Ralph - The First Canine Grahamist: Anne Butler
Creag Ghuanach 18th July 2022
Ralph joined our family in September 2016, only a few weeks after losing Molly. He is a Border Collie from a working farm near Dunkeld. Ralph is a very anxious dog who is not comfortable with anything that modern life throws at him; people, other dogs, cars, bikes, flashing lights, vacuum cleaners, traffic cones, flags, dustbins………..the list of things that stress him is endless! However, put Ralph on a hill and he comes to life, he is relaxed, happy and confident with boundless energy, agility and stamina for the day ahead.
Despite his very limited range of facial expressions, Ralph is always happy on the hill. He never needs any persuasion to keep going, however long the walk is. He spent the early months of his life learning recall and stop commands, how to climb through boulder fields, negotiate peat hags, walk in all weathers and how to walk across boggy terrain without falling in. We gradually built up his stamina, taking care not to strain his joints and he learnt not to chase wildlife or livestock on the hills (which wasn’t difficult as he is a sheep dog who is scared of sheep).
Ralph climbed his first Graham on a snowy Carn na h-Easgainn in March 2017 and he was 6 when he completed his Graham round on Creag Ghuanach in July 2022.
He also completed the Donalds in 2020. The Donalds are ideal for teaching a young dog how to become a competent and confident hill dog. There are lots of short easy walks on good paths and over the months we built up to longer walks across some awful Galloway terrain. We would rarely meet another person on our walks and the Grahams allowed us time to bond and rely on each other through the good and the bad times. When I am walking with Ralph I never feel alone, admittedly he isn’t a great conversationalist and he may not appreciate the views in the same way that I do. Simply looking at it from Ralph’s perspective can alter my perception of the challenges ahead, when times get tough, he picks himself up, shakes out the stress and gets going again.
Ralph approaches every day on the hill with nothing less than total enthusiasm. The sights and smells of the hills invigorate him and he very much lives in the moment, he doesn’t worry about what has gone before and what lies ahead. Bogs, tussocks, peat hags, thick heather and forests of bracken only add to his enjoyment. He particularly enjoys carrying discarded fence posts across the hills, the bigger the better. I always take lunch on the hill for Ralph, this usually consists of his normal dog food which he only eats after he has helped us eat our sandwiches first!
The only thing that will ruin his day are wind turbines. A still one makes him anxious, but as soon as they move, Ralph’s anxiety will take over and he sits on my feet, refusing to move until he is safely back on his lead.
I have only met people on a handful of Grahams so they are ideal for a dog with extreme social anxiety. Of course, there are popular Grahams, with Stac Pollaidh and Suilven both giving memorable days. Being a very nervous scrambler, I knew I would not have the expertise needed to get Ralph to the true summit of Stac Pollaidh but luckily our friend Heather did and equipped with a doggie climbing harness, a rope and a couple of slings, Ralph was assisted up and down to the summit. Trollaval, in the centre of the Rum Cuillin, was also one of the most technically difficult summits to reach but once again, a friend came to the rescue and with Andy’s route finding skills, Ralph made it up and down safely during our scorchingly hot traverse of the Cuillin.
In between the stand out hills there were many that weren’t so remarkable. As we all know, not all hill days are in ideal conditions but Ralph has always seemed oblivious to bad weather. He copes admirably with snow and ice and comes back to me whenever he needs the spindrift wiped away from his eyes, winds will induce an attack of the zoomies and he spends so much time wallowing in puddles and bogs that he doesn’t seem to notice when it is raining.
Suilven in 2020 during a Munro Society meet stands out, we were back on the hills after lockdown and it was a perfect autumn day. Ralph made light work of the scramble to the summit and his mood appeared to mirror mine. On the way down, we took time to stop and take it all in and we both seemed to sense that life had clicked back into place for us again.
At the end of 2021 I updated Ralph’s hill log and realised he was in touching distance of completing a round of Grahams, we had passed the tipping point and a completion seemed like the logical conclusion to all the days we had spent on the hills. My previous research for the Munro Society’s ‘Canine Completers’ project had shown that no other dog had completed a Graham round. However, he did have some of the remotest hills in Scotland still to climb; An Cruachan, Ben Armine, Sabhal Beag and Meall a’ Chaorainn. The only way that these were going to be accessible for Ralph without us having to camp was to use the bike. Ben Armine and An Cruachan would each involve almost 50km of bike and hike and I wasn’t happy to risk damaging Ralph’s joints by making him run alongside the bike for such long distances, so we invested in an e-bike and a dog trailer for him to ride in to the start of the walks. He absolutely hates it, he refuses to jump in and has to be lifted up and he hides when it is time to get in it again for the ride back to the car!
His completion was a family affair, just the 3 of us. We were staying at Corrour Station House for a few days which happened to coincide with the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the UK. Luckily, there was a good breeze and lots of pools and burns for Ralph to cool off in.
We spent a good while at the summit where Ralph celebrated his completion with a bowl of sausages, he wolfed these down, the significance of his achievement lost on him.
I am very proud of everything that Ralph has accomplished, it has been a joy to watch a clumsy, uncoordinated puppy develop into such a confident and self-assured hill dog and find his true happy place.