pleased to see your wisdom with how you care for her. A great example. Look at how her life continues at high quality even with the challenges.

[Bill Ryan]

Something most remarkable happened last night, and I have to share it here. NOT a Mara High Mountain Adventure per se, but something that astonished me even more than usual.

Yesterday evening, long after sunset and in the rain, I went off into town to meet my friend Gilberto and his family to collect them from the bus station and take them back to their house. They'd been in Brazil for several months (see the Wonder Girl Pema thread), and had a mountain of luggage. There was no room for Mara at all, so she had to stay at home.

I knew she'd never stray, so she's not tied up at all, and I'd improvised a simple plastic-sheet fence round the grass to help make sure she didn't get tangled up in the thick undergrowth or escape into the field where she might get lost. She's always happy outside, and if I'm not there and it's raining she has a little kennel to shelter in. It's never been a problem to leave her home alone.



So I met Gilberto & Co as planned, and bought them all the way to their house, which is some distance away and at the top of a long hill.

Then 20 minutes after we'd got there, while we were still unloading the truck with all the luggage, Mara suddenly arrived to join us.

She was soaking wet, but super-happy to see all her friends who she'd missed for months. (Particularly little Pema, who loves Mara to pieces. )

How she found us is truly hard to understand. She knows the sound of my truck, and is always waiting to meet me when I return home from anywhere on my own. But this time she must have heard my truck way off in the distance and realized I was going somewhere else instead.

So she somehow escaped through the plastic fence, navigated her way across the field (which is quite rough and uneven, with a bunch of cows and sheep and several fences there too), found her way to the dirt road leading to Gilberto's house, and then made her way, all the way along it, all on her own. It must have taken her a good half hour to do all that.

And, as I always have to remind myself and everyone else(!), she's 100% blind and can't see a thing. 12 hours later, morning here now, I'm still amazed.

It's hard to properly describe quite what she somehow managed to do. Here's a map.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Awesome story.

I've heard many a tale of animals crossing great distances to reunite with an owner. Does a plausible theory exist for how they do it? Not visually, by landmarks, I think Mara proves that. And smell's not in the equation either, as you travelled by vehicle. It must be an energy thing. Something to do with being locked into our energy, and zeroing on it.

Although that doesn't explain our cat. A quick story. We moved house years ago, back in the early seventies, and the cat we had at the time came with us. It's wasn't that far away from our old place, about two miles. Mum made the mistake of not keeping the cat indoors in our new house for a period of time, enough to settle in, and he got out, and he did not come back. He disappeared for a couple of days in fact. Finally we received word. Our previous neighbours called. The cat was at our old house, sitting at the front door waiting to be let in. Apparently he didn't get the memo we'd moved (or had just refused to read it).

How did he find his way back, across fields, through woods, up this road and down another -- places he didn't know and had never been before? Animals are quite amazing when you think about it.

[Bill Ryan]

A little more.

First, here's the map again with just the initial part of her journey highlighted in the much smaller blue square near my house.

Second, here's a composite photo of that. That was just the start of what she did, blind, on her own, in the rain.

[Pam]

That is absolutely amazing. It sends shivers down my spine. I agree with Mark. You and Mara have such a close energetic connection that she can hone into that. It also seems to be be proof that dogs seem to have almost a second set of eyes. I remember my dogs clearly seeing things that were not in my visable field. Viscerally barking at those things. I don't know exactly what they are experiencing but they are gifted beyond our sensory range.

That, and the fact that she seemed to know that you were going to get her friends and she wanted to be a part of the celebration. Bless her heart. She is fearless in her loyalty for you. She is one heck of a dog. I love the fact that you respect her dog instincts. So many times people unknowingly try to humanize dogs. You have respected her being as a dog and in my biased opinion, dogs are some of the greatest creatures that have walked the earth and Maya leads the pack, blind and all. What a magnificent story. I will be thinking about this for days. I am so glad she did not meet with any surprises, but her sheer will to join you allowed her safe passage. She is a true dog hero.

I forgot to add my little story about a cat, Mark reminded me of this. I lived in a house and had taken in a stray cat as an adult. She chose to be outside. After a year or so I moved over a mile away.

I noticed the cat was gone, after searching I went back to the house she had lived at with me and sure enough, she was there. I brought her back to her new home and she repeatedly left and returned to the other house. That house meant some sort of stability to her. Since I took her in as an adult,and she was partly feral apparently she felt more loyalty to the house then to me. Fortunately, the new tenants of that residence took care of her. She would have been miserable if I locked her in my new residence so I valued the quality of her life over the perceived safety of me not allowing her what she clearly wanted. Animals can be very determined.

[Pris]

.

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I knew she'd never stray...

Indeed! She directly and purposefully followed you. Wow. I think you may be right about her super-dog hearing and the sound of your truck. Lovely experience for you, great story... though also concerning, Mara being blindy-dog and all. And, apparently, you've got big cats running around out there and such so yeah...

