Meg was our first dog. She was a Dartmoor bred Border Collie who spent most of her time running around the moors. She accompanied us up our first Munro on Ben Lomond and was there when I completed on Sgurr Eilde Mor. Meg was calm and content, equally at home following my horse across Dartmoor, climbing hills or cuddling up together. During our holidays in Scotland Meg managed to climb 198 Munros and she also climbed all the named tors on Dartmoor.
Molly exploded into our lives in June 2007, she was a Border Collie from a working farm on Dartmoor. Loud, boisterous and excitable with endless energy, she was ideally suited to life as a mountain dog.
We came on holiday to Scotland when she was year old and she climbed her first mountain, Beinn an Lochain, a Corbett above the Rest and Be Thankful. Moving to Scotland was perfect for her, she would leap in the car and pant enthusiastically until we got to the start of the walk. We have been airlifted off Liathach in a rescue helicopter when the hill was on fire, kayaked up Loch Quoich to climb the remote Corbett Ben Aden, she completed the Rum Cuillin traverse, climbed the A’Chir ridge on Arran and climbed to the summit of The Cobbler.
In 2012 Molly completed the Corbetts and in her lifetime she climbed a total of 1227 Munros, 312 Corbetts and 131 Grahams. Molly started slowing down during the spring of 2016. I took her to the vet at the end of June and she was diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. She did not respond to treatment and died 7 weeks later, at home on her favourite chair. Her last hill was Ben Stack, a Graham in the far NW at the end of June 2016.
Ralph
Ralph joined our family in September 2016, a few weeks after losing Molly. He is a Border Collie from a working farm near Dunkeld in Perthshire. Ralph is a total softie who is scared of most of the things modern life throws at him. He climbed his first hill in February 2017 and has developed into a confident and experienced hill dog. Ralph completed a round of Donalds in 2020 and is well on the way to finishing the Grahams. He enjoys carrying large lumps of wood around the hills.
Milly
Milly belonged to my friend Heather but spent a lot of time in the hills with us. She was a retired SARDA dog who never managed to actually find anybody. Milly would follow anyone if she thought they were likely to throw a stick for her. She liked eating poo and rolling in decomposing wildlife.
