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| Me, my Mal, and my ex, in one tiny plane: Ted looked out the window for a few minutes (those are the Coloradan foothills receding into the distance in the photo above Ted's head-shot) and then he fell asleep for the whole trip. |
My Alaskan Malamute was epic. He looked like a cross between a polar bear and a werewolf, and he could hunt. He burned through life like you should: at full throttle, and not injury-free. He was hit by a car running across a street towards a playground full of kids before he was fully grown, flung onto a sidewalk where he almost died, and then he made a complete recovery. His first trip away from home was on a little airplane, from the family farm in Oklahoma where he was born back to Colorado with my ex-boyfriend because, at the time, my boyfriend was logging hours towards a private pilot's license. I took Ted's second plane ride with him (with the same boyfriend), from Colorado to West Texas to see my dad and his family. Ted was supposed to be my "huggy bear" during the trip because I hate flying, but once we reached cruising altitude, he immediately fell asleep for the entire trip.
That's not all. Once we landed in the middle of nowhere, we took Ted around to see the sights. First, to my dad's house in the middle of "Nowhere", then to his ranch that's in the middle of "Absolute Nowhere". That night in the small cabin down on the ranch, we made a plan for the next day: we'd follow the wild boar tracks we found down by the stream by tracking the hoof prints in the mud, hopefully finding the big beast after many years of trying, because it was a notorious no-show on the ranch. So, the next day, I found myself with my dad, my youngest bro, my boyfriend, and my big Mal Ted on a trail during sunrise; them with guns in hand, and me with my dog.
Ted did not disappoint. He'd been a naturally gifted tracker since his early days, all on instinct. We took him hiking in the Colorado backwoods one afternoon, coming across a lone Moose in front of us. Ted was brilliant. At just seven months old and not fully grown, he immediately cut ahead of us by a few paces to block the large animal, then he walked slowly up to it, breaking away suddenly into the brush when it disappeared into the woods. We spent a few tense moments between us, wondering if he'd come back at all, or if we had to do a "search and rescue", but just as we said it, there he was crashing back through the bushes, smiling happily up at us. Yeah! You did it!!
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| For you, "Moose": http://cpw.state.co.us/learn/Pages/LivingwithWildlifeMoose.aspx |
After that, we dubbed him "Moose Man" or "Moose Dog": two more names of affection for an incredibly uncommon dog of many names, with many gifts. Back at the ranch, we waited in the pink sunlight, hidden among the thick sage brush for something to happen, and then it did. We heard some noises and some shuffling, without knowing what was moving around out there. Snow dogs take off like a shot if you don't rein them in, so I had my guy on a short leash, but once we got up from our spots to take a look around, I paid out the leash with plenty of slack for Ted to do his thing, which he did.
He took us to a little hole in the ground where he paced around sniffing furiously, with some more movement. I put my disposable camera to the ground, taking a couple of blind shots of whatever was lying there underground. There was another dash of movement, and then we followed Ted to a small leafless tree in the desert brush. We finally figured out what Ted had so masterfully scented out in the clear, thin morning air. Sitting there between the highest tree limbs was a very large and totally freaked out porcupine, the largest spiny porcupine any of us had ever seen, and my dad had no idea they lived in the area, let alone his on his ranch-land. That was the awesome power of my "moose" dog; a fiercely bad-ass hunter, tracker, and scout. Where would we be without them? Nowhere.
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| http://bit.ly/1QHxEpa |
This one's for you today, Betty.
You burned through it brightly, girl!
You burned through it brightly, girl!