Posted by Pam (here)
I forgot to add my little story about a cat, Mark reminded me of this. I lived in a house and had taken in a stray cat as an adult. She chose to be outside. After a year or so I moved over a mile away.

I noticed the cat was gone, after searching I went back to the house she had lived at with me and sure enough, she was there. I brought her back to her new home and she repeatedly left and returned to the other house. That house meant some sort of stability to her. Since I took her in as an adult,and she was partly feral apparently she felt more loyalty to the house then to me. Fortunately, the new tenants of that residence took care of her. She would have been miserable if I locked her in my new residence so I valued the quality of her life over the perceived safety of me not allowing her what she clearly wanted. Animals can be very determined.

Aww.... She felt more 'loyalty' to the house than to you? How very sad. Well, it certainly would be sad for me. Just goes to show that when we feel we have a certain connection with an animal, it may not be as reciprocal as we think.

[arwen]

Incredible. Mara is definitely Super Dog, and she LOVES Bill. Heart-warming!

[Ewan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
Something most remarkable happened last night, and I have to share it here. NOT a Mara High Mountain Adventure per se, but something that astonished me even more than usual.

Yesterday evening, long after sunset and in the rain, I went off into town to meet my friend Gilberto and his family to collect them from the bus station and take them back to their house. They'd been in Brazil for several months (see the Wonder Girl Pema thread), and had a mountain of luggage. There was no room for Mara at all, so she had to stay at home.

I knew she'd never stray, so she's not tied up at all, and I'd improvised a simple plastic-sheet fence round the grass to help make sure she didn't get tangled up in the thick undergrowth or escape into the field where she might get lost. She's always happy outside, and if I'm not there and it's raining she has a little kennel to shelter in. It's never been a problem to leave her home alone.



So I met Gilberto & Co as planned, and bought them all the way to their house, which is some distance away and at the top of a long hill.

Then 20 minutes after we'd got there, while we were still unloading the truck with all the luggage, Mara suddenly arrived to join us.

She was soaking wet, but super-happy to see all her friends who she'd missed for months. (Particularly little Pema, who loves Mara to pieces. )

How she found us is truly hard to understand. She knows the sound of my truck, and is always waiting to meet me when I return home from anywhere on my own. But this time she must have heard my truck way off in the distance and realized I was going somewhere else instead.

So she somehow escaped through the plastic fence, navigated her way across the field (which is quite rough and uneven, with a bunch of cows and sheep and several fences there too), found her way to the dirt road leading to Gilberto's house, and then made her way, all the way along it, all on her own. It must have taken her a good half hour to do all that.

And, as I always have to remind myself and everyone else(!), she's 100% blind and can't see a thing. 12 hours later, morning here now, I'm still amazed.

It's hard to properly describe quite what she somehow managed to do. Here's a map.

One question Bill, had you walked with Mara to Gilberto's property before this happened?

For me it is not unusual at all, unless the answer to the above question is a negative and then it really is astonishing.

I had a collie once that I didn't need to verbalise an instruction to, she would react with my thought and I would 100% swear on that.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9QsPWitQovM

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=aA5wAm2c01w

And if left in any doubt at to animals psyschic abilities, just watch a few videos featuring Anna Breytenbach.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=gvwHHMEDdT0

Apologies for clogging up your thread with videos but I think it is very important information that everyone needs to understand. Only humans have lost touch with nature and reality!

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Ewan (here)
One question Bill, had you walked with Mara to Gilberto's property before this happened?

No! This is the first time she's EVER gone all the way from my house to his, including when she could see just fine.

We've been up to his house many times, of course, but I always drive her part way to where Gilberto's dirt road starts (very near the camera viewpoint). We've never even been in that field at all since she went blind. There's a little river to cross with very vertical banks (easy for a dog to fall into but hard to get out of), several tricky fences, often lots of animals, and a steep slope (with another fence at the top of it) at the very end.

Here's what it all looks like from where we always park up to walk the rest of the way. My house is behind the trees to the right of center. Last night Mara made her own way from the house to exactly where I took the photo from, and it's only from that spot that she knows the way to Gilberto's place. The more I think about it, the more astonished I am at the entire thing.



(That's a genuine unedited photo I took one beautiful early morning back in 2020, but nothing's changed since then )

[Denise/Dizi]

WOW... How amazing! And that area is stunningly beautiful!

[Bill Ryan]

Another fun report, this time back in the mountains themselves. Yesterday we equaled our blind-dog world altitude record, reaching this "small" peak here, marked by the white arrow.


(larger image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_...8_Jan_2024.jpg)

But it's taken with a telephoto from a mile away, the "small" rocky peak is 14,000 ft above sea level, and to the bottom of the photo and slightly to the left of center you can see a tiny figure in pale blue, which is young supergirl Pema (see this thread!) on her mountain running training.

