I have always admired people that have a dog that will stay with their owner and act under complete control. I suppose that there is an element of trust that the owner and the dog need to have with each other. I have never had that either or maybe I haven’t had the nerve to try.

It has been a few months since I have written about my dog Raya. I wrote all of this and I was going through my pictures and I saw one from August. So I had to come in and edit today’s. See https://altf4.co/september-4-2024-something-about-a-dog/ She is a Covid dog. After our beloved Snowflake tragically died we had to give it a break. That was all pre-Covid so once we had been homebound for several months we changed our minds about getting another dog. It seemed like we were always home with nowhere planned to go, so might as well.

Unlike Snow, Ray is not a pure breed. She is a mix between Golden Retriever and Burmese Mountain Dog. This makes for some interesting characteristics. I used to believe that she was mostly Golden with the look of Burmese but now I think it is the other way around.

When Snow was young (about a year) and I was training for the half marathon, I would run with her. As she got older, she would just flop on the floor after a short walk. I attributed it to being out of shape but I think that it was more than that. Because Snow died from overheating on a very mild late summer day and Raya comes from the same blood line, I keep a wary eye on Raya for the same thing.

But, Raya has become my training partner of sorts. Sometimes I take a short loop and drop her off before I go out for longer. That way I don’t feel guilty about leaving her at home all the time as I put on the miles for my future hike. My plan is to slowly work her up in fitness level.

Raya has some of the exuberance of a Golden, but you have to get past the Burmese first. She has a very instinctual protection trigger. Anytime someone comes to the door she barks ferociously. She barks when she can see people outside the window. She will growl or bark when we are outside and anyone walks by.

Snow used to lay in the driveway as the school kids would walk by and they would come up and pet her. Raya will leap off the deck eight steps up, barking and snarling. I keep her inside for the expected thirty minutes of school traffic now because there is no reason to subject kids to that. She have never been violent and I don’t think she would but she is going to let you know that this is her territory.

However aside from the barking, I have never seen her act aggressive. If people ignore her, she will eventually start warming up to them. Pretty soon, she will not leave them alone. With me and others in my family she is always underfoot. The picture was taken next to the bed where she lays until I kick her out before I go to sleep. Often times, I find her against the door in the morning. I have actually come to appreciate that she can seem aggressive but really isn’t. It makes me feel like she can play a role in defense of the home without me having to worry about unwanted attacks.

The reason that I am writing today is that we took Raya to Montana. Sometimes she can be a real pain. When she excited, she can pull like a sled dog so I let her off the leash even though you are not supposed to in a national park. But there were very few people at the park anyway.

We took a short walk in the snow and Raya was herding us. She would run to the back person and then up to the front person. She was keeping us in line. I have never seen that before. Dogs were bred to have a job and she was having the time of her life doing hers.

End Your Programming Routine: A boy and his dog. I sure miss Snow because she was so loveable. But Raya is her own kind of special. She is protective, loyal and loving to her pack. My wife actually trained Snow to go get the paper every morning. She lived for that. Raya has her own job, I am just looking at how to harness it.