High Sierra Topix

This is Hawk, he's only 3 months old, so it'll be a while before he is ready for any real adventuring. But he sure loves the waterfall and splash pool beneath!

Nice! what pack is he going to carry?

Hopefully mine. I’ll carry a ruffwear. I don’t know yet. Recommendations welcome. Right now reliable recall and not full out assaulting me seem a long way away.

Hey McKee,  that sounds like a great dog!
Re. dog pack recommendations, I would lean away from our/Bearzy's  "Outward Hound" and toward Smokey's "Ruffwear" pack.  As you can see in the photo below, the blue "OH" pack distributes some of the weight too far back along the dog's back.  I worried that this could hurt Bear's lower back, so I modified the pack by cinching up the back part of the pack.  The Ruffwear pack places the weight more over the dog's front shoulders, which seems like a better place for it.   This is especially important for a young dog likes yours who will have to bear the weight of all the tall cans of beer you intend to lay on her!  

At the start of a week trip, both dogs are 55-60 lbs., and carry no more than 8 lbs. per dog.* (Smokey is 3 years old; Bearzy is now 5.5)

You can see here how I modified the OH pack to move weight forward.

Smokey with her Ruffwear pack. It is made of heavier material, and so it weighs more, but is more durable. The weight matters because I carry the dog pack whenever Bearzy moves through large boulder talus, and sometimes in tight scrub, like manzanita-chincapin slopes. In the talus and scrub he doesn't account for the width of the pack, and it affects his ability to thread his way through it. Also, when he has to jump down talus, or steep mountainsides I don't want that load to hurt his back. I guess you could remove the contents of the dog pack in those situations, but I have always just slung it around my neck- seems fair when Hawk is mostly loaded down with your beer!

*I've read that Alaskan miners would load their pack dogs down with 20 lbs. or more!

Thanks for the info! Your dogs look like naturals out there. Me and my stubborn puppy have some work to do to get there. I've read that Ruffwear is good stuff. If he can carry a six pack, I'll be in the market for some more dogs, maybe a dozen or so.

McKee80 says:

If he can carry a six pack, I'll be in the market for some more dogs, maybe a dozen or so.

!!!

Meet Lucy the Border Collie. She has been backpacking only three times, so she is still kind of a beginner. This recent photo shows her healing. She was bitten by a suburban opossum three weeks ago, and the animal really tore into her. The veterinarian has been treating her with antibiotics and painkillers, so now she is starting to get back to normal, although she will likely carry permanent scars. It took her the second trip before she learned to drink water out of a clean stream. She has learned the rules of the trail now, so I can let her go off-leash. If it is cold enough, she will sleep inside the tent, but she prefers to sleep out under the stars.

opossums suck.. Called my dogs off one that made it into the back yard, and flipped it out with a pool strainer over the fence. Should have just shot it.

At first, I didn't know what sort of wild animal had bitten her. The only wild animals that we ever get around here are raccoons. Then I was chatting with my neighbor, and he had seen an opossum walking the fence on the very evening that Lucy was bitten. That was good enough evidence for me.

Glad she's on the mend..