This is a very sad post to write.\u00a0 On January 3, Louie got hit by a car in Otavalo, Ecuador and he died.\u00a0 He is buried on a grassy strip of land in downtown near the market.\u00a0 We came home and opened the camper and the dogs were not there.\u00a0 We had gone to the vegetable market and left the dogs (like we always do) in the camper with the radio playing.\u00a0 A window was forced open and the screen was ripped.\u00a0 Mark, Jack & Ryan went looking for the dogs and found Trek sitting in the street near our camper next to Louie.\u00a0 Many people saw it happen and it seems that the dogs forced the window open from the inside because some dogs came by the camper.\u00a0 There was some dog conflict and then they left the fenced paarquedearo and Louie was hit by a car right outside.\u00a0 When Ryan brought Louie back, it was so sad and many people who saw the accident saw all of us crying. \u00a0We laid him on the grass and we all sat around him just crying for some time.<\/p>\n

The manager of the parquedearo dug a grave for us next to a wall covered with flowers.\u00a0 Ryan walked to the market and bought a beautiful alpaca blanket to wrap him in. \u00a0We left a candle burning there for him and brought back flowers.<\/p>\n

Many people came by to tell us how sorry they were.\u00a0 A woman took Ryan to her house and tried to give him a puppy and another woman tried to give Ryan a baby guinea pig.<\/p>\n

We had gone to the market to get vegetables for dinner.\u00a0 The dogs liked to bark at other dogs but never seemed capable of getting out the camper window.\u00a0 It was the fire escape window and it can be opened from inside if you press down on the handle and twist it.\u00a0 We leave the dogs in the camper with some music and the windows shut (we are high in the Andes so it is cool here) so they are completely secure. \u00a0Somehow, they managed to twist the handle and then break it and push the window out, breaking the screen. \u00a0It was unexpected and so, so sad.\u00a0 Louie never once ran away like that and the first time he did, he got hit by a car.<\/p>\n

It was a very, very sad day.<\/p>\n

Trek is also taking it quite hard. \u00a0No doubt it was Trek who had the weight and the urge to jump out the window; Louie only followed. \u00a0He sat with Louie until we got there and he is not the same. \u00a0He is quiet and looks for Louie all the time. \u00a0Louie used to sleep under the bed and Trek keeps going there searching for Louie.<\/p>\n

We have all taken this very hard. \u00a0We had Louie with us on our last trip and Sylvie and Annie were born after we got Louie so he has always been an integral part of our family. \u00a0We spent a lot of time, effort and money to bring him here with us because we all loved him so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a very sad post to write.\u00a0 On January 3, Louie got hit by a car in Otavalo, Ecuador and he died.\u00a0 He is buried on a grassy strip of land in downtown near the market.\u00a0 We came home and opened the camper and the dogs were not there.\u00a0 We had gone to the… Continue reading Untitled<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,195],"tags":[208],"class_list":["post-1363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-us","category-colombia","tag-louie","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1363"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1365,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1363\/revisions\/1365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}