The Dog That Followed Us Down the Mountain.

There are some memories from travel that stay with me because they were beautiful.

Others stay because they were unfinished.

The dog that followed us down the mountain is one memory that has never left me.

High in the Himalayas, after watching the sunrise from Poon Hill, Nepal, our group began the long trek through the Annapurna region toward our next destination.

Somewhere along the trail, a dog quietly began walking behind us.

He was painfully thin.

The top of his head had a deep wound where much of the skin had been torn away, exposing the flesh beneath. I can only imagine how much pain he must have endured.

Yet he kept walking.

One quiet step after another.

Hour after hour.

Some members of our group struggled to be near him because of the smell from his wound.

I remember my dear friend Lynn reaching a point where she simply broke down in tears.

Not because of the smell.

But because she loved him and couldn’t help him.

I understood exactly how she felt.

We all did.

There was no veterinary clinic.

No shelter.

No one to call.

The only thing we could do was buy him some food. We hoped that, once he had eaten, he would stop following us.

Our guides gently tried to turn him away.

Eventually, he disappeared from sight.

I have no idea what became of him.

Yet all these years later, I still think about that dog.

I wonder whether his wound ever healed.

I wonder whether someone eventually cared for him.

Or whether he quietly disappeared into those mountains.

I suppose I’ll never know.

But I still hope he found kindness somewhere along the trail.

The trail from Poon Hill through the Annapurna region. Somewhere along this path, a memory quietly began that has stayed with me ever since.