Date: 2012-11-11
To: My Hiking Buddy!
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Meet my four legged hiking partner Melkie! He is a beautiful, obedient (unless food or leather shoes are involved) golden retriever. All summer he has been sporting his backpack every time we went on a longer walk so he could get used to it. Last weekend was the first time it had 10 lbs of food in it. He did great! Yesterday we walked 11km of the TransCanada Trail with 6 lbs of water and lunch for him and his buddy. We ended up having to walk around a closed section of the trail and got totally soaked and muddy but still had lots of fun (well he had way more fun than me and didn't care about being all muddy and my shoes definitely don't look new anymore)! We took a side trail into Port McNichol and stopped at Marina's for lunch. We sat at the outside patio so the dogs could eat with us and while we were there the waitress offered to loan me her hands free bungee leash so that i can see if I want to use something like that on the trip. I'm picking it up on Tuesday, who would have thought I'd be checking out dog gear this week! I'm excited! This morning (my day off) Melkie woke me up early ready to rip so we went on a 4km walk that included a steep hill before breakfast and then went out again with his buddy before lunch. The trail we took before lunch was gorgeous! My friend was with me but wasn't feeling that well and had to excuse himself to the bushes. When he finally caught up of course I gave him the "did you bury it" lecture and swore that if my dog rolled in it he was cleaning up the mess! On our return I made my dog heel through "that" section of the trail but sure enough his dog took off straight for it! Didn't roll in it though, HE ATE IT! It was disgusting! I laughed my ass off! But now I'm all worried that my dog will do the same thing on the AT! I was planning on keeping him on a 15 ft lead, now I'm thinking I need to shorten it! Yuck! Imagine having him in the hammock with me after that! I've just stumbled across even more things to worry about ( how will I get him clean if he rolls in shit? Where is he gonna stay when I won't let him in my hammock?). I'm sure he will be more prepared for this than me when we start. I haven't been able to out walk him yet and he has seemed totally fine with the weighted backpack. It's how he handles being out in the woods day after day for months that worries me but I guess the same goes for me as well. I will prepare him for this as best I can and deal with problems as they arise. I've had him in my hammock a few times, at first he thought it was fun. Now I'm sure he just tolerates it but he has figured out how to get out while I'm sleeping (I have a bottom entry hammock) so it's not like I'm forcing him to stay in there or anything. I think I will just attach his lead to the tree nearest the entrance each night and he can make up his own mind whether he wants to be in or out. My backpack requires a sleeping pad to be used as the frame of the pack and since I have an underquilt and shouldn't need the pad Melkie will have the pad to use if he sleeps outside. I still need to buy him a raincoat that will fit over his pack if anyone has a good suggestion please let me know via the guest book. One more post and this goes online! Thanks for reading!Trouble'Hiking is just walking where it's ok to pee.' Demitri Martin