An Off-Leash Adventure

On Saturday afternoon, we headed out to do a little off-roading after Daddy did a little check in on some work matters. We hadn’t been out since the big rain, so it was fun to see the differences brought about by the storm. In the desert, rain means a transformation of the terrain due to flash flooding which redeposits the sandy soil, rocks, and vegetation all over the places. No matter how good they try to make the drainage near the paved roads, there is always some pretty solid destruction and places where the road is at least partially destroyed. Obviously, the dirt roads are even worse. They usually come around with heavy equipment to clear off the excess sand and debris after a storm. We saw more than one place where huge rocks/boulders had fallen. Rock and mudslides peppered the landscape.

As we were driving, D and I were talking about how well the dogs had been responding to commands and listening lately. When we first got these two, we never imagined that if they slid out while we were bringing things in and out of the house or vehicle that they would listen and come right back. No, these two love to run. Before, they would always take off and run and run and run. After the first couple of months, they would stay in the general vicinity of where we were, but they would not listen and come back when called. Yet, we had slowly started to see little changes. We wanted to be able to allow the dogs off-leash when we were out hiking (no one else around), but it didn’t seem like it was ever going to happen.

Over the last couple of weeks, something had changed. We now thought that there might be the possibility that we could actually allow them to hike with us off-leash. (We’re not talking in town or on base. We’re talking in the middle of nowhere.) We decided that we would give it a try when we stopped to hike. We looked for a good place to try our experiment. When we finally located a good spot, we hopped out with them on their leashes. I slowly unhooked Wyatt’s leash. He looked around but stayed near us. I then unhooked Wiley’s leash. He wandered over to a nearby bush and sniffed it, but he also stayed nearby. We allowed them to look around a bit, and then called them back to us. They came!!!

After that small victory, we headed out on a short hike. (It was too hot and humid for a long one.) We would allow them to run around and explore a little, but we kept calling them to keep them close and make sure they listened. After a little while, they seemed to understand what was expected of them because they would run ahead, turn around and look at us (without us even calling) to see where we were, and then come flying back to us. They were having a blast, and we were so excited that we were able to do with them. Oh, we still have more training to do with them as they’re still way too distracted to do this anywhere except in the middle of the desert, and they still need to learn to walk better on leashes. Yet, we hit a huge milestone with them – one that we never thought would happen. It  was a fun off-leash adventure.