I strive to be a good dog—I mean, a good dog owner. I leash my dogs when leashes are required by law or by the convention of good manners, I always pick up my dogs’ poop in public, and I strive to not let my dogs inconvenience others in any way, by barking, jumping, or peeing on stuff that shouldn’t be peed on.
But recently, I was stuck between being a responsible dog owner and being responsible for my dogs’ well being, and I broke a leash law in order to protect my dogs. And I got yelled at, a couple of times, and as a good dog, I still feel terrible about it—but I would make the same choice again if I had to (but I hope to never have to).
Last week, there was (once again!) a wildfire threatening my town, and indeed, my neighborhood. We evacuated on the first night, even though the evacuation level for our zone was at “warning,” because it was “mandatory” in the zone immediately next to us (and the last time we had a fire nearby, our neighborhood was ordered to evacuate at 11 pm!). The next morning, with the order still at “warning,” we went home and packed up for a planned camping trip out of town; what was unplanned, though, was the fact that we had to bring my two dogs with us.
My usual dog sitters are my sister and my friend Leonora. My sister’s neighborhood was under a mandatory evacuation, and she had bugged out to another town with her three dogs. Leonora lives so close to my house that saddling her with my dogs would not have been fair had the fire grown and she had to evacuate. And since we were camping at a dog-friendly KOA campground, I decided it would be best to just take them with us on an “evacu-vacation,” even though we were also experiencing quite a heat wave and having the dogs with us would strictly limit what we could do on our trip.
We drove to a small mountain town where we were going to meet friends who run in an annual July 4th footrace that raises money for local charities; my husband and grandson were registered to run as well. I was registered for the walking version, but, as dogs were not allowed in the scrum, I planned to watch from the sidelines and take pictures.
On our first day in town, we got camp set up and picked up our race-day shirts. Then we drive to a National Forest where we took a short hike from one lake to another. Dogs are permitted to be off-leash on the trails, and I allowed my dogs to walk with us mostly off-leash, though I carried their leashes in my hand and occasionally called them to sit on the side of the trail to let other people pass by, especially if anyone on the trail looked apprehensive about dogs. A number of people complimented me on how friendly and well behaved my dogs were, and I never felt like we negatively impacted any other trail users.
The next morning, I just watched the start of the fun run and chatted with a lovely couple who stopped to admire my dogs while we waited at the finish. I did see a few dogs on leash with their owners in the field of runners—folks who were breaking the official rules—but the race was so short and the time of day so early, I didn’t feel like the dogs were endangered, and none of them looked like a threat to other runners or walkers. Still, I didn’t want to be a rule breaker, and my dogs and I were content to watch the event.
We spent the middle part of the day at a local lake, where dogs are welcome to swim and run off-leash.
In the evening, I took my leashed dogs to a restored wetland park with magnificent views of Mt. Shasta, and we walked on the raised boardwalks to view the sunset.
The next morning in the campground, I scowled at a gentleman who was walking with a cup of coffee in either hand while his large dog walked ahead of him off-leash—but I scowled only because I was walking my dogs to the campground’s “dog potty yard” on-leash, and his dog started advancing on my two, growling. I said to the loose dog, “HEY!” and the guy finally noticed and called his dog back.
All of this is supposed to establish me as a mostly good dog—a responsible dog owner—even though what came next is an example of the opposite.
On the last day of our evacu-vacation we decided to take one more hike before driving home. We selected a trail that followed the path of a small river and took in three separate scenic waterfalls. The weather was still terribly hot, but since the trail was mostly in the shade and there were ample opportunities for the dogs to get in the water, I thought they’d do fine.
There was just one thing I hadn’t considered: There were short stretches of the trail without shade, and on those stretches, the ground was very hot. Woody didn’t show any discomfort, but on one longer stretch (perhaps 50 yards), Boone suddenly started kicking his back feet as if he was walking on hot lava. (Well, he was; the soil in this area is largely volcanic.) His ears flattened and he looked panicked. The moment I realized what was happening, I dropped both dogs’ leashes and said, “Run! Let’s go!” and ran with them to the next shade. When we all stopped in the shade I poured the last water I had in my water bottle on Boone’s feet, examining each one for any signs of blisters or sores. There were none (thank dog!) but I’m sure they felt burned.
That’s where we turned around, but not before I left the dogs with my husband in the shade, and went further down the trail to refill water bottles from the river and thoroughly wet down my dogs’ paws and lower legs. I took their leashes off and said, “Let’s go!” and let them run down the exposed part of the trail to another patch of shade. I did that each time we got to a highly exposed bit of trail, hoping that this would prevent their feet from blistering (it did). And I let them enter the river a half-dozen times in the mile-and-a-half that it took to get back to the car, so they could cool their feet and drink.
But here’s the “bad dog owner” part. This is a very popular trail and it was a holiday week, so we passed other people nearly every minute. Every time I saw another dog coming toward us, I leashed my dogs (just like they had been leashed the entire way outbound) but otherwise I left them off-leash so they could speed past any hot parts on the trail and then slow down in the shade. This meant that they passed other hikers off leash, both hikers going the opposite way on the busy trail and hikers who were walking slower than us. And twice, someone snapped at me about this. “They’re supposed to be on leash,” called one woman who was sitting with a man on the side of the trail as we trotted past. I kept going but called back, “I know, I’m sorry!”
An older gentleman in a fisherman’s vest and carrying a fishing rod was madder as my dogs passed him going the opposite way, with me about 15 feet behind them. “Put your damn dogs on a leash! It’s the law!” he shouted. My emotions were raw because I was feeling so bad about potentially hurting my dogs, and breaking the rules, and I started crying as I babbled my apologies to him. All I could do was make lame excuses about being evacuated from a fire and not planning to bring the dogs and not realizing that their feet would be burning on this trail. I sounded like an idiot, I’m sure! And I felt like one!
Well, we made it back to the car in one piece, and neither dog had any visible blisters or sores. Even so, I still feel like a criminal for taking so long to realize that the ground had gotten so hot—too hot for barefoot dogs! The experience really marred my memory of our otherwise nice hike in an absolutely beautiful area.
Ugh! Have you ever been that “bad dog owner”—even if you are usually quite responsible? Someone tell me I’m not alone!
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