Meet Bubba’s chew toy.

Yes, that would be a moose leg.

No, this is not our dog. Thank goodness.

Steven: Bubba is an unofficial wrangler at the Alpaca Farm down the street from us.  However, that usually just means him sleeping at the edge of the driveway and occasionally getting into poorly secured neighbor garbage cans.  We were pondering if this was truly a wonderful gift from his Alpaca Farm family or the sweetest garbage find ever for a dog… Either way, he was very, very happy…

No prancing on the back of my legs,
those wonderful feelings lost, gone to stay.
No musical yawns giving me crows feet,
the sounds only haunting on this cold dark night.
No fur on my mouth while I breathe out,
just glistening salt on my trembling lips.
No dancing for repetitions of threes,
no Riley, Riley, Rileys…

Riley’s absence starkly stands out against the somberness of the house now. His presence was considered normal. Now removed, it’s painfully missing. His uniqueness lit up the room and filled it with a vibrancy and warmth that’s now forever lost. This new silence builds into deafening waves of pain that choke my heart and overflow my eyes.

This is Riley. I got Riley just over three years ago when he was about midway between puppyhood and dogdom - a secondhand dog, so to speak. His original name was just too awful to be kept. I remember riding home with him on my lap, Steven and I trying to come up with a suitable name for this little bundle of fun and energy. When I hit upon Riley, it stuck. It just fit. Like it had always been his name and it just took a little thinking on our parts to figure it out.

That’s how Riley came to be a part of our family. He came to live with me in a little studio apartment where we went through the ups and downs of training, chewing, cuddling, vet visits, bonding with his pal Earnest, and when we added Ludwig to the mix, bonding with him. His first friend was a cat named Sophie, from whom he picked up using his paws to groom his face and stalking while playing.

In 2006 we bought our first home. One of the big items on our want list while searching was a fenced yard for the dogs. Someplace they could run and play and just be dogs. Riley-dog loved to run and acted more like a greyhound when outside than he did a lapdog. So the house we bought in semi-rural Snoqualmie was a perfect fit. There was even a dog door already installed. The dogs spent many happy hours in the backyard. I would find all three of them back there sunning themselves on summer afternoons.

It was an adjustment at first for Riley. I think he felt a little overwhelmed at first and spent a few months expressing his resentment by growling at Steven. But he came to enjoy having “the pack” all together.

On Wednesday when I came home from work, I realized after a few moments that Riley hadn’t come out to greet me. After a few moments of calling his name, we escalated into full search-mode. Steven’s the one who found him on the other side of our fence lying in the neighbors’ yard. The neighbors’ dogs had managed to rip part of a fence board away and had pulled Riley through it. We think he died nearly instantly, probably a broken neck from being pulled through the fence. A 6 lb chihuahua is like nothing to a couple of 80 lb dogs. The probable speed of his death is very little comfort.

We knew of the neighbors’ dogs aggressive tendencies. We knew our little guys delighted in egging them on from the other side of the fence. We had already repaired parts of that section of fence and had added a thick plastic garden barrier at the bottom to keep any dog from digging under the fence. We installed a sonic anti-bark system that sounded everytime a dog barked in its vicinity. But we had hard rain that week and we had switched it off to keep it from sounding every 30 seconds.

We let Ludwig and Earnest see Riley’s body. It wouldn’t be fair to them to just have a member of their pack simply disappear. We wanted them to understand that he’s gone. They both took a lot of coaxing to even come outside to the back porch - as if they knew something terrible waited for them. But I felt it was necessary.

Riley was such a large and happy part of our lives these last three plus years, that it just doesn’t seem possible that he’s gone. I see Earnest and Ludwig come running to greet us at the door and I can’t help thinking to myself “There should be three of them.” I get Earnest and Ludwig treats and I no longer feel Riley bouncing off the back of my legs. I sit to watch TV for a little distraction and it kills me that my lap is empty where Riley would curl up. I hear Ludwig up at night wandering the house and know that he’s looking for his friend.

This weekend we build a second fence in the back yard. Our dogs will no longer have access to that part of the fence that borders that neighbors’ yard. I can’t bring myself to consider pressing charges. Why would I want to destroy two families? And if they destroyed the dogs, do three more deaths really make up for one, no matter how precious that life was?

For now we’ll grieve. And remember Riley for the joyful friend he was. And keep the rest of our family as safe and happy as we possibly can.

I’ve been promising Earnest some car ride time for a while… Today I delivered..
Here’s Earnest thoroughly enjoying the rest stop:

Box of kittens out front of the hardware store today as I was running in to grab doggie treats..

Well, the bike and hike was canceled, as Jason’s dog was sick and Jason couldn’t camp overnight. We were able to do the 5 mile bike in, then turn right around and bike 5 miles out.

However, Jason’s memory of the trail was completely and utterly wrong. This trail was all uphill, all rocks, and even some ledge climbing and fording streams - with our bikes on our backs.

After we actually survived, I decided it was a great adventure. During the times I was planing over beds of rocks, or dodging grapefruit size boulders, I wasn’t too sure.

I took only one dive at low speed on an uphill. Jason fell so many times I lost count. His only damage was his pride and an old GPS unit he had in his backpack. To his credit, he was riding a bike with egg-beater pedals and thin cyclocross tires. His new 800 dollar bike he just had to test out. I was on my trusty 50 dollar Trek 820. Only one on-trail repair, a screw fell out of my luggage rack.

Onto the photos:

These first three are the first bridge we came upon. Lovely small rocky waterfall and clear pool below.

We actually thought we hit the end of the trail here. We were confused though as the GPS said we traveled only 4 miles, not five. As we climbed some very large boulders to the left, we saw a small stream, then a very narrow trail continuing on. We had to climb carrying our bikes to reach it.

Trails end, at least for us. Shortly after this the path becomes hikeable only. The picture doesn’t do the waterfall justice. It’s a massive rock face climbing to the sky with water pouring powerfully down it. Below is a large crystal clear pool that leads off again as a stream.

After a rest and some food and drink, we turned around and did it again. Returning was downhill and much better going except for a few very rocky patches. We ended up completing the 10 miles in about 4 hours.

Found this in my drafts folder… About three weeks old…
At Bellevues ‘Absolutely Puppies’ dreaming of rescuing the puppy mill doggies…

This weekend was the big festival weekend. Too bad it was pretty rainy (at least closer to where we live east of Seattle). We passed on the Fremont Solstice Festival this year. More due to the parking and driving hassles than anything else. Luckily my friend in Seattle caught a few pics of the big parade. The goal of which is trying to get the most nude people possible in public and sticking it to the mans decency laws. Damn Hippies..

We decided to go a little quieter and try out the Fall City Festival that was down the road from us. Pretty disappointing. A generic smalltown street fair with useless merchant stalls and boring food stalls. We only stayed about 30 minutes. Most of the time was spent petting half a dozen Chihuahuas after happily discovering we have a loose-knit group of caring volunteers that run a rescue in the area. We now have a place to point responsible people to that are looking for a Chihuahua. A win for people trying to avoid puppy mill doggies.

Anyway, we ended up at a tried and trusted cafe for lunch that turned into a very late breakfast as we both decided on pancakes. A rare event for us. Our going out mood pretty much fizzled after that and we went back home to laze about and enjoy doing nothing.