It's higher, farther, and harder to get to than it looks, and behind it is the giant pyramid-shaped Quitahuayco, the tallest peak in the area and 1,000 ft higher still. Our last altitude record was on the steep slope of Quitahuayco itself, almost immediately behind the white arrow at pretty much the same altitude. So all in all, we were quite pleased with ourselves.

A couple of panorama photos taken at our high point:


(much larger image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_...Jan_2024_1.jpg)


(much larger image: https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_...Jan_2024_2.jpg)

Mara is VERY confident now. She regularly leads the way on the trail, not just padding along behind me. Here, on the way down, Mara sensed water (it was a hot day, and there was a beautiful tiny cool lake waiting for her to swim in), and so she headed straight for it all on on her own:

https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_...small_lake.mp4


Further along the return trail still, this short little video shows again how she happily leads the way most of the time.

https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_leads_the_way.mp4


The hike was a full 4 hours, so it was quite a long, strenuous day for her. But this morning she showed no signs of any ill-effects, and wasn't even tired. She's 11 years old now (in her mid-60s in human terms), and there's every reason to believe she can keep all this up for really quite a long time yet.

[Casey Claar]

She makes your heart smile, doesn't she? As I watch, I almost feel right out there on the path with her.

[Bill Ryan]

Another minor achievement yesterday. We broke our blind-dog world altitude record again — not by much (maybe by another 150-200 ft), but where we reached was quite hard to get to, over some pretty rough steep ground.

Here's how happy she was. The backdrop is deceptive: it's all a steep slope, another 600-700 ft to the summit of Quitahuayco, all veiled in the mist.



Looking the other way down over the Puma Valley, this is how far we'd climbed:



And here's another way of showing where we were.



Mara was absolutely none the worse for this new fun adventure, though she did sleep quite well last night.

[jaybee]

.


Mara behaves as if she can still see..... I wonder if her blindness has increased activation her 3rd eye and now she can use it like an actual eye... like a scanner.... using it with her sense of smell...

I did wonder as you two are so close whether she could even see through her Pack Leader's (your) eye's sometimes - but this wouldn't apply all the times when she leads the way or, for example, goes to the water -

what a marvel she is - bless her heart....

[Bill Ryan]

A very tiny update here, truly trivial in the biggest scheme of things, but followers of Mara's exploits might find this interesting. (And funny!)

When we go to the Puma Valley, we always stop at this tiny lake, which Mara loves. (I posted this earlier, so it's not a new video. )

https://avalonlibrary.net/Bill/Mara_in_the_mud.mp4


She happily wades around in the water (and the mud), rolls in the grass, and then on the way back has a good bath in the waterfall which we have to cross each way, there and back. So the mud is never a problem, and she's totally used to this fun sequence.

Three days before the last high point that we reached, reported a couple of posts above this one (very high in the Puma Valley, on the slopes of Quitahuayco), we'd gone on a different hike just to see how Mara would manage it.|

It was quite arduous, with big rocks, steep climbs, tricky drops, and low tree branches. And on the way back Mara, who was very hot and thirsty, dived into a BIG BIG lake for a swim — where she got totally stuck in the deep mud.

In retrospect it was very funny, but at the time I was concerned as she was having great difficulty getting out of it. I was standing by to rescue her if needed, so I never took a photo. In the end, she struggled out on her own, looking like a CGI Hollywood swamp monster. She rolled around on the grass to get some of the mud off her, but here was no waterfall to wash it all off. The back seat of my old jeep has plastic seats, so the pile of mud she left there wasn't a problem.

When she got home, she didn't seem hungry, and just slept quite a lot the next couple of days. I figured she was just a little tired. THEN, the day after that, we went to the Puma Valley for our high-altitude adventure which I reported in my last post above. She was totally happy with the entire thing, and so was I.

But here's the update.

After THAT, she still wasn't eating, and was sleeping even more. After another couple of days I realized that she wasn't merely tired, but something else was wrong. Yesterday, at last, I took her to the vet.

And behold, she had a doggie fever (quite a high one), and was immediately given antibiotics. They did their thing immediately, and she's much better already.

Then I realized what had happened. It was the DEEP MUD in the different, big lake. She'd got an infection from THAT. She's not used to that lake, or that particular brand of mud, while in the smaller Puma Valley lake which she always swims in, if there are any nasty bacteria there, (a) she's immune to them, and (b) she always washes all the mud off anyway in the waterfall on the way back.

So the mystery is solved. Little Pema (my friend's superstar-athlete cutiepie little girl, who adores Mara, was upset that Mara might be dying). But now all is explained. My takeaways from all this are:

1. Beware of unfamiliar lakes with deep mud.
2. Always clean the mud off if there's no waterfall bath at hand.

Some UK readers may remember James Herriott, Britain's most famous vet, who was a wonderfully wise man, a radio personality, a terrific storyteller, and a best-selling author. This was the perfect title of one of his many books: