[pct-l] Dogs on trail

[Andrew Jones]

Fuzz, Gary, et al.-

You asked about how we plan to do manage with the dog on trail. I'll give
the brief rundown. First off, there is a lot of trail she's not allowed on.
For the larger sections (National Parks) we have friends to pick her up and
drop her off. For some places, it just involves a lot of road miles, which I
don't like, but I accept the rules and get over it.

She requires a lot of water, and we'll have the capacity to carry 8-10
liters each (my wife and I), at least for the desert and more waterless
stretches of trail (eg Hat Creek Rim). The dog gets priority on the water -
we will go thirsty so she doesn't. She also will need high calorie food, and
we'll be feeding her Blue Buffalo Wilderness - expensive but very dense,
high protein high fat stuff. Plus she'll get a bit of our human food every
night. We won't do as many miles per day as most through hikers, and we'll
be starting in early April, way ahead of the pack, so we can get through the
desert, hopefully, before temperatures get too unbearable. Most of our
hiking in the warmer trail sections will be especially short days, mostly
hiking in early morning and late evening. Our distance between resupplies
will probably be lower than average, too, with a high number of zero days,
especially when we're just starting out.

Rattlesnakes concern us, and we've been doing some training with her using a
the voice command "behind," where she then understands to hike behind one of
us (whoever doesn't have her leash in hand). It's tricky, but so far, so
good, and we'll be using that through much of the desert. Thanks, Patti, for
letting us know about the rattlesnake training course - we just might have
her do that.

She will not carry her own pack - I don't really think she's built for it,
and she really hates it. This probably isn't even all that true, but we tend
to be overly cautious with her, and I can tell when my back hurts from extra
weight and I'm overdoing it, but I can't always tell with the dog. The other
main thing is her feet - the only reason I've ever seen her want to quit
hiking was when she tore up her feet going over a pass in the Absarokas - on
that trip we didn't put her boots on when we should have, but we won't be
making that mistake again. For boots, we're using Ruffwear Grip Trex, and we
also have their Cloud Chaser (warming) and Swamp Cooler (cooling) jackets.
For the lead, it's a 20' retractable Flexi that is modified with two
homemade shock absorbing sections. I hike with my pack waistband through a
bungee cord attachment on the leash so my hands are free.

As for breeds, Uffizi (ooo-FEET-see) is a red-bone coonhound mix - those
hounds are bred for long-distance hunting such as bear and cougar. She has
long legs and a strong, fluid gait and really can go long distances
tirelessly. Our other dog is a rottweiler/lab, who is almost the same
height, but has a choppier gait (and an old leg injury), and we would never
consider trying to make him do the trail (even though he would follow us no
matter how much it hurt). So he'll be staying with family for this summer.

That's about all. Maybe I'll write a book....

Andy