Taking on Wildcat - Solo!

This weekend I took my first solo backpacking trip! I was avoiding the "empty apartment" grief of losing a dog and venting from my first week at a very tedious office job.

Bug and I packed up and picked up another dog friend Gina, bright and early on Saturday. Pre-water filling, my pack was around 20 lbs at a guess. Dog food is heavy! My poor tent's footprint was left due to volume concerns - 45 L is pretty tiny when you've got to pack an entire tent for yourself. Even my adorable, tiny beloved tent is about 3 L in a compression sack. I was very tempted to ditch the tent and sleeping pad for a hammock, but with two dogs and predicted temperatures in the low-40s, I went with my usual setup (Sierra Designs Clip 3, Thermarest Z-Lite pad, Thermarest pillow, Kelty Cosmic Down 20, and Alps Mountaineering Razor -- quite a large/heavy lineup, really. I'm upgrading a bit at a time!)

Adorable Gina in her sweater

Clothing-wise, I went super light. The weather was supposed to be mild, so the only extra sets of anything I brought was a pair of socks for each day and a spare pair. Smartwool longsleeve undershirt, light tech tee, and light hiking pants made up the single outfit I brought. For breaks from hiking, nighttime, and "in-case", I brought a hoodie, down vest and light rain gear. The dogs each had a rainproof/fleece reflective coat, and Gina had a fleece sweater for sleeping in.

As usual, when packing/planning food unsupervised, I brought approximately twice as much food as I needed. I also accidentally shopped for this trip absolutely STARVING hungry after work on Friday, so wandered Giant Eagle for 40 minutes before deciding the giant pile of mismatched items in my basket would have to suffice. Food brought: Dinner: a mountain house meal, packet of instant pasta, lunch/snacks: pack of jerky, jar of PB, half-sandwich bag of dark chocolate chips, tortillas, sandwich bag of pretzels, and breakfast: hot chocolate, instant coffee, and instant oatmeal.

A stick bug Bug found!

More than half of everything came home, and the dogs got most of the instant pasta. Cooking kit was just a Jetboil (best stove EVAR) and a plastic mug. Oh, and since my spoon-fork-knife died last trip, I grabbed a metal spoon from the kitchen for this time. My water supply was 3L in a camelbak and .5 L in a 1L nalgene -- which ended up perfect. I was left with 1L after dinner, had a "Sahara desert" night, made breakfast with 2 cups and finished the trail with a sip left. I had brought purification drops in case, but didn't really need to refill nor did I see a good candidate stream for filling up. I like to see good moving water, and the few I passed were pooled and filled with leaf litter.


Leaving the house Saturday morning, I lapped my neighborhood twice to run back in for important forgotten things. First round: pocket knife, the morning's coffee in a travel mug, diva cup. Second round: hiking boots. After that I ran around Columbus picking up necessary things: Dog #2 and the Jetboil, so with the hour and forty minute drive, I wasn't on the trail until 10am.


Regardless of the late start, I made awesome time and was around 11 miles in (and exhausted!) by 3.30. I started looking for a campsite. I usually like to camp "low," along a stream or otherwise lower-elevation area, because in my experience it tends to be sheltered from wind, though may be colder in temperature. Also, camping next to a water source has obvious advantages (see above: Sahara desert night!) However, the most perfect camping spot ever -- along a stream, with pretty rock formations marking out the streambed, with a fire ring already set up -- was taken and had a whole string of neighbors, probably about 6 or 7 tents total. Ugh! So we hiked another mile and it ended up uphill for most of that until I came to a nice flat ridge to set up on. I definitely missed having buddies at this point - delegating one person to do dinner and one to set up camp is super efficient. I sucked it up, tethered the dogs with their dinners (because I'd be unable to supervise my food while setting up the tent), and started the water boiling so it'd heat up while I worked on the tent. One of my favorite features of the Jetboil is the colorful window that turns bright yellow when it's boiling - you can see from across camp that it's done! No more popping the lid carefully, risking dumping your entire stove and letting all the heat out at the same time. I'd like to buy my own Jetboil, that thing is crazy awesome.

You might think that solo hiking would be lonely. I did! Actually it was really nice. The dogs were plenty company and while eating or just resting, I had brought my kindle with a good thriller on it. Most of the time, either on the trail or at camp, I was busy with tasks like either, hiking, making food, or setting things up, so there was really never a time I wished for more company. Also, I had a rough week - starting a new job after losing Dazz meant that every evening had at least a few tears involved. Planning and packing for the trip gave me something to work toward on Thursday and Friday. I also really enjoyed the thinking time. I didn't have any sad moments on the trail as I'd expected - the excitement of the dogs was contagious and I really just relaxed in nature and the physicality of taking a moderate trail rather fast.

