I've lived here for over 2.5 years now and have found it a challenge to find a good park that is close by in which I can run my dogs off leash. You would think that living on a 161 acre farm would give me a lot of space to tire them out but surprisingly that is not the case. In the summer the crops are in which takes away a lot of space and it's just not possible to give them a good run. Plus, it's boring every day to walk in the same place. I love hiking with them but most parks near me insist that the dogs be on leash - so what is the point of that??? But I have now found Morris Island Park - 15 minutes from my house and the dogs are allowed to run off leash. I didn't believe it at first but it's true! Hardly anyone uses it so it is the perfect place for me to run the dogs - or so I thought! This park is beautiful! Nice trails through heavily treed forests with tons of water in which they can wade (my dogs don't swim) and cool off when necessary. You can walk for a couple of hours and really give the dogs a good run. But... along with a beautiful park in the country comes the wildlife. And this has become my challenge. Just over a week ago I took the 3 dogs with my friend Jennifer on a Friday evening to show her my new favourite place. It was a beautiful evening and all was going well until Jackson and Trey picked up a scent and were going crazy trying to track down whatever wild animal had just walked through there. And they did! All of a sudden they took off up ahead and chased what we thought was a raccoon up a tree. Trey was the first there and he and Jackson were jumping up the tree to try to get the raccoon. Except it wasn't a raccoon - it was a porcupine and Trey had managed to get close enough to its tail end that he had a couple dozen quills in his mouth and around his muzzle. Jennifer and I managed to get all of the ones outside of his mouth out. Trey was quite good about it. But we couldn't get the ones in his mouth so we had to leash him up and head home where I was able to pull them out with tweezers. Thank goodness we didn't have to go to the vet! One of my staff recently spent about $1000 on both of her dogs after porcupine incidents. That was all I could think about and I was determined to get them out myself so I'm grateful that Trey cooperated! Trey is a bit obsessive compulsive about frogs. He will see one jump into water and will obsess in the swamp trying to find it. He would spend hours frog hunting if I let him. And he is great at dodging and weaving when I'm trying to grab him. There are two times that he will ignore me and not allow me to get him - when he is on a scent and when he is frog hunting. Frustrating! So our next adventure into Morris Island included him finding the muddiest swamp you've ever seen and obsessing over hunting for frogs. He would not come back to me when I called him and I had to make my way down to the edge of the swamp and chase him around it to try to catch him. He is very good at staying just out of reach unless I literally want to walk into the mud myself to grab him. And he just circles around the edge of the swamp, jumping farther in when he sees a frog, and covering his legs, belly and chest with very smelly mud. So imagine him chest deep in mud walking around the pond looking for frogs and me having to jump over and around fallen trees and logs while trying to stay on solid footing and getting close enough to him to grab him - I was NOT happy! This when on for quite a while until I was finally able to grab and hold onto his tail and get a leash on him. I did not see a bright future in this park - I saw a future of me chasing him around swamps. I should mention that at this particular time Jackson and Abby managed to stay out of the mud. But... not for long. I, of course, let Trey off of his leash when I thought we were far enough away from this pond and immediately he ran back to it. The game was back on but this time Abby and Jackson joined in. 3 muddy dogs. One pissed off dog owner. End of the walk that day. But I decided to try the park again a couple of days later. Third time there in a week and of course it was not incident free. I'm really beginning to see the prey drive of the husky. This time it was Jackson. The last few times we've been there I've seen a nice little family of Canada geese swimming around - mommy and daddy and 3 goslings. I don't worry too much about the dogs with the geese because they can always fly away or they are out in water and since my dogs don't swim, I never worry that they will get to them. WRONG! Part of the park includes a beautiful man-built walkway from one island to another one. You can see it in one of the photos I've posted. There is water on both sides and the goose family hangs out in this area. This particular day they were swimming down the right hand side of the walkway and Jackson saw them and took off after them. I wasn't worried at first because he doesn't swim so I figured he'd run down the bank to the water and bark at them. WRONG again! He ran down the bank, jumped into the water practically on top of them and continued to chase them down the stream since the water was shallow enough he could still touch bottom. Surprisingly mommy and daddy goose didn't turn on him and attack him, protecting their babies. That was my initial fear - he was about to get in a big fight with two big geese. But they didn't! Mommy and Daddy goose took off and flew straight downstream but the babies were too young to fly. They all ended up under water and Jackson ran/swam down the middle of the stream chasing mommy and daddy goose. I should mention here that about a year ago Jackson pulled a goose out of the mid-air and killed it so I knew that he he got to them he would definitely kill them. That is a story for another day - a good one! But this time they managed so far to stay out of his reach. He got himself to the other side of the stream and continued to run along the edge of the water barking at them and they kept squawking and flying towards a bigger body of water where he couldn't get them. Once I saw that mommy and daddy were safe and they weren't going to attack him, I started to worry about the babies. Of course this whole time I'm yelling at him to come back, he is barking and the geese are squawking so it was quite chaotic! The babies had gotten split up - two were swimming towards mommy and daddy but one was obviously confused and off by himself swimming the wrong way. So now I was worried that as Jackson came back he would see the two goslings by themselves and dive in to attack them. When he finally gave up on mommy and daddy goose and was running back along the bank, my only thought was please don't see the babies - please just come back, run back across the shallow part of the stream and back to me! And that is almost what happened. He did not see the 2 babies but when coming back across the stream to my side he did see the lone baby and immediately jumped into the water to grab it. Thank goodness the little gosling dove under water and swam away and Jackson was looking for it but in the wrong direction. The little gosling managed to swim quite far under water and out of his eyesight. Of course I'm still ridiculously yelling at him to come back when I know full well he is ignoring me and it was wasted effort but there was nothing else I could do. Thankfully he did give up and came back to my side of the stream and I was able to leash him up. But not before everyone was traumatized! Again - one pissed off dog owner and the end of the walk. Abby is my little angel. Thankfully she does not have the prey drive that the boys do. She just watches them do their thing and stays out of it. So far. I'm sure at some point I will have a story about her but for now it is just Jackson and Trey getting into trouble. And I'm really hoping that trouble comes in 3's and the geese were the final incident for awhile. Otherwise, I'm again going to be out of a park. And I really love this park. Apparently, so do the dogs.  |
| The walkway between islands |
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| View from the walkway with high water - water was not this high when Jackson decided to chase the geese |
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| Forested area of Morris Island Park |
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| Chasing frogs in the disgusting swamp |
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| Still chasing frogs in the disgusting swamp - you can see how he is out of reach! |
