This weekend Susan was out of town so Beacon and Belle were staying over. With Martti only working Monday thru Friday I asked him if he’d like to go to Red Top Mountain for a dog hike on Sunday (I don’t see how I could handle all 4 dogs by myself). Katie hadn’t been since last fall and the subsequent knee surgery. We had been to Stone Mountain where she has been enjoying swimming after sticks (even Clio is getting to be a good swimmer) and she hasn’t shown any problems with her leg, but I was still worried about Red Top because it is more strenuous.
Once again we managed to get behind the main group of hikers and dogs within minutes of the start. But at least this time it wasn’t from being out of shape (they rerouted the beginning of the trail and made it easier) but because we somehow lost Beacon in the initial confusion. We went back to look for her and found her eventually. Then we continued on, taking a shortcut that I hoped would get us caught up. We found a couple of other people with their dogs who I thought might be stragglers as well, but they said they had taken the same shortcut and the main group wasn’t there yet.
The water was very high from Hurricane Ivan, well up into the woods. So swimming around trees and over limbs wasn’t easy for my dogs. But Lucy and her owner, Matt, were there and Lucy displayed her fearless and enthusiastic swimming. Also one dog chased after a stick and got it confused with the branch of submerged fallen tree that was sticking out and tried over and over to bring the whole tree back pulling on the branch (someone said if all the dogs worked together maybe they could have done it).
Anyway, although Katie looked like she was limping a little at times, she turned out to be just fine. I get scared when I see her running really fast or tumbling around with another dog, but it seems like she has made a 100% recovery.
The saga continues two years later with Katie’s Other Knee.