Fun sunset view from my bed - also,
 tempted fate leaving off the rain fly!

Before bed (at, you know, a chilly and rapidly darkening 6.40 PM) I set up a raccoon-Bug bag. I wasn't terribly worried about bears in Wayne National Forest, but because I brought a Bug into my tent and didn't want to leave food sitting on the ground outside of the tent, I rigged a mini bear-bag with a dog leash and my sleeping bag sack.


The night went by quickly - waking up, reading a bit, taking a teensy sip of water, making sure the dogs were warm enough and going back to sleep. At one point a flashlight hit the side of my tent and scared the living hell out of me until I determined it was a distant camping-neighbor in search of firewood. Plus, I figured no one could murder me without first getting their face bit off by the vicious 19 lbs of terrier in my tent.

I think I accidentally stumbled upon the best camping weekend this season. Sunny, super clear, 60s in the day and low 40s at night, and with a new moon! I left the rain fly off of my tent and got to enjoy the stars all night!

The Red River Gorge (and Bug's dog-aggressive shenanigans)

Posting this super late because I wrote it up in August and left it a draft to add pictures, and completely forgot to post it. 

This weekend (August 1-3) we took a trip to The Red River Gorge in Slade, KY. It was super fun! We loaded up the Subie with all our climbing and camping gear on Friday for two full days of climbing, Saturday and Sunday.

Getting to Miguel's around 10pm, we set up our tents and went for a quick night hike to see the stars. It was beautiful! I desperately need  a tripod because I couldn't capture the stars and milky way with the dSLR, but I wish I could have! The air was still, very quiet in the loud, summer way. What a nice, relaxing start to the weekend! (Though KY humidity is brutal, we climbed into bed sweaty and even my pillow felt damp, ick.)

Saturday morning we had some confusion getting to The Shire (actually finding the Sore Heel parking lot was the hard part, once there it was easy navigating from the wooden signs). Late start or not, we did find it and hiked up to the wall where it was a bit crowded, so I had to lead the 5.8, "Audie," before the 5.7, but I'm really glad I did because later I took my first lead fall on the crux 3rd bolt on the 5.7, "Pee-Wee!"

About 20 minutes after we arrived, a family arrived with a very pretty husky mix named Bandit. He and Bug seemed to get along fine until Bug froze over a pack. I caught it out of the corner of my eye as she started twitching her lips and dove towards her, catching right as she exploded at him. I half-carried, half-dragged her over the uphill area and logs by her harness. I kept myself between her and Bandit, swinging my legs at him a few times to discourage him from reaching her, until Bandit's people could leash him because he followed us. She was extremely worked up but luckily had the bite inhibition not to nip me (because I did everything wrong in desperation to stop the fight before the dogs could connect).

So annoying yet adorable.

I'm sure she started the fight because she decided the pack, most likely containing food, was hers, and she was just stressed enough to feel the need to defend it. I'm now trying to find out why her stress level was that high. The rest of the weekend she was straight up dog aggressive, exploding at the sight of any new dogs without any warning or threshold. I ran blood work and had her eyes examined, hopefully something will show up that's fixable. I'm also starting her on NSAIDs constantly, because hip pain could really ruin her day and be just enough to make her snarky. So, either there's something physical going on, or she's gotten straight up dog reactive, beyond her barrier frustration/leash reactivity that was before. I'm hoping it's something we can solve, because working through her reactivity is so hard! I'm so intimidated by it, and just attempting to get her to work at outdoor class is frustrating enough to nearly bring me to tears, Every. Single. Time. Which, obviously, makes me loathe to take her to class again, so then she doesn't improve. GAH. Basically, I need to find her threshold where we can work. Right now it's so far as to be nonexistent. Talking to my good friends at Behavior Unleashed, we've decided to work for 6 months with good training, and if she doesn't improve, we'll look at anxiety-reducing medications for her.

The Bug house.

"27 years"

But anyway, the rest of climbing was AWESOME (minus managing Bug trying to eat all other dogs)! I had her canvas crate and set it up wherever else we went, and that worked amazingly for her to have a safe spot -- and to keep her out of sight of other scary dogs! (Bad dogs have to be good in crates or they'd be impossible to live with!) We climbed Audie a few more times, and had a really nice group of climbers take up our rope as tagline and set up TR for us on Myranda Rayne, a 5.9 that was really fun, and a bit longer than anything else around. They also suggested going to The Gallery, another wall off of the Sore Heel parking lot, so Sunday afternoon we left Cody and Bug to nap at the car and headed over there to climb "27 years of climbing," a really nice, juggy/ledgy 5.8 with 7 bolts to the top, fairly long with a nice low first bolt and close 2nd and 3rd with easy stances for confidence building! I got pretty sure of myself on this one and really climbed, unlike the other leading I'd done where I was too scared to pull any risky-fun moves. So glad we got to do this one! I also can't wait to go back and lead that sucker again, what a fun route. Also I'd like to be a little less terrified and not make a mess of clipping the anchors. (The final burn to the anchors was a little overhung, not enough to be difficult, but enough to be scary, and the clipping stance requires a layback that's hella scary 70-some feet above the ground!)

