A Sad Day

It doesn't matter that you know this day is coming, it is still heart rendering when it does. Our old friend Max has crossed the Rainbow Bridge.

Max

Now every dog is special and I have had some great ones in my time on this rock. Max came to us late in life, we found him and his sister Maya at the rescue in Canmore, Alberta. We were actually sent there by an old blogging friend Sandra Merrikin who knew we were looking for a border collie type dog, we had recently lost our Meg, and had found one on the internet. We had just seen this meme on the internet and thought it was time.

Look close at the dog in this picture and Max, is that a coincidence or WHAT?

Getting them home is a story in itself. But although we figured he was a beagle/lab cross and we have had a few border collie's in our time, Max was the only dog I ever had that understood complete sentences. Some of those border collies had pretty big vocabularies but Max was the only dog I have had that you could actually converse with and get a response like he knew exactly what you said and why.

He had that ability right from the get go with us. When we went to the Rescue to look at a border collie type dog they had there, we were chatting with the manager of the place and asked her if that dog, Maya, got along with other dogs. She said she wasn't sure, but she did get along with Max. We asked "well who is Max?". She told us Maya and Max had been surrendered together and wondered if we wanted to meet Max. We said sure, well he came into the room, took a spin around it, and set himself down in front of me and proceeded to bark at me. His eyes, his body and especially his tail were giving me every indication that he was telling me some kind of story and I had better listen up. To this day I believe he was explaining that if we were thinking about adopting Maya we had better make room for him, because like it or not he was coming along. We got the message and although he had been spoken for by another family, the manager worked it out so this bonded pair could come home with us. Like all Brown family stories, that leads to another story, but one I have told before on this blog so just follow this link back to it.

Long story short, they both came home, eventually and the last seven years have added immeasurably to our lives. They travelled with us, going south to Arizona every year and camping around Alberta in the summer, while Max still made sure that the coyotes here at Dogpound North knew exactly where they were allowed and where they weren't.

He was a happy guy!

Maya and Max enjoying a summer day at Dogpound North

He loved going to walkabouts in the desert with me.

Yesterday visiting Cain and Camo, Matt's two Mastiffs

Staying Home

Well we have been back home for a little over two weeks, completed our 14 day self-isolation with no signs of the virus. We probably had enough food in the trailer to feed a doodlebugging party for a month so we have been good from that perspective as well. Matt has made sure we had anything else we need, he goes by most days and if we need something he just dumps it in the driveway. We have even had a few conversations yelled across the yard.

Now I am not seeing a lot of difference between self isolating and #stayinghome, although I have got out and made sure at least some of the moose have survived the winter. They are a little spooky so something tells me they might have been hunted a little over the winter. Hunting season was done well before we left last December and they had not been pressured a lot through that, but we have had some treaty hunting in the area in years past so one never knows.

The two shots above were taken the same evening so it just proves that theory that if you are shooting sunsets or sunrises you should always stay for the whole event, things will change as time goes by.

I am noticing a few things different what with Alberta being shut down in a manner that we have never seen before. Only essential services are open, like groceries, fuel stations, pharmacies and I think hardware stores. Most other places are shut down, unlike our winter sunbelt in Arizona where apparently things like nail and hair salons and I can't believe this one golf courses have been deemed essential businesses. By golly one can't deal with a pandemic if their roots are showing or their nail thingy's are growing out. Seems we did make the right decision for us when we ran north for the border.

Some other things I see here, even though Calgary, 40 miles SE of us, is one of only 4 airports in Canada that is accepting International flights, there are NO planes in the sky over our place, it hasn't been like that in 40 odd years we have been here. Not much traffic on the highways, and as I wandered about checking out the neighbourhood, although my neighbours are out and about feeding livestock and going about their business of farming they are for the most part staying home.

Sunrise April 1, 2020