I have not given enough credit to the third member of our hiking trio. She is a ninja who disguises herself as a dog. She is the quickest, most energetic, most agile and often the toughest, most fearless member of our team. She scratches her way up near vertical boulders, leaps across rushing waters, swims for hours in frigid waters, slides from crumbling hillsides, peers down over high cliff edges, climbs up ladders and rafts down the Colorado River. She ropes up for steep ascents up rock walls and rappels down vertical drops. These more technical roping skills, as well as the occasional boost up a super steep boulder climb, or a lift during a long cold river walk require some assistance from her fellow hikers, but she much prefers to hike the trail unassisted. She easily takes over ten times our steps daily and still wants to play at every opportunity possible. Shilo dog is her given name, but on trail she is also known as The Doughnut Hound.
She often carries a small pack containing her food and sometimes a little water. Goose carries most of her water and at times some of her food. I carry treats for her. As with most hikers she prefers to hike without her pack, and Goose often carries it for her when the heat is too much or the terrain is too difficult. Much care is taken to ensure her pack is not too heavy and that she is not overworked or pushed too far. She only had one injury, a broken nail, the entire hike. Her preference is to hike about fifteen miles daily, but she would often would push out an additional five to ten miles on top of that without complaint. She is a registered service dog so she is able to hike with Goose in all wilderness areas and the parks that the trail passes through.
Her hiker hunger quickly kicked in, and as with any long distance hiker, it increased as time and miles went on. The main staple in her diet was a wonderful all natural, human grade, dehydrated dog food made by The Honest Kitchen. We supplemented her food with salami, cheese, smoked oysters, crackers, and any left over foods that I could not finish during meal times. She loves doughnuts. Not only did she love to share mini doughnuts with me at breakfast, but only hours after being officially given her trail name we were stopped by a man passing in a truck and offered a box of freshly baked doughnuts, officially sealing her trail name as The Doughnut Hound.
She sleeps in a small down sleeping bag, which Goose made for her, on top of his foam sit pad. When she gets cold, or just wants to snuggle, she noses her way into my sleeping bag and I usually let her stay, at least for awhile. If she is denied entry into our sleeping bags she is happy to wiggle her way in between our two bodies and fall asleep in a puffy cloud of our full sized down bags. Life is good for The Doughnut Hound.
She is Goose’s best friend and she has complete hold of my heart. She is an amazing hiking companion with thousands of miles under her little paws, and as far as we know she is the first dog to thru hike all 850+ miles of Hayduke trail.
