The Dog Rescue!

Shan and Max had quite an adventure yesterday, and I thought everyone would like to hear about it - or not. Read on to find out, then you'll have heard about it whether you wanted to or not. How about those turnips?

It has been very nice here in the Colorado foothills: cool at night, clear, warm and breezy during the days. The sun has been bright, and Jessica and Shan have some sunny spots on their skin to prove it! Shan's been gardening, pulling weeds and so on and enjoying it, and Jess has been working outdoors at Ride-A-Kart, her 4th year, although she works and behaves as though it is her place now. Oh well; she's Jessica, right?

Yesterday, Shan decided to take a walk, which meant that Max went with her. Even though she always claims she does not like the dog, she likes taking him for this walk, up the hill behind the cabin and back into the wild a way. (Lately, we've had a hen turkey in the neighborhood, which has been fun; it's not me, but another one and hen means female, okay? No bears. We do have a pesky raccoon who drinks the hummingbird juice and leaves footprints on the railing to prove it. OH well. And this morning, Shan saw the turkey on the railing. Not a turkey in the straw, by the way.) When they get near the top of the trail Shan releases Max from his tether and he runs and walks five to one hundred times farther than she does. But he's a dog, and needs to explore. Yesterday, when they reached the summit of the walk, Shan sat on a rock and decided she would soak up sun, relax, and enjoy the view. This spot is upstream from the cabin about a quarter of a mile or so and overlooks the stream and the road. Shan has a favorite sitting rock and enjoys sitting, watching and thinking on it. Max wanted to keep playing, so Shan found a stick that she threw to Max until he ate it all up. She had a water bottle for each of them and both took a long draw on their respective bottle. Shan said Max still seemed excited about being out and playing, which is normal for this adventurous critter, and the next thing she knew he was gone. The disappearing dog struck again!

She called, looked around, didn't find him and decided that he'd probably gone to the stream somehow - this is often his mode of operation, you see - and she would find him back at the cabin. She walked back. At about the same time I was returning from doing something else. Shan greeted me and said that Max was missing, telling me about the walk, her rock, the stick-throwing-and-chewing-up, the water drinking and so on, and that she thought he was probably playing in the river or something. We chuckled. It was fair enough. I went inside and waited for a few minutes. When I realized that Shan had not yet returned, I walked downstream a ways - Max has taken to going to a park down there, where she once found him after he'd drifted that quarter mile with the current until he could get out of the river. When I got back Shan was still gone.

While I scratched my head a few times trying to figure out what was going on Shan came rushing in and said we had to get a rope and rescue Max. I heard a mishmash of this and that, including that he was trapped near the river, was on the other bank, that Shan could not get to him and that he could not get across. The excited tone and general sense of urgency in Shan's voice meant that I wasn't entirely sure what this all meant, but it was enough to decide to put on my wading shoes and get my wading staff. I also decided to get Ed, our neighbor, to help. He's pretty good in an emergency and likes Max, so I figured he'd come. He did. Ed likes an adventure, too.

Shan said we had to drive up the road to get to him, so we piled into the Subaru and did just that. We parked in a narrow spot, jumped out and crossed the road.

The river is quite a ways below the road here, and the little "canyon" it runs through is very narrow. The water had come up a good deal the day before and it was funneled through the narrows and roaring at a good clip, with white water all along even though there were big eddies along the edges and downstream of large rocks. (Of course I wondered about casting a large dry fly in the eddies, but had other things to tend to just then. When you put an angler near a trout stream the angler is, well, and angler.)

