Lost Dogs

The habitat property ridge is a dogleg L with the long, east/west ridge-line being about a mile. The north/south leg is about 1/2 mile. The ridge itself is 300-500 feet high elevation gained and lost. Normally I take the dogs parallel to the ridge for about a mile then up over the east end and drop down another 1/2 mile to the back pond. They take a swim to cool off and we return.

 The north side is lush.

 The south side is oak savanna.

By the time the dogs get down to the pond, they are more than ready to cool off.

Unfortunately there is a large, foul, well rotting, buck carcass not that far from the pond.

With a lot of coaxing I was able to call Cedar and Trask off of it and to the pond where they ensued in a great game of Chinook tag.

Finally Koyuk came down for a drink and to cool off.

As soon as she showed up, Trask and Cedar headed back to roll in the carcass.

Now I had three really smelly dogs and the inviting carcass to pass by on the way home. I decided to take the very long way home west along the ridge base; up to the top of the south leg; along that leg; back east along the top of the ridge then drop down again and the mile home. The dogs had never taken this route.

Before we headed out, I took them to a stream to hopefully wash some of the yuck off and make sure they were well hydrated.

 We are going up the dogleg.

Once we got to the top of the main ridge, the dogs caught scent of the carcass way down below. I snapped this picture not realizing it was the last I would see of them for a couple of hours. .

This ridge is way too steep to take the quad, thus the long distance from one side to the other. I fruitlessly whistled for 1/2 hour then rushed home; grabbed the cell phone; got more gas and headed out. But where to go? We weren't back to an area they knew when they took off. If they had gone down to the carcass as I suspected, would they take the normal route back home? Would they stick together? They were pretty tired by the time we got to the top of the main ridge and it was getting late. I called Dave and headed out on our normal run. No one on the carcass or at the pond. I then traced the long way up the dogleg ridge. Still no dogs. I went back to our normal trail and headed home. The happy, smelly, wet dogs were still panting heavily when I walked in. They had beat me by just enough to go inside the house and crash on our bed. There are times....