This is Mus, short for Mustafa, drying off many years ago after a bath in the Mora River. He was a loving dog but he also enjoyed rolling in cow pies. On mountain trips, he got thrown in the creek a lot but seemed to like that, too.
He was my father and stepmother’s dog and they called him an Agua Fria breed because he was a stray found in the south of Santa Fe. He often accompanied me on hiking and camping trips.
He was my Christmas-time pal on a circumnavigation of Bandelier National Monument in 1972 or so. He slipped and thunked his chest on an icy log on Upper Frijoles Creek, slept with me in the tent in Capulin Canyon on a very cold Christmas Eve and chased a wild burro at me down a narrow trail in Alamo Canyon on a snowy Christmas Day. To the best of my knowledge, this was all before the dog restrictions in the Bandelier backcountry. I think I might even have had a backcountry permit. At any rate, we saw no one else but the feral burros for several days.
Mus was a great and loyal companion. We pretty much enjoyed the same things, except for the cow pies.
dream ranch 