Ever meet a dog that could fly? Well meet Skye. We first met Skye back in 2003 when Chris Barrow, her owner, came to our offices whilst working for a neighboring ski company here in Edinburgh. It was 2 years earlier when Chris rescued Skye from Edinburgh Dog Home after she was found as a stray in West Lothian.
In 2005 Chris and Skye moved to the French ski resort and spa town, St Gervais where they bought some land and built the catered chalet, Chalet La Charme. Being a dog that loved the outdoors and adventure, Skye soon fell in love with her new life in the mountains and all the new sports that came with it.
Some of her favourite activities range from climbing and hiking in the neighboring resorts of Chamonix and Les Houches to swimming in the local lakes and ice-skating on them during the winter.
However there’s one sport that catapulted Skye into the spotlight and brought her local fame, and that’s paragliding.
It all came about when Chris decided to take up paragliding and was faced with the difficulty of leaving Skye on her own. Despite being a strong and independent dog, Skye is fiercely loyal to Chris and hates to be apart from him. In fact the feeling is mutual. So after much research, Chris found a local company in Annecy where they sold dog harnesses specifically for paragliding.
When asked about how they got started, Chris explains that the hardest part of learning to paraglide with Skye was finding the right take off and landing point, saying “you can’t tell a dog when and how fast to run so you have to hold her which is quite tricky to master when holding that extra 18kg and trying to control the paraglider at the same time”.
When asked how Skye feels about her flying experience, Chris goes onto explain “dogs do not have the same perception of heights as people do which makes her feel extremely comfortable when flying.”
You can see Skye take flight here in this video:
Here at PowderBeds, we love dogs almost much as we love the mountains so if you have a story to tell and photos of a special dog in the mountains then we’d love to hear from you, so get in touch!
Posted by Phillipa Holmes on Saturday 23 Aug 2014