Grisdale hill with family and a very ill dog

From A previous trip up the hill






What a hike this turned out to be! I decided to do the short 2 mile route up Grisdale hill with my daughters aged 5 and 12 and my dog aged 5. Grisdale Hill is a road hike in a clear-cut forest. I pushed my 5 year old daughter up the hill in her jogging stroller. I really got some good exercise pushing my 45 pound child up the hill. My plan was to have her walk down the hill because it is a lot of work to try to stop the stroller from going down hill too fast. The stroller has a brake but it is on the front tire and the front tire does not carry any weight so the brake is useless.

It turned out to be a very good thing that we had the jogging stroller with us, but more on that in a moment. When we got to the top my 12 year old could not hide her surprise at seeing the high steel bridge waaaay down there. My 12 year old did not want to go hiking at all but I thought it would be good for her to see something other then her endless text messages and Pokemon. At the top I did some sunbathing in spite of the biting deer flies and crawling ants. I also indulged myself with crackers and blue cheese. My daughters ate cookies and crackers. I brought my stove and fixings for tea but it was too hot to make tea up there today. I gave my dog a few morsels of blue cheese and a couple of crackers and a drink of water.

But almost as soon as we reached the top my 12 year old started whining that she wanted to go down to the lake or the river to cool off. Both the Skokomish River and Lake West can be viewed from the top. I did not get to really truly relax up there because it was hot and buggy and my 12 year old was whining.

Then my dog got sick, really sick. She started panting really hard and then she started wheezing and then she collapsed and could not walk. I was afraid that she was going to die. I had to put her in the jogging stroller and wheel her off the Mountain! Her mouth was foaming, her legs were stiff and she was out of it! But after 1.75 miles she slowly began to recover so we tried to let her out of the stroller and she could not get up and get out. But then a few minutes later we flushed a small grouse and she did not see the grouse but she did smell it and up she lept and tried to rush into the woods after the grouse. She is a Springer Spaniel and she is a bird dog through and through! Still she could barely walk, her hind legs kept giving out and she staggered like a drunk. At that point I knew she was going to live and knew she did not have to go to an emergency vet. We let her walk the last .10 of a mile to the Jeep but she could not jump into the Jeep and she also refused to jump out of the Jeep when we got home. Now she is out on her chain with a bowl of water. She still looks ill and she has thrown up several times but I’m pretty sure she will recover.

I wish I knew what happened to her. If you think you know what happened to her please let me know. She is a 5 year old Springer Spaniel that we adopted from the dog pound; we have had her about 6 months. The vet said she was healthy when she had her free pound dog exam. She is not overweight but she does tend to have panting attacks.

My husband says “If it’s any consolation her nose is lovely and cold”, he says that means she does not have a fever.

This morning she seem to be mostly recovered.

Anyway as for the hike:

4 miles round trip
1000 feet elevation gain
65 miles on my shoes

Other times I have blogged Grisdale Hill

Sunday, January 20, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Dec 7th 2008


No pictures from me today as my camera got left behind in all the fuss it requires to get two kids shoed and out of the house. But my daughter brought her camera.







No well Springer Spaniel would choose to travel this way



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