It's back! Do you ever wonder what your dogs are up to during the day when you're at work? Aside from our less adventurous individual walks, those lucky pooches who get to accompany us on our Pack Walks can get up to some pretty crazy antics. Every time we hit the trails something hilariously awesome is bound to happen and so we thought we would share just a few of those stories with you. Thats right, we are digging up our all-time favourite blog post; Tales from the Trails, where you get to learn just what your dogs get up to while you're away for the day!
This week's edition is all about the animals the dogs find during our travels.
Some very alive, and some very very dead.
Oh Deer. For Real Doe!
During the fall months we run into A LOT of deer during our hikes, and thankfully most of them are alive and well. Especially at trails on the outskirts of town or around farmers fields we often accidentally stumble upon a few grazing in the tall grasses. Luckily for us most deer are much more afraid of us then we are of them, but every so often we have a particularly adventurous dog that likes to give the poor deer a run for their money. If you've got a black and white dog whose name rhymes with "hello" or a white dog whose named after a red rock, your dog might just be one of the culprits....
As pack leaders we are always keeping a keen eye ahead of us so that we can quickly change course to avoid the deer, and even when we've got a runner it only take a few minuets for the dogs to realize they are way to slow to catch the deer galloping away from them.
Unfortunately for us though, and our poor cars, the deer we find on the trails aren't always the most alive. As with most dead things, you always know something is there when you see the dogs joyfully rolling around in something that probably smells like death reincarnate. But every so often we are gifted with whole limbs by the pack! This includes the dogs playing tug-of-war with leg bones, and dogs bringing us frozen deer legs, hair hoof and all, to throw like a stick. Ya..... It's safe to say Heidi didn't throw that particular brand of "stick" for the dogs to chase ....
Dam!
Another animal that we run into quite frequently that are still alive and gnawing on trees are beavers! Most of the water systems at Snyder flats are home to beaver damns which make wonderful ponds for the dogs to play and swim in during the summer. Except for during the spring time, when we avoid all beavers due to their particularly feisty nature, the beavers keep to themselves and so do we! Though much like the deer, there always has to be that one dog who decides to explore a little too close for comfort and recall training comes into great importance. A couple good "no!'s" and "leave it!'s" and we are back on the trail heading in the opposite direction of the poor beaver we just scared half to death.
We did find a dead beaver once, just after we had had major flooding throughout the region. Well when I say we found one what I mean to say is a black crazy haired doodle found a dead beaver, Kelli screamed, I booted it out of the air while he was tossing it around and jumped on it, and Kelli so fast I could barely see her pink coat flash by me. Luckily for us the stomp and run trick when you've got two people works like a charm!
Small, woodland creatures.
I'm going to be straight with you, most of the time we have zero clue what kind of animal it is that your dog is chasing, rolling in, or tossing up in the air between their friends, and thats because we are running top speed in the other direction. Spring time is the BEST season for finding half-rotten dead animals on the trails. Especially squirrel-sicles. Squirrel-sicles, dead-frozen-squirrels, are a pack favourite. Not so much a pack leader or owner's favourite. While most dogs just go for the cursory few rolls in which ever decomposing small animal they found that day, we've got a couple dogs whom it is their life mission to roll in every single dead animal in the world. If you're name rhymes with Holly, and you've got two collars because one is always being washed of the stink, I'm talking about you.
We've had dogs play chase with with dead animals, dogs bring us dead animals, and our all time favourite, dogs find not dead animals but quickly make them dead for us and have a mid-walk snack. Natasha would like to say thank you to a very large shepherd, whose name only has three letters, for scaring the ever living life out of her during her very first solo pack walk with this particular move. And also a sincerest thank you from Kelli to a very large black lab whose name sounds like Eddy. I guess you are much quicker then we give you credit for! Not so lucky for the rabbit and racoon.
If you can think of a better fish pun, let minnow.
Last, but certainly not the least in terms of smell, we have fish. Now you're probably sitting there thinking; "Wait a minuet. Fish live in the water. How does a fish end up out in the bush. Do you have dogs that can catch fish?!?!". No, luckily for us we have yet to walk a dog that knows how to catch live fish. BUT what we do have is A LOT of dogs that know how to sniff out the dead fish that birds and other creatures drag up onto land, and finding a fish on a pack walk is basically a party, dog edition. Every dog is rolling in it, every dog is chasing it, and every dog is trying to grab a little mid-walk snack from it. Ever try to take a dead fish away from a doodle? Good luck, especially after they've got that second bite down and locked their jaws. I still think a certain large doodle and his doodle sister aren't my biggest fans after I had to wrestle one out of his mouth.
If you're dog comes home smelling a little extra fishy one day, we apologize profusely. At least you know they had a fun time?!?! I think I just heard someone say bath time ...
Despite all the nasties the dogs find while out on the trails, pack walks are always an amazing time. And luckily for us, more often then not we run into zero animals, dead or alive, other then ourselves. And when we do, no matter how much smell or nasty-ness a dog gets covered in, we will walrus love them. I mean aways love them. Wow these animal puns are getting hawkward ....
