Mara returns to the Mountains

[RunningDeer]

[Harmony]

That's such a wonderful illustration RunningDeer (Paula), you are so tallented with those kind of things

[Bill Ryan]

Another photo of Mara the Wonder Dog, this time way up on the ridge above the Haunted Lakes Overlook on our 4th hike there a couple of days ago. That was the highest she's been for several years.

(The lakes aren't visible at all here, as we're too high to see them. I took another selfie a little further down, but it looked almost exactly the same as the other photos I shared earlier. )

What this shows is just how happy and confident she is striding out on high, rocky ground when she can't see a single thing. (Open in a new tab to see the detail in the high-res image)

[RunningDeer]

Big smiles from Mara.

[Bill Ryan]

Another trip to the Overlook a few days ago — this time our highest and farthest, climbing for another 15-20 minutes up the ridge to the north to reach about 14,200 feet. That was the longest and highest hike for Mara for several years.



I misjudged the way down, accidentally committing ourselves to a rough rocky descent: no danger, but tricky for a blind dog. This is just a small part of it:



After half an hour we reached the highest of the several lakes on the way back, where she had a cool swim, a big drink, and a happy rest. When we go up there again on Tuesday (our 10th trip to the Overlook in 6 weeks), she'll be raring to go and ready for more.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
When we go up there again on Tuesday (our 10th trip to the Overlook in 6 weeks), she'll be raring to go and ready for more.

We had another rest day on Tuesday, but ventured out again yesterday. This time we went further still, heading not north but south from the Haunted Lakes Overlook to reach a magnificent rocky spot we'd never been to before (and which I never knew existed!) with a stunning view back towards the chain of lakes we'd hiked past from the trailhead all the way there.

Not much color: the sky was gray, though it was completely dry. You may be able to get an idea of where we were from the photo. (As usual, reduced in size to fit the page. Open at full size in a new tab — if you want to! – to see all the detail.)

[Bill Ryan]

We went up there again yesterday, this time taking advantage of a gorgeous sunny morning. This new photo below (auto-resized to fit the page as usual) is taken at very nearly the same spot as last time.

Mara was totally happy throughout, with zero sign of any difficulty. But when she got home I saw she spent quite some time licking her front paw 'wrists', as if there was maybe a little pain or stiffness there.

Some might just remember that almost exactly a year ago the vet gave her an injection of Librela, containing monoclonal antibodies which block nerve signals of arthritic pain or discomfort being relayed to the brain. It was a new treatment then, supposed to last about a month. What I noticed straight away was that it really seemed to make a big difference to her energy and well-being.

So after a full year(!), I'm feeling it might be worthwhile to repeat that. It's expensive ($120 including the consultation), but if it's just a once-a-year investment it could maybe help her quite a lot. I'll report back on the Dogs' Health and Wellness thread if I can get that done.

[Bill Ryan]

Some following this thread may have seen my update on the Mara's Travails thread last week. In her first visit to the vet in a whole year, most of her thick fur coat was shaved off (because she had 1.5 kg of dried, caked mud in her fur, and shaving it all off was the only way to get the mud out ) during which we discovered a nasty gash in her leg that was only a few days old. So we patched that up as well, with stitches and a good bandage.

The photos below show the result: she looks rather like a little lion. (Scroll down!)

The vet's instructions were that she should stay indoors for a week — but that was never gonna happen. (The vet is world-class, a friend, and a most wonderful man, but I do know Mara better than he does.)

The problem was that if we returned to the mountains, a hike had to meet these three criteria:

1. No water or mud (i.e. no lakes), so that her wound won't get wet or dirty;
2. No sun, because now that she's 75% naked her exposed pale skin would easily burn;
3. No wind or rain, because she'd easily get cold without her thick fur coat. (Until it grows back!)

So I had a bright idea, to go to Cerro Amarillo at dawn. We'd not been there for nearly 6 months, exactly because now it's summer there's no water anywhere. I judged that the weather would be kind, and so it was — there was no wind or rain at all, and it wasn't too cold as long as we kept moving.

So the conditions were perfect. We had a wonderfully successful adventure, and I took a zillion photos.

Here are just a few, all resized the fit the page. The 4th clearly shows the color of much of the summit, which is why it's called Cerro Amarillo — the 'Yellow Mountain'. The 5th is a huge wide panorama, so if anyone wants to see the detail just open the image at full size in a new tab.