Camping is the Cure

You might have noticed I’ve been absent from the blog for over a month. I was hoping Storm would fill in more than just the one week in early May, but he claims he’s been too busy helping Rosa with her weight-loss program, Gidget with her frisky-old-mare program, and Nevada with his food-sharing program. It does sound busy, although I’m not sure what all these programs are. I’ll let him fill you in next time I can get him to write.

I tried Hank too, since he hasn’t written anything since last year, but he claims he’s far too occupied with his new barn-mate, Mariah. I’ve met her. She’s cute. So I can understand him being distracted. Although from what I heard, the distraction wasn’t due to love at first sight. But again, I’ll let him tell that story.

Deep sand is hard going in my condition, so I did the smart thing.

One reader was concerned that something had happened to me. Well, it did. I got old. And, for me, old age isn’t just a slowing down, but a breaking down it seems.

Although coming home wasn’t without some challenges (read The Hazards of Home), I was on a GI-tract positive roll since mid-January which meant I was more energetic, stronger, and had put some weight on after my months of poor digestion. And then T’s attempt at a food addition went awry, which was followed by some poor scavenging decisions on my part, and multiplied by a previous food addition turning on me, which was heaped on by the pet food company changing at least one batch of the duck & potato (D&P) formula I was eating. Come on! Give a guy a break!

Getting a break of a different kind our first night in camp. That tall grass just kept tripping me!

And then I got one … a break, that is. Despite my guts being in frequent turmoil, T and Nollind packed up the remaining cans from of an old flat of D&P food and carted me off to Little Fish Lake Provincial Park for a few days of camping.

We’re on our way! Grocery stop in Strathmore.

Now you might think that taking an ailing dog camping wasn’t a great idea, but consider it from a canine perspective…when camping, my people have nothing to do but hang out with me. Right?! Nobody goes to Calgary to teach sailing lessons, nobody goes outside to hang out with horses, nobody sits staring at their computers for hours on end, and when we’re in the trailer, the peeps are never more than seventeen feet away. It’s all me, all the time. Dog-a-palooza! We go for walks, we hang by the fire, we cuddle on the bed, we have meals together. And this particular camping trip was made even better when G & S joined us on day two, making for even more attention.

A chilly first evening in camp…but together.

The combination of old-batch D&P and trailer time was just what the doctor ordered. I felt great. On our last night, we did a long walk up the hill above the lake and I didn’t even need a rest. I got a tiny glimpse of how I felt back in March and April when I was passing my chariot on the trail.

Evening walk along the hill. That’s camp way in the background.

With my good-old-reliable food now not so reliable, and increasingly hard to find, T is cooking for me. Which is great, except that my system had an initial reaction to the increased fat and protein in the diet. She’s adjusted the quantities of things and we’re hoping for an improvement. I sure love the taste, have been licking my bowl clean enough to put back in the cupboard, so I’m hoping we can land on a recipe that works. Oh, how I miss my iron-stomach days.

We also tracked down eleven cans of a different batch of D&P. It looks the same as the old stuff, so toes crossed.

Can’t wait to get me some more of this camping cure.

I hear we’re headed camping again in just over a week. I am looking forward to that. In the meantime, I’ll just have to share my people with the boats and horses and computers.