Smokey hits the trails

I did a four mile trail hike with Maya, Coco, and Serena early Wednesday morning. I came home, warmed up, drank some coffee and ate Christmas cookies and then took Smokey on his first trail hike up at Pleasant Grove.

Good picture of his teeth here. You
can see they are clean and white. He
must be between 1-2 years old.

Smokey still has an issue with the crate and he stood in there and barked at me with that one note, non-stop, constant rhythm bark all the way up to Pleasant Grove. Thank Dog it isn't far because I was ready to kill him by the time we got there. I got him out of the crate as quickly as possible and he shut up immediately. I put him on a 6' slip lead and we headed off to the trails, mud or no mud.

He clearly didn't know what he was doing, but it didn't really matter. He was glad to be out of the crate and into a new and interesting environment. He made a rookie mistake of emptying his bladder right at the beginning so he didn't have much left for marking. I didn't really stop for marking purposes anyway, I wanted to concentrate on moving. And so we did.

He didn't really pull hard, but he kept the leash taut most of the time. That was good in that it avoided entanglements. I never had to get the leash out from under his legs. After about the first mile he sort of relaxed and began to really enjoy it. I felt Smokey's muzzle in my left hand occasionally, sort of checking in, giving me a lick, and letting me know he was happy.

We did not encounter other people or dogs and I'm glad about that. He wasn't sure about the water crossings, but when I waded in he didn't hesitate and he followed me into and across the streams. We went 3.3 miles, which was enough for me after the morning's four mile walk, but he would have been happy to go on much longer.

Smokey hopped right back into the crate when we got back to the van, but he also went back into his barking behavior. I was ready with a squirt of lemon juice this time and that shut him up, at least for a bit. I had to do it a few more times, but he laid down and was quiet for the ride home.

I think it went a long way toward solidifying our relationship. I would have liked to get a prong collar on him so I could have controlled him rather than just restrained him on the hike, but I don't think Smokey would have allowed me to do that yet. He enjoyed it and had a positive experience with me. I'm going to call that a win for the day.

He's looking up at me here,
that's a good sign.

Here he is in the crate on the ride home,
looking at me and not barking.