Two Sundays ago, we took Schatzi with us on a rugged hike in the Rincon Mountains east of Tucson.
She hashes with us and handles four- and five-mail trails with ease, but there were a lot of big rocks on this trail, rocks two or three times Schatzi’s size . . . to make a long story short, she hurt her back. The vet gave her anti-inflammatory pills and told us to keep her out of action for a week. We made a ramp so that she could get up and down from the sofa, and I let her sit on a pillow under a warm halogen lamp on my computer desk, where she could look out the window and growl at whoever came by.
After a few days she was back to normal, but she’d grown quite fond of her desktop observation post, so I decided to suck it up and find other places for the things I normally keep there. If I’m at the computer, Schatzi’s there with me, guarding her domain from trespassing dogs, neighbors, school kids, rabbits, coyotes, javelina, and ground squirrels.
No more ball-buster trails for Schatzi, and we’re keeping the ramp (not that she’ll use it!), but next weekend we’ll let her go hashing again. Don’t worry, I’m the hare, and I plan to lay a short flat trail. Schatzi grew up hashing and totally loves it, and we could never deprive her of that.