The subie's AWD was tested on some of those "roads," which were super fun to drive on. It'll be interesting to take a fall trip and try them...

Cute mutt in the dirty subie.

Rest Easy, Old Friend.

Her last day was full of tennis balls and fun - and it was a really beautiful day. Some pictures of our "Dazz's best day ever" and our last day together.

Rest easy, my old friend. You're a good dog.

Dazz, the best dog.

Dogs for me didn't start with Bug. It started when I was ten, disliked dogs generally, and my sister was getting to keep a doberman puppy that my family had bred. She was red, not afraid of anything and absolutely adorable. Because parents have to be fair, she was supposed to be my sister's dog but I'd get to train her. However, one day I got mad at my sister and hatched an evil plan to make her puppy love me. It succeeded as much as it failed because I soon loved the puppy as much as she loved me!

Training her was easy, everything with Dazz was easy. Crazy for tennis balls, dry biscuits, or just a "good dog," Dazz didn't make me love dogs, but I sure loved her. I didn't do anything special with her like agility or 4H or even just training classes. I just had the most loyal dog one ever. She'd come riding on the trails with me on horseback, galloping around hunting but never far. She'd lay on my bed and fall asleep watching me when I was studying, but ready to be on her feet in seconds if a tennis ball was mentioned. (On that note - she learned to spell from a dead sleep. All you had to do was spell B-A-R-N or H-O-R-S-E-S and she'd be 100% awake and sprinting for the back door.)

When I reached college, she'd slowed a bit but was just as loyal. Home visits while living pet-less in the dorms my freshman year were equally rejuvenating and heartbreaking. Those airplane ears would be in the picture window as I pulled in and when I left. My sophomore and junior years I got kicked out of two apartments to have her with me - at that point she was 8 and 9 years old, and I refused to miss a moment of the last few years I'd get with her. She was starting to have a really rough time - Wobbler's had reared its ugly head and her gaits got choppy, awkward and later just plain stumbly. So I bought her a harness with handles and got good at hefting 65 lbs around. We've been chugging along like that for a few years - lucky enough to have an amazing person who happens to be a vet for a best friend to make late night "DAZZ IS REALLY BAD" visits and put the both of us back together (me emotionally and Dazz pharmaceutically.)

At nearly 13.5, I realize I'm a very very lucky doberman owner. I'm also just lucky in general to have had the privilege of looking after this awesome dog. But I knew it had to come to an end. All along in the back of my head I remembered Rainbow, Dazz's grandmother, had lived to 14, and that became a ticking clock. She'll live to 14, or longer! I'm an awesome owner, I've got gabapentin and prednisone and rehab exercises!

The last week or two she's been really extra limpy on her back legs, the neuro-deficits really obvious. She's also been very stressy. Dazz has generally been a stressy, neurotic dog (doberman!) - reacting very strongly to my stress levels, unfortunately for sure I'm also stressy, lol. But lately she's licking her feet, trembling, etc, often. multiple times per day. The last few months I've noticed that and in the back of my head starting making my "quality of life" calculations.

Tonight I called my vet friend, the "there's definitely something not right and I just know it's serious." Unfortunately I was right and her lungs are full of mets, from most likely a splenic tumour. I'd kinda known for a week - I'd been giving her extra food/my dinner/whatever she wanted - without making a conscious or rational realization.

My options are high dose pred + wait/see, or just euthanize when I'm ready. It's currently 1.30am, and officially I'm making the decision in the morning, but I'm likely going to let her go while I'm visiting my parents for a few days this week. I already had known I'd prefer to do it at home, and bury her on the farm we both grew up on.

For now, I'm snuggling her and telling her she's the best dog ever and that's the only thing she needs to worry about (while I'm breaking to pieces inside.)

Always nearby!

Doing some training. She always made it easy with her crazy drive and focus longer than mine. 

Rehab stuff with the best DVM on the planet.

Did some portraits when I had an empty room in my apartment.

Wingy ears! 

Sharing food with Elvis

Playing at the beach in San Diego, waiting for the tennis ball in that "cheating" doberman heel.

And sleeping on top of Bug, because Dazzes cannot sleep without ALL the blanket!