Together Again!

My last blog post I spoke about Max and his buddy Maya and the things they added to our lives. They came to us as a bonded pair, Maya had only spent a few weeks of her life without Max in it. She washed his face every morning, and tomorrow morning she will be doing it at the Rainbow Bridge.

Every day, no matter where we were, she washed his face.

Maya was one of those dogs that was just sweet, kind and gentle. She didn't really have a mean bone in her body and was just happy to be loved on at all times. It is hard to tell stories about her without telling stories about them both, they were very rarely apart and if Max went with me on a picturing expedition or out to chase a storm Maya was not happy while he was gone.

She had suffered an episode last winter that we had thought was in the past, but it was probably some kind of stroke and it seemed that when Max was gone she just went downhill fast.

Just wanting to be with her people. "Outside is for dogs" she seemed to say

She would spend her every waking minute being with her people if she had her choice, and other than going along with Max on his coyote chasing expeditions as his security detail she was never far from Brenda.

She hated thunderstorms and was usually looking for cover, behind the chair, or in our walk-in closet, long before the first thunderhead showed up at Dogpound North. Entirely different than Max who would roar out to do battle with the storm. But she really liked just laying about wherever her people were, and in most cases in front of the refrigerator in the trailer or in the high traffic areas in the house.

Her favourite sleeping position

The last few weeks have been hard on everyone here, but especially so on Maya, she would wander aimlessly like she was looking for her buddy, and stare off into the distance like she heard someone calling, but didn't know how to get there. She was having more and more trouble getting up and we were having to lift her to her feet. Along with her own health issues which were not insignificant it just seemed she had lost the will to live without her friend.

There will be some high energy romps going on at the Rainbow Bridge tonight

Together Again

It will be a lonely place here at Dogpound North without these guys.

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

Down and Up

Well since the last time I wrote I have done some traveling, a little riding and of course a lot of eating. I won’t bore you with the eating but those who know Brenda know that everyday is a feast at our house.

We got back on the 27th of December and headed out to do some riding the very next day. We had plans to go out with our friends “K” and “T” as well as Dave and Linda to a ranch west of Buckeye for a New Years Eve ride but on the 30th of December Brenda woke up in the middle of the night with some weird reaction to what must have been some kind of bug bite. Her hand was quite painful and pretty much useless so she was not going to be able to ride. We opted to stay home. Over the long weekend I did manage to get my share of riding in around the neighbourhood with various friends there though. First off Sonya and I rode the Vekol Wash from up around the arena, there were supposed to be more folks there but I guess they got lost on the way so we took off on a couple of hours of riding. In the afternoon I headed over to Pococks to sort some cattle but Blue was having a bad day and we never got in the pen. He has developed a major case of herd sour and that will give us something to work on over the next little while. We were going to head to the Raceway for a dinner New Years Eve but it appeared that they had a fancy schmancy dinner compete with table clothes happening there Jill and Brenda and I came back to our place where Brenda whipped up a little lasagna and salad along with garlic bread. Pretty good for a spur of the moment dinner. Then we were off to Johnson’s for a bonfire. While we were there we got to see some kind of comet streaking across the sky.

Then on New Years Day I joined the Johnson clan and Paul and CC, and Bridget for a ride around the mountain. Probably 14 miles by the time I got back home.

To finish off the long weekend I took off again with the Johnson’s and Brenda and Willow joined us and here they are with Bobbie alongside.

I managed to get the Johnson clan all lined up for a family portrait and it turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. The family that rides together, stays together, at least as long as their horses get along anyway.

While we were out on this ride we figured we could bring our dogs along to ride out here someday. There is a smattering of Cholla and a few Saguaro’s but nothing that a couple of smart pups couldn’t get through without getting stuck. So a couple of days later we came out for a Woofer Wednesday ride. Meg was sure happy to be back on the trail.

And Mack is pretty new at this trail riding but he did great to, and he stays pretty close to the horse so I don’t have many pictures.

Wednesday night Brenda and I headed into town and picked up our friends Bill and Margaret from Dease Lake. They are staying with us a few days and Brenda has convinced Bill that he should change the bathroom countertops in our place here at Dogpound South.

Here is the one in the main bathroom before and after

and here is the before and after in the ensuite,

 

 

Looks pretty good eh! My part? Well Bill is a pretty handy kind of guy and I am somewhat unhandy to say the least so I thought I had better stay out of the way, so to make sure I didn’t mess the works up I headed into Phoenix and jumped on a plane to Calgary. That is a whole other story and I will try to remember it when I write next.