Dogs in Wilderness

[RichardCullip]

Personally, I loath seeing dogs off leash. Most of my off-leash dog encounters are early in the morning on the beaches of San Diego county while I'm fly fishing the surf. Most of these dogs are inquisitive and can't resist bounding up to me once they spot me doing my thing in the surf. The inconsiderate owners usually have little to no control over these dogs and don't see the aggravation the dog causes in me and the danger my sharp hooks present to the dog. Now, my typical encounters with free running dogs don't specifically occur up in the mountains but my feelings towards off leash dogs and their owners remains the same no matter where I encounter them. Keep them on a leash or leave them home please.

[freestone]

I own and love 2 dogs, so my take on dogs in the wilderness is every dog lover and owner should consult with their Veterinarian to see if the dog is capable of making such a trip. I live next to a large open space area and have seen so many dogs suffer at the hands of their ignorant owners on long jogs in the heat of the day. We should never believe just because it's fun and healthy for us humans, so it is with the dog as well. Dogs love their owners best when they are fed, sheltered, and loved on a very predictable routine, so the owner should always consider boarding the dog as an act of love rather than taking it into the wilderness.

[Wandering Daisy]

Richard, I certainly can see how you feel about dogs off leash. I have had a dog actually bite me! I also felt the same before I was involved in training a puppy. And I still do not like other dogs to jump on me - inevitably the dog that jumps on you is full of mud. A well trained dog will not run out of sight of his master- he will look back for a command of "yes you can" or "no". Our dog is also trained not to chase animals unless we give the OK. She gets daily training on this since she goes on walks where there are wild turkeys and deer. We let her chase squirrels up trees, and that is it. Now that she is no longer a puppy she has less interest in chasing squirrels. Now she mostly ignores all wildlife. This last trip we ran into a hawk that had a squirrel in its mouth. Our dog stopped, stood absolutely still and looked to us for directions of what to do. She also will immediately "lie down" with a hand signal even at long distances. She does not get far from us because she is a working dog and her "job" is to herd us down the trail! We have also taken our neighbor's very well trained hunting dog on a backpack. He was also trained to perfectly obey off leash. This does not come easy. It took nearly two years and about $1000 of professional one-on-one training classes and daily off-leash training/practice to get where we are now. To our dismay, a lot of hikers actually encourage our dog to jump up on them. There are a lot of dog-lover backpackers out there too.

We carry a leash at all times and if a situation looks like it will be a problem we put on the leash. About 90% of the time we are alone and may only run into a few hikers a day.

[RichardCullip]

Wandering Daisy - I wish all dog owners were as diligent in training their dogs as you are. I'd have no problem meeting a dog as well trained as yours. In fact, it would be a pleasure....

[rlown]

guessing none of you have seen 60 off leash dogs heading out to duck ponds during waterfowl season in the North central valley. Samantha did great. Sam was almost killed by a guy coming in at 4am (normal start time) at about 2 years old (she escaped her leash and ran into traffic; my bad), and then there's the parade of dogs/hunters to the ponds.

Dogs work it out, and we deal with protectionism they experience when some other dog wants to sniff their owners birds. Yes, they are on leash (at least mine was) until we get on the berms/levees. 10 yds in, off leash! happy dogs.. poop everywhere. And we're sitting in it pretty much when in the duck ponds i think.

I'm not arguing this should be true in the wilderness, but they are dogs. even the miwoks had dogs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miwok

Love the dog.

[tarbuckle]

My two well behaved buddies. Life in the backcountry would be lonely without them

[k9mark]

I would just like people to obey the forest service rules....all dogs must be kept on a leash....plain and simple. I've taken too many reports where people were bitten and the owners said, oh, he doesn't bite. I love dogs, owned them, worked them, trained them, but in the right circumstance they will bite. Last thing you need is to get sued.

[SSSdave]

Have hiked into wilderness with other member's dogs and the experience was generally positive. The dog was not aggressive to others, not a barker, but had an intense desire to chase small critters. On our first trip was nauseatingly running ahead and running back and behind over and over. By the end of the short 3 mile hike had gone 10 miles and was dead tired. On later trips was not so stupid. It also wanted to mouth every fish his owner caught and not a few times said owner found fish mushy mutilated up on shores after Max pulled up stringers. Although trained on those bad habits "on the fly" Max's evil twin was always there ready to be naughty.

Agree with most of what others have added. Like WD would like to see a program that licenses owners to bring up specific dogs they have qualified into non-national park wilderness. A program for testing dogs and owners could be set up with fees to offset national forest employees running such a program. Of course dog owners could still without a license bring their dogs into non-wilderness national forest or blm lands but not into wilderness.

A program like this would not guarantee dogs would always behave or owners will follow whatever dog policies, but it would filter out a whole lot dogs that are likely to behave poorly, almost all the result of owners that never trained their dogs at all beyond not crapping in their homes. And would also be an incentive to many otherwise lazy dog owners to bother training their pets at least minimally. As it is, large numbers of mountain visitors are not rural folk many of which tend to understand dogs but rather urban dwellers that keep their pets in unnatural city home environments where animals are often so isolated for most of their lives that they never learn how to act around other people or other dogs. As a result such dogs are apt to be uncontrollable bundles of berzerk hormones.

David
http://www.davidsenesac.com/2015_Trip_C ... eshow.html

[schmalz]

I would just like people to obey the forest service rules....all dogs must be kept on a leash....plain and simple. I've taken too many reports where people were bitten and the owners said, oh, he doesn't bite. I love dogs, owned them, worked them, trained them, but in the right circumstance they will bite. Last thing you need is to get sued.

Most Sierra wilderness does not require dogs to be on leash. I believe Desolation is the one exception.

[k9mark]

I would just like people to obey the forest service rules....all dogs must be kept on a leash....plain and simple. I've taken too many reports where people were bitten and the owners said, oh, he doesn't bite. I love dogs, owned them, worked them, trained them, but in the right circumstance they will bite. Last thing you need is to get sued.

Most Sierra wilderness does not require dogs to be on leash. I believe Desolation is the one exception.

National forests require pets to be on a leash and or under direct voice control. You have to check with the national forest or park your visiting to verify their individual requirements.