[pct-l] Leaving pets

[Jennifer Zimmerman]

Please, please consider keeping your dog restrained.  On our first ever
backpacking trip we passed a group of people with a dog that was headed in
the other direction.  Imagine our surprise when the dog doubled back,
showed up ten minutes later and started tagging along with us.  We were on
a detour that required a road walk on a busy highway. Since the dog's owner
did not have him on a leash and was nowhere to be found, it became our
responsibility to make sure that he wasn't hit by a car, didn't run out
into traffic and cause an accident, etc.  Sven continued to be our problem
for the rest of that day and all of the next until we could hike out and
drop him off at the nearest police station.  Luckily he had a collar with a
phone number so we didn't have to wonder whether he would be brought to the
shelter and ultimately euthanized.

I love animals, dogs included, but I choose not to be a dog owner and it
was really frustrating to have to take care of someone else's pet.
Especially since it was our first trip out - so it was already stressful,
we were trying to make big miles on tough terrain, and we were pretty beat
up.  I hated having to worry about whether we should feed him or not from
our own precious food bag and I resented that I had to pack out his poop.
For courtesy's sake we had to be careful to restrain him when we passed
other dogs. At least we didn't have to worry about him being human
aggressive.

I know people think that their dog is well-trained enough to be off-leash,
but I'm sure Sven's owner did too.  To someone who is afraid of dogs or
just doesn't want to have to engage them it can be frustrating to have to
fend them off even if they're just sniffing at you.  Like most issues on
the trail, the polite thing to do seems to be being conscious of not
imposing on others  - whether it's music, or cellphone use, or smoking, or
any of the other arguments that get rehashed here.

JZ

On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Kristin Hamann <aggie03.kh at gmail.com>wrote:
.......

> for the safety of your dog and other hikers I would recommend
> keeping them restrained.
>
......