Eiger (and Love)

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of spirit. 

Chief Seattle

My job can be difficult. It is an amazing amount of fun at times, and it is incredibly fulfilling, but sometimes when I come home I am absolutely drained. To back up a little, I am a "Youth Development Coordinator" at Hellgate High School for a drug and alcohol prevention-focused organization called the Flagship Program. I coordinate after school programs, spend a lot of time just being there for the kids, and I am responsible for many of the events that happen at the school. It's a great job. In fact, I spent my day today teaching yoga to 120 kids (give or take) for P.E. classes, which tells you how wonderful and flexible my job can be. I feel incredibly fortunate to be doing such meaningful work. However, today is one of those days that I came home totally exhausted. Working with so many people on a regular basis, especially emotional teenagers, can be an energy drain. I haven't quite figured out the boundaries and practices involved in, as my yoga instructor and mentor Karen Sprute-Francovich said in a recent blog post, staying "tethered by a strong chord to what lives in the middle." I hope that with time and continued practice I will find that ability.

But somehow, when I come home, the stress and anxiety of my day often all melts away. Nowadays, my favorite thing in the world is returning from a long day to our "long house" (fancy name for a single-wide) to my husband, Ryan, and my dog, Eiger. Ryan is my best friend and the greatest source of joy in my life. But Eiger is something else. He makes me laugh constantly and is endless source of love and devotion. So I think now is a good time for a story about one of the great animal-loves-of-my-life. This is a picture of the big guy from this summer:

Yes, he is incredibly adorable and ridiculously loveable (I am biased, but seriously!). He's a big, healthy, happy dog now. But his beginnings were not so great, to say the least.

Ryan is from East Glacier Park, Montana (you will learn much, much more about this truly special place in the not-so-distant future--more to come!). We lived there for three summers before deciding to do the grad school thing in Missoula. The summer we were married, 2010, I was working at the store in town and finding LOTS of puppies. It was a little ridiculous. I knew I had found the right man for me when he simply rolled his eyes each time I brought a new puppy home to our 18' trailer we were living in on Ryan's grandmother's property. It was literally about one or two puppies a week all summer. We found homes for most of them through an incredible network of inspiring, dedicated animal lovers in the wonderful town of East Glacier. But when a coworker of mine found Eiger outside and came in saying "Ashley, I found another puppy," I had a feeling this would be the one we would actually keep. And the second I met him, I fell hard. He was absolutely filthy, and after feeding him and sending him for a bath and some love from my amazing dog rescuer friend Deb while I finished up my shift, I went to pick him up. The first thing he did when I put him down in the yard was poop plastic bags and rocks. He was terrified of people, and I heard later that he had been frequenting the local bar, the Trailhead. He was desperate.

 Here he is looking cleaned up and feeling a whole lot better than when we first found him.

Anyway, he went on to become incredibly sick. I was sure he would die (I thought he had parvo, which was going around town at the time). I was an absolute wreck the day Ryan took him to the vet outside of Cut Bank (who is a saint) while I was mentally tortured for an entire 12 hour shift at the store. It turned out it wasn't parvo, thank God, and we slowly nursed him back to health. I can only imagine the kinds of things he was fighting in that little body of his.

We brought him back to Missoula for school, and despite a really touchy stomach, he got stronger and bigger all the time. Until, at about 6 months old, he completely fractured his fibula and tibia running up icy stairs while he was playing at my parents' house. After an (ah hem) almost $2,000 surgery, he was o.k. In fact, his leg is great now thanks to an awesome team at Patty Prado's office.

Poor photo quality, but you get the point! 

Needless to say, Eiger is a success story. I tell this story not just because Ryan and I love him a ridiculous amount, but also because I think it speaks to the Power of Love. Who knows what would have happened to Eiger without a few people with big hearts getting involved? Each and every life that crosses our path is an opportunity to do something good--something that helps heal and brings more love into the world. Why, then, do we so often pass up these opportunities? Why not approach life with an Open Heart? What are we so afraid of?

Today on the river taking in the breathtaking fall colors and LOVING my pup.