Ride Interrupted

This week has not been so good for riding thus far. On Monday after maybe 20 minutes of riding, it started raining. Raining. Not sprinkling, but really raining. Chris said we needed to ride until we would start regretting it. Well, a bit before that I decided to turn around because the trail was getting slick. We rode for maybe 30 minutes.
No riding for me on Tuesday as I could not get out of work until after 5. And then I had Young Woman's at 7 pm. No time. I hate it when late meetings get scheduled on Tuesday and it is becoming increasingly more popular.
Then today. I was so excited. We started climbing up to the alter. Then we continued up to the top and came down Dry Canyon. As we returned on the Bonneville Shoreline we came up on him. There was this dog huddled in the shade of the brush just panting. He looked bad. Chris was in front he stopped just past him. He barely looked at either of us. We both thought he was dying. I went back to see if he was alright as Chris warned I should probably not get too close. He was a big dog and if he was hurt he may easily snap at us. He did not really respond to anything we said.
We don't know the number to animal control nor was I exactly sure where we were. So I called a friend, Maren, who does dog rescues. She would know who to call. She "screened" me. I called Racer figuring he was a good second choice. With his iPhone he helped me figure out where we were and gave me the number for animal control. Thanks Racer. I gave them a call. Interestingly they wanted to know an awful lot about me--name, number, address. Address? Anyway, they said they would send someone.

That is where we found him huddled in a scanty shadow

By this time we realized that he was a nice pup who may have been overheated. Chris and I each took a turn riding back down to the drinking fountain at the trail head to give him water. He seemed rather thirsty and had quickly finished off both our bottles. While I was waiting for Chris to return, a guy pulls up in a truck with a horse trailer. He starts climbing up the trail. Half way up he sees me and asks if a dog is there. I respond with a yes. He seems relieved.

A tired and thirsty puppy

He said his dog, Urkie/Yorkie, just bonked and stopped. He could not get him to move on. So he had to go back for his truck. I told him that we had called animal control and were giving him water. He said thanks and that he could probably carry him to the truck from there. I left them to find Chris up the trail and told him what happened. He wanted to say something to the owner so he continued on as I called back to animal control and let them know the owner returned.

On our way back, we ran into Kanyon Kris and Jolene. We ended up talking to them for a bit. We climbed back up the road and decided to descend Dragon's Back. There were swarms and swarms of bugs. It was out of control. Bugs in the mouth, nose, eyes, ears and down the jersey. It was like a plague. Oh and we saw a snake at the very beginning and end of the ride. Neither was a rattler, but they were both big. For the amount of time we were out, we really did not do so much riding.