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.