Stanley and the Mountains

The mountains are my happy place. It’s where I can really breathe and put things in perspective. What makes hiking even better for me is going with the dogs. I started a long time ago with Larry, my brother Stanley’s Border Collie mix, and my Golden Cody. Then I spent wonderful hours of freedom exploring unknown trails with Charley.

Over the past few years, Elbee and Gus have been my faithful companions. But now, since the hills are getting a little steep for Elbee and everything sticks to Gus like velcro, I decided it was time to take Stanley.

ELBEE Excuse me. What is it lately with Stanley this and Stanley that? What am I, chopped liver. By the way, I’ve never understood that expression. I enjoy chopped liver, especially with a nice piece of rye bread.

As we started up our first trail together, other than an inordinate amount of sniffing, Stanley was doing really well. He trotted along by my side, fascinated, maybe a little too fascinated, by the lizards and birds.  Fortunately, the snakes were sleeping.

To my surprise, the brush sunflower was blooming so of course I had to take his first mountain flower photo. I always took pictures of Charley and Elbee with them.

ELBEE Yes, but we had them all over our heads. Why couldn’t we just stand next to them and look cute like Stanley? 

Since it was a weekend, we ran into so many of the regulars. It was like a meet and greet for Stanley. He continued sniffing everything and everyone, including every dog that went by, but his tail never stopped wagging. To my delight everyone responded so positively to him, except for the bike riders who went flying by.

ELBEE She obviously has issues with them.

Actually one really nice couple on bikes made my day. They could see that he was a puppy and wanted to know how long I’d had him. When I answered “just a few months,” they were amazed that he was so well behaved!

ELBEE I’m sure she had tears in her eyes.

To be honest, I’m still mystified by some of his good behavior. I guess it’s like with the daughters. If you don’t want to get the blame for the bad, you can’t take all the credit for the good. There’s a flaw in there somewhere.

As we were heading down, another hiker was walking by and called out, “Cute puppy. What’s his name?” When I answered, “Stanley,” he said “That’s a character name.” I have absolutely no idea what he meant, but I loved it. I’m sure my brother was watching and got a good laugh. He truly was a character.