Photographs of dogs in the mountains have one flaw. They lie very beautifully.
You see the summit, ranges falling away in layers, an Aussie sitting beside you, and you think: this is what life with a dog should be.
We have photographs like that too. Cima Cornetto in Italy, at 2,180 metres. Travels with Indy. Waterfalls in the Tatras. Dogs, mountains and that feeling when for a few hours there seems to be nothing else in the world.
But not one of those photographs shows the most important part.
The journey to the summit began far earlier. In Vilnius. On ordinary walks. Learning to wait. To come when called. To trust a person. To accept help. To respond calmly to new situations.
In all that dull work that nobody photographs.
In the mountains the quality of a bond shows very quickly
An Australian Shepherd in the mountains looks almost too good. That makes it very easy to sell the breed as an adventure accessory. Get an Aussie — and your life becomes one long National Geographic advert.
Reality, of course, is a little different.
For us the mountains are not a place to prove our dogs are active enough. They are a place where the quality of a relationship shows very quickly.
A new surface. Unfamiliar sounds. Other animals. Weather that can change completely within an hour. Tiredness. And, alongside it all, human decisions.
Because travelling with a dog brings one very important difference: you are no longer the only participant in your plan.
Perhaps you could still go on. Perhaps the summit is only an hour away. Perhaps you really want that photograph. But the dog is moving differently today. It is hot. His paws are tired. Or something in his behaviour is simply saying: enough.
Sometimes the best decision is to go on. Sometimes it is to turn back.
And that second choice sometimes takes more maturity than the summit does.
The breed’s athleticism does not remove this. Quite the opposite — with a very capable dog it is sometimes harder to see the limit, because he can keep going simply because he is going with you.
What freedom really means
In the mountains you also understand very clearly what freedom means.
A dog off the lead in beautiful surroundings looks like a symbol of freedom. But real freedom only appears when a great deal of responsibility came before it.
The dog has to be able to come back. You have to see the terrain, the wildlife and other people. You need to judge where it is safe to let a dog off at all.
An absence of control is not freedom. Sometimes it is simply a risk we pass on to everyone around us.
And so all that work which at home sometimes seems rather dull — attention to the person, the ability to wait, to accept help, to recover quickly from a surprise — suddenly stops being a nice training result and becomes a safety system.
What matters most is not the photographs
But what we probably like most is what we bring back from those trips.
Not photographs.
After a few days together in a new environment you often know your dog a little differently. You see what gives him courage. When he tires. When he wants to be closer to you and when he needs space. How he behaves when he is not sure himself.
And then all that information travels back to Vilnius together. Into an ordinary walk. Into the car. Into a completely ordinary Tuesday.
So for us an adventure is not an escape from everyday life. A good adventure somehow makes it richer.
And we certainly do not think every family with an Aussie must now buy mountain boots. For one family the shared thing will be sport. For another, travel. For a third, long walks in the woods. For a fourth, perhaps simply a great deal of everyday time together.
It matters not at all to the dog whether your life together looks good on Instagram. What matters is that it is good for you both.
For us the mountains are one of the places where it becomes very clear what we mean when we say more than dogs.
Not a dog in a beautiful shot. But all those years of a relationship that made the shot possible at all.
Invitation: Follow our real stories on the blog and on social media. And if you dream of an Aussie as a partner in life, tell us in the questionnaire not about the perfect adventure, but about the everyday life he would come home to with you.