Vizslas on a Hill Hike in the Rain

 The rain came over night.  Saturday morning we hike.  So in 50 degree cold rain we headed out on to the trails in Briones.

 The dogs loved it and ran with abandon in the empty spaces.  During the summer, these trails have dozens of hikers.  Today the only person we came upon was a lone lady with her umbrella and small dog.

 