About the dogs

When you live in CO and love to spend time in the mountains, you really need to have a hiking dog.  At least, that is what J thinks.  In December of 2012, we had just moved into our house and I had lost both of my greyhounds in the past 6 months.  All I wanted was a nice, robust mutt.  J wanted a dog that could do crazy mountain climbs with him.  Enter Maya.

Her paperwork at the humane society said she was 1-2 years old, cat safe, and had been pulled from a rural high kill shelter out in the farm lands.  We are pretty confident that she is a border collie/cattle dog cross

She is absolutely everything you could want in a mountain dog - a smart, fearless hiker with impeccable off leash manners. And she was born to hike, she will go all day at a dead run.  Which poses a problem when you have to, you know, work during the week.  Although I am pretty sure Maya thinks we just go to the dog park without her 5 days a week.  We actually pay an ultra marathon runner to take her out for runs -  I call it "taking the edge off" because she does not get what a normal dog would call tired.

Maya is one special snowflake.  She knows quite a few tricks, but it is a slow learning process because she hates not knowing the answer and tends to shut down.  She also annoys the crap out of the cats, herding them around the house.  No number of nose slaps deters her.  We only had Maya a couple months before we realized she needed a chew toy, errr, playmate.

We contacted a local cattle dog rescue and said we needed a tough, playful male.  Either very submissive or very dominant since Maya can be a bully.  It took them about 2 minutes to come up with Jasper.

They guessed his age to be around 4, he is a cattle dog mutt (our best guess is corgi, but who knows), and he came from a high kill shelter in New Mexico and possibly a reservation before that.  When they pulled him from the shelter he was terrified but quickly came out of his shell.

 He is also an excellent hiking dog, although not quite as skilled, balanced, or trust worthy as Maya - he forgets his manners when small mammals go running.  Jasper also struggles a bit more physically.  He used to seriously limp after every hike and we wondered if he would need to be retired.  However, in April 2014 he had TPLO surgery to deal with a torn ACL and now he is a better hiker than ever!  Hopefully we have years and years left of enjoying the outdoors together.

Jasper is a very submissive male who happily lets Maya run his life.  He is our snuggle bug and face-licker extraordinaire.  The two of them together are one crazy duo!