A couple days ago we picked up a load in Sacramento that was due to deliver yesterday in central Oregon (Bend and Redmond). We got into the area midafternoon Tuesday and couldn't deliver until Wednesday morning, so we stopped at the truck stop in LaPine, OR.

This truck stop sits right up against a nice stretch of woods. That's to be expected, being in the middle of the Klamath National Forest. I decided we'd try an afternoon walk in addition to a dark walk, and Harri agreed to the idea. We took about a 20 minute walk, her first through a forest. It took a little time for her to get used to the deadfalls and all the broken branches on the ground, but she did finally figure out that they could be fun. We did an hour long dark walk that night and an hour sunrise walk the next morning, and she was really getting into the forest scene. She would explore along the tops of deadfall trees, being fairly careful not to snag her leash. And she found that it's fun to do zoomies up tall trees, at least as high as her overly strict Paw will let her go.

We finished off our deliveries and returned to the same truck stop to await our next load assignment. We did an hour and a half dark walk last night and almost an hour sunrise walk this morning. Now she's really getting into this forest explorer thing! She zooms along the fallen trees, hops over bushes, scrambles very quickly up tall trees (up to about 8 feet up, where I stop her), and is generally out close to the limit of the leash the whole we're walking. She really loves forest walks. She will generally spend at least 10 minutes of each walk sitting atop a tree stump just watching, listening to, and sniffing the forest around her. It's quite a sight.

Copyright © Dan Mahoney
April 29, 2005