Visit to the Hocking Hills

Over the past few months, Betsy has become increasingly a focal part of our family. No weekend has been as strong a testament to this so far as this past one when we took a hiking trip down to the Hocking Hills. Amanda looked up to find out ahead of time that the trails were pet-friendly and so we packed up, gave the dog some easy drugs and embarked on a bonding journey. A short time later, we had arrived in a madhouse that was best described by a man I met last summer: “All the cockroaches come out at a time like that”. I’ll save a specific description for a separate blog post which I have reserved for scathing some idiots, but it was hectic and loaded with crazies to say the least.

For a dog we’ve only had 5 months, Betsy performed with agility and poise among the multitudes of furry friends and their owners. I’ve never seen so many dogs out at a park before and we took quite a while just to get away from the bulk of the people. Amanda says Betsy was probably over-stimulated, but regardless of the cause she was pretty withdrawn throughout the process and politely approached dogs and people only when given permission. We let her play in the water some and ours was of course the embarrassing one which decided to drop and wet right into the water where kids were playing.

Escaping all of the madness we finally got into the quiet of the woods. Betsy loved the walk and proved to have a natural inclination towards agility as we navigated through some places where the trail had completely disintegrated. She hopped up on rocks twice as tall as her and patiently waited in single file passes as people had to come through the opposite direction. I have to attribute a lot of this good behavior to the socialization and walks that Amanda has been taking Betsy on; Amanda should be proud of how great the dog was.

Both of them are troopers for putting up with the misunderstanding of trail distances that occurred. I fully knew that the loop trail we were on was 3 miles each way and tried to tell Amanda this, but it didn’t seem to sink in. I knew we were doomed when we got to the end and Amanda thought we were back to the beginning. With a heavy heart, I informed her we had another 3 miles to go and I started to get concerned about how tired Betsy was going to be. Finally, we made it back to the car and I’ve never seen a dog so droopy and worn out. She slept nearly the whole way back as Amanda and I got a well-earned lunch. Betsy and her little legs walked 6 miles down there and she was still feeling it this morning when we got up. But what a great day!

I’ve added a few pictures from our trip the photo album on my Picasa; please enjoy.