Doggy in Dog House

No blog yesterday Saundra at Youth Conference and I am checking the men's bathrooms there a few times a day.  Tokk Kimmy on a walk up Patty Creek and only got up the road about 10 minutes, above 1st switchback on main road and the little farmer took off and I didn't see which way she went.  She has always done that, when I yell she has come back, the last week or so she has been getting braver and braver and being gone a little longer - she has been chasing deer - which I really don't like.  Well, needless to say she never came back, I continued to walk up the hill since she always has caught up tp me or come back on the trail/road above me etc.  Well, I called and called and she never came.  I cut my walk short and turned across the top of the canyon thinking she had gone up and nothing.  Got back to the parking lot 1 hour and the little rascal was not there - I yelled and waited, finally leaving to go tell Saundra and get something to drink planning to come right back.  Saundra went back with me, I was set to spend the night if necessary.  We had a prayer Saundra went up one side and I the other, Saundra said she said another prayer about 20 minutes up and felt impressed to check her phone, must have been about the same time I checked mine.  Two messages one from a lady who said she had found Kimber in the parking lot for the time on the message it couldn't have been 5 minutes after I had last seen her.  I am sure the lady thought she was doing the right thing, but if she would have left her I wasn't that far away and I am sure Kimber would have heard me and returned.  Anyway the lady hauled her off to the County Animal Shelter - that's who the 2nd call was from and they had her.  I called them back and they told me we could have her for $80 = impounding fee and boarding and city license.  I was urked and told the lady about it.  I said we get taxed and over taxed everytime we turn around etc.  Anyway went and got her paid the $80.  Got home and was sick rest of the night, whether it was something I ate at the Youth Conference or just the nerves from Kimber being gone?  Called a friend from 2nd Ward (Gayle Stark) who raises Britneys and has also had German Short Hairs, told him what happened.  He asked me a few questions and wanted to know if she had been chasing any animals on our walks, I told him just this week with deer. He told me I had to get an electronic training system and use it, he said he never lets his dogs out of his sight, whether hunting or just walking.  He said that it is to bad I didn't talk to him sooner as she now would be hard to break.  I am to start in the yard with a 30-40 foot rope on her collar and when she gets that far away shock her on a low setting and at the same time pull  the rope and get her to come back.  He said after several successful times I can do it without the rope and when she responds go to that then I can try her in a field and when under control there - the mountains,   He never takes his dogs in the mountains because of all the trees etc and he can't see them.  He said that if she stays good he guessed it would work.  Is she chases a deer I am to turn the power up all the way and sap her and not say a word, in fact walk the other way, he thinks after the 3 or 4th time she will think the deer are causing the pain and she will leave them alone.  He said never take her out of the yard without her training collar on even his  year old he has to sometime correct and that is the only way to keep them in control.  I bought the least expensive collar and controller I could find on sale at Warehouse Sports and I am charging it.  I went for a 2 hour and 20 minute walk today without her and I guess she is in timeout as Saundra said until we can trust her to respond correctly.  Even with a 4 1/2 walk and a 3 hour walk I am only at 12 hours and 20 minutes, for the week, maybe I will have to revise my goal?   15 hours seems to be almost impossible time wise, I am going to continue to try for now.  When we take Kimmy to the lake she can not get out of sight either.  Gayle told me it is her breed that they are wonderful dogs , but make everything a game, chasing, getting out of yards etc.  She does it with things she picks up.  A couple of others had told me I should have a electronic collar as well, Wes Wilson a retired Doctor I walked of Mt Sentinel with last week, thought she was exceptionally well behaved but said she would venture further and further and the only way to change it was electronic stimulation, also another fellow I met one day with an 8 year old male GSP he said he had to do it and his dog still got carried away.  So a training we will go, a training we will go, hi ho the dairio a training we will go.

Well time for a another day from my mountain trip:

Day 7 Friday April 29^th

Today was another snowy one, I woke up this morning to find the water on the stove had frozen for the 3^rd night in a row.  I think it was a little thicker this morning than the past.  After breakfast and a trip to the latrine where the log was extremely wet and cold, I built a fire in the stove and warmed up.  I had left the computer charge all night so I started writing on my book, the plan was to write at night or after my walks but mother nature is not cooperating yet.  I worked on the book for a couple hours then decided it would be best if I get out for a walk regardless of the cold wet snow.  Unlike hunting season where there is motivation, it is easy to say I can walk tomorrow, however I got with the program and dressed appropriately.  I decided I did not need to wander around and ge4t wetter from the brush than from the falling snow so I carefully picked my way down along the creek following it downstream to Boulder Creek then up Boulder to the bridge, I crossed and walked down stream on the road as my ony object was exercise and fresh air (it was really fresh), for some reason it seems colder and wetter than in the fall, maybe because we have been teased with spring?   I walked about 1 ½ hours hard to say since my friend John met me on the road on his four wheeler and we talked for some time.  He had taken the back road  (trail) over to Pburg to biuy headlight for his four wheeler.  This trail goes up past my camp on the road to the top then over a trail on Royal Basin and out in the open down into Pburg.  He says right on top there is about 1 ¼ miles of drift that he could not get over Sunday or Monday because it was melting and you sunk in.  He estimate the drifts at 10’.  I heard him go by this morning about the time I got up.  He said he would normally go at 3 or 4 am so the trail would be solid, but with no lights he had to chance the daytime, he says with the new snow the stuff underneath is holding so he had little trouble, he wondered if I knew anywhere in Missoula that sold the old steel scoop shovels, he carries one and his (an aluminum on is broken) says the snow is to hard on it when he digs himself out.