We saw Max, the yellow and soaked blur, along the river's edge. He was within an enclosed area with no escape upstream or down, and a cliff face behind. It was a trap for a big dog. (Later, I wondered how he even got to this spot due to the cliff and so on, which was probably over 700 feet high. At the top was Shan's sitting rock.) As we watched, he jumped in the water, tried to swim across, got into a heavy current that he knew he couldn't make, then swam back to the other side about 40 feet below where he'd gotten in. I have no idea how many times he had already tried, but this dog does not quit. He was focused on getting across and tried again. Ed, Shan and I scampered - carefully - down the hill and through the rocks and scree to get to the river's edge. When Max noticed us, he wagged his tail and tried swimming over again, concentrating on us until the current again swept him away. The fast water changed his concentration from us to his own survival, it seemed, as he fought the current, failed to get through the fierce stuff, then swam back to the very last spot he could. If he didn't get out just there - the area just below that was even narrower and more dangerous to navigate - he'd have been swept the park a half mile downstream. I wonder how he knew to get out where he did? I still don't know, but Max always got out in the same spot, walked back up the bank and tried again. We told him to stay, but his focus now was getting across the river to his friends. He just kept trying to swim across the river.

While Shan continued to yell across the torrent, ordering Max to stay, Ed tied a loop in the end of the rope and handed it to me. We talked for a moment about the plan, and then Shan walked down the bank a ways and I started wading out. The water ended up being almost to my waist, which is very deep. (I'm 6'5" tall.) It was very fast. I used and depended on the wading staff for balance and still almost slipped a few times; but I've waded before - and many tougher spots - and was not frightened or anything like that. At least not yet. Max wanted to swim out to me in the worst way, and tried again only to be swept downstream again. Finally, he listened to my command to stay, and stayed put, waiting in a deep eddy until I got to him. It seemed like I could see the relief in his big, brown eyes. It was probably my imagination, though. He's only a dog.

I tied the rope to his collar, turned to Ed and said, "Don't drown my dog," then asked Shan to call her dog. Max started swimming again, hit the spot where he'd always been swept away, and once again tried to head to the bank. But this time he was pulled through when Ed tugged on the rope, which helped pull Max through the spot and across the river. When Max saw Shan waiting and calling for him he made a beeline to her and she got him out of the water, removed the rope and attached the leash. Max shook water from his golden fur. Shan cried, tear wetting her cheeks. (This from the girl who does not like the dog.) Ed wanted to throw me the rope to help me wade back, but that would not have been any help at all. Everyone greeted one another, safe on the right side of the river, and then we climbed up the rocky, steep, slippery slope back to the road - Max led the way and pulled Shan much of it - got back in the car and drove downstream to the cabin.

After grabbing Max's head, looking him square and the eyes and ordering him to never do that again, Ed went back to his house. We tied Max to the swing on the deck - he was soaked - and Shan brought him a towel to lie on, some food and water. It was, after all, his suppertime, one of the two most important times of the day for Max, the Chowderhead Golden Retriever. I examined Max - when he gets in the river he often gets cut paw pads and scrapes from the sharp rocks - and found many scrapes and cuts on his paws, legs and so on. There were no deep cuts - nothing that would have caused me to sew him up, in other words - but plenty of tears and scrapes that were red. He also seemed to have puffy spots that indicated some swelling was beginning, and he was acting like he was one sore puppy. Of course this did not keep him from eating his supper.

Shan nursed his wounds with warm water, washing them with gentle soap, cleaning them a bit and then applying some medication, which he probably licked away within the hour. He was docile while Shan worked on him, and seemed to like being brushed when she was finished with the medical examination. The emergency deck and grooming session complete, we went back into the cabin. Max sat, then laid down on the carpet. For some time he didn't move much, other than to lick his wounds now and again. He was ready to rest.

When Jess got home about two hours later Shan relayed the story. While listening, and using her considerable imagination, Jessica threw herself at Max, crying, patting, kissing and caressing him for about fifteen minutes. She wept and sobbed! Shan, the woman who does not like the dog, did, too. I gave him a child's aspirin - took one myself - and we all went to bed.

And that's the saga of Max, the adventurous, but temporarily trapped, Golden Retriever. This morning, tail wagging but moving slow, Max happily ate his breakfast. It's a new day!
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