The Climbing Dog

Sometimes, there are dogs that have jobs. They get up every morning to go to work, herding cattle and sheep, barking at things, doing what dogs that have jobs are meant to do. Sometimes dogs play hooky, choosing instead to go on various expeditions that lead them away from their duties. Such was a dog that met my Dad early in the morning one day. I was too young to go along, but this story was related to me. Driving down an old dirt road, deep in the Rockies my Dad approached the trailhead to climb Mount Lindsey, one of the ten 14,000 foot peaks in the beautiful Sangre de Cristo range, his old yellow pickup truck pointed toward the peak. At about 16 miles up the road, the Singing River Ranch boasts a full working cattle and sheep ranch, with a dog, who often sat atop a grassy knoll to wait for passing trucks, with possible climbers headed up the peak. Cattle guards force drivers to slow way down, and signify the beginning of private range land in Colorado. This private range land has been a part of Colorado since the earliest settlers, the Spanish, first came to the state.

As my Dad slowed down to cross the guard, the dog left the post he had been sitting at, probably since early dawn, jumping into the back of his pickup truck! Assuming that the dog would just jump out once he started moving faster, Dad continued driving down the long twisting road. To his surprise the dog stood in the back of his truck, enjoying the breeze in his face, his tongue hanging out to one side. Once he parked at Huerfano trailhead, the dog jumped out and started heading up the winding trail, pausing to look for Dad as if to say, you coming or not? Seeing that the dog knew the trail and had obviously done this before, Dad shouldered his climbing pack, boots on and began the long hike, following the dog.

As they climbed, breathing in the crisp, chilly, Colorado air they jumped across the rocks that served as a makeshift bridge across the Huerfano River. Tall pine trees watched over them in the forest surrounding the trail. Small blue wild flowers just beginning to blooming on either side of the path they followed in the late spring weather. As they continued, the trees became more sparse, the trail that just a few steps before was soft dirt gave way to hard rocky ground. Every once in a while the dog would get excited, run up ahead, then wait for my dad to catch up then run up ahead again, never going far enough to lose sight of him. You could tell by the look on his face, the little blue heeler truly enjoyed climbing. Somehow, they both knew they were partners in the climb, nothing needing to be said.

Dad and the dog had already gained over 2,000 feet in elevation still heading toward the steep 1,000 foot ascent they still face before reaching the top. The hard rocky ground was usually hard on dogs' paws, but this dog didn't seem to mind a bit as if he had traveled it before. After several hours of climbing over the mountainous