Got back to camp and decided I best cut some more firewood as I had been burning it pretty well.  I cut down a dead 6” at the base lodge pole and began cutting it up.  I got it about half cut up and my chain saw started acting up – like I was pushing the chain break only I wasn’t .  I took it apart and could not see what was wrong, I tried it again to the same result.  It was snowing pretty heavily so I stood the remained of the tree up against some live ones to keep it off the ground and decided this weather was not the time for an overhaul.  I will wait for a better day.  Another guy and his wife (I guess it was his wife, she needed to visit Jared and so did the man), stopped as I was walking on the road and wanted to know if I needed a ride.  I told them I was just out for a walk, I commented that spring was slow coming and they said the forecast was for warmer weather starting Monday, but not to get to excited as further snow showers were forecast later next week.  Well, this is what I bargained for and what sort of expected although I was sure spoiled this past week end & kinda hoped it would continue so I could get up a little higher, my guess is that the snow drifts I was fiddling with earlier in the week are just a little deeper now, several inches I would guess, with new snow over frozen oh well at least it is not the 1800’s and I am stuck on Donner Pass heading to California.  Right now I am in a tent where it is fairly comfortable from my waist up and gets a little colder every inch down from their, until my feet kinda feel like I am standing in one of those drifts.  The ole green tent does pretty well, but there are enough holes etc, that the stove must be constantly fed and the floor (the dirt floor) never warms up.  I actually got a little chilly once last night in bed, but as I shifted away from the wall a little I managed to go back to sleep.  If I were to evaluate my first 7 days, I would have to say there has been some disappointment but much satisfaction, I hope that makes sense.  The disappointment has been the depth of the snow and the limited access to places I wanted to go, ie I could have left my fishin stuff home unless I plan to go down to Flint Creek which I don’t – even the lower lakes will be under a few feet of snow and the ices would no doubt be a couple feet thick as these lakes are higher than Georgetown and smaller, Georgetown sometimes gets nearly 2 feet thick.  The other thing is the continued snowy weather, I was hoping it would snow like it did the first couple days – a little spring corn snow and then some sunshine, but oh no it has settled in to at first a real wet snow and now just a continual snow fall and cold enough weather it is doing no melting except on my tent while the fire is stoked, speaking of which I best do it now.    Whew, thought I lost all I had written tonight, luckily I found it.  That happened while I was typing on my book and lost a page or so, which I had to do over.  I am a little naïve when it comes to these things- you would think after all the years I have used one I would know something, seems the younger generation pick it up real fast,  I am obviously not with that group.  I found that if I search for the little icon or picture that kind shows a curved arrow and I touch nothing else I can get back what I was working on.  If I hit the wrong thing or the wrong curvy arrow – it’s gone and I am out of luck.  It is best if I take my time and look it over before I touch it.  Well, I need to venture out, lock the computer in the truck, move the little food I brought in to the back of the truck, brush my teeth and bring back my scriptures to read and study a while.  I don’t have room for everything in here and I kinda have a system, still don’t know where everything is but I have stuff in the cab to make sure it is dry and secure and food etc in the back, also dry and secure and me, my sleeping stuff and the clothes I am wearing, wood and the stove, a folding table, a folding chair, the lantern and a couple flashlights in the tent with me.  Even with adding to my wood pile today I have burned about 1/3^rd of what I have in here.   if I can’t fix the saw, it is a hand saw and an axe,  I don’t mind so much but I would rather get my exercise with a chain saw (that’s bad enough) and walking.  It also would be nice if I could walk and set up my computer outside to work on my book and this journal rather than always have to have a fire in the stove.  Those days will come.  I burned through another bottle of propane for the lantern today, they go pretty fast to – you can’t see anything other than the holes when the flaps are closed, so I need the light to work.  I used a headlight for a while but it is awkward to type with.  I may try my luck with a trip over the mountain to Pburg on the trail while it is still frozen, just to see what it is like, I don’t have a windshield like John, but I have a scoop shovel, mine is aluminum also.   Enough for now, out into the night to make adjustments.  Oh I guess I should report,  I have written 6 additional chapters in my book, the first 3 and some background a prologue if you will I had written over the years – this thing has been on my mind for a while now and since my mind is tiny I best get it out, I have forgotten more about my story than I will ever write.  It has been one of those things I thought about, besides family and church things, over the years while the bugs committed suicide on my windshield.