Hiking - 'Tis the Season

I was exceptionally lazy this summer. I used Jedi's arrival this spring as an excuse to stop walking the dogs -- because he was too little to go along at first and I didn't want to leave him home. Once you stop a habit it's hard to start it back up again. The cool fall weather is a reminder that winter is around the corner, and this always seems to start my weird backwards version of nesting. Only my "nesting" involves being outside and doing as many outside things as possible before the snow comes and we are stuck inside until March. I imagine I'll start feverishly setting courses/drills and training the older dogs on the agility equipment that we've ignored all year while I have played with Jedi, but right now we're hiking!

Today was our third day out in a row. The last two days we hit up different sections of the bike trail. The mosquitoes were just god-awful thanks to all of the rain we've had lately. The section we hit up yesterday also had some nasty, stanky standing water along the trail that it was hard to keep Jedi out of because, you know, water.... The day before we went over the river and I was able to send Jedi and Secret down from the bridge for a swim to make them happy. Today we went up to the Experimental Forest and there was no water until we were on our way back to the van and encountered the nastiest puddles ever. A couple were scum-covered and gross, but of course those are the ones the dogs gravitate to.

Jedi has had his moments with regard to his ability to listen off leash. For the most part he's doing very well, but the boy just loves to RUN. This means it doesn't take him very long to get a lot further ahead than I'd like him to, especially when we are on trails where we might encounter walkers/runners/bikers (the latter of which can come up pretty quickly if you aren't paying attention). I've been bringing along a full treat pouch and basically playing a ping-pong game with Jedi. I let him run way out yonder and then call him, then he comes running, gets a treat, and then I say "go-go-go" and send him back out to run again. He seems to think this is pretty fun and it also means he's going over twice as far as the actual distance we travel and getting in a lot of running. Jedi also thinks it's fun to jump up and grab his leash from around my neck and start a game of tug, and once he turns on to this it's hard to get him back in running mode -- although this usually starts up about 40/45 minutes into the walk.

The down side to all of the fun hiking is the stuff we bring home with us. I've only found a handful of ticks over the last few days, but we've found more than our fair share of various burrs and sticky things. I try to pull as many out on the trail as I can, but on the bike trail the mosquitoes didn't allow me to stand still long enough and today Jedi couldn't be bothered to hold still for more than five seconds at a time. He does pretty well at letting me pick or brush them out of his coat when we get home. I'm not going to lie, I would have loved a smooth coat for my next dog as I'm not really one for a big fluffy coat. Jedi's coat really isn't that bad, though, and the burrs come out pretty easily.

I don't think we'll be returning to the Forest this year. That's a bummer since I really like walking the field roads and letting the dogs run, but it appears to be hunting season already. There were about 8 trucks parked up there when we arrived tonight, which made me a bit nervous, but I decided to go out anyhow. We stuck to the corn for the majority of our walk (and even flushed out a turkey at one point, which I'm guessing is what they are hunting?) but hung a left to go down the other trail for a bit before heading back to the van. It wasn't long before I saw a hunter at the edge of the woods and he appeared to be gesturing at me -- more or less a "get the hell out of here" motion. I have no idea what the rules are with public lands that are open to hiking and hunting, but I don't think we'll risk it anymore. That's a shame, especially since there weren't any mosquitoes up there. That said, the trails were absolute crap and completely ungroomed. This picture here was an actual marked trail. Yeah....

In other news, my new shirt arrived this week! I saw it posted on Facebook a while back and couldn't pass it up. The Star Wars-inspired phrase works for Jedi and it's got a split face like Secret.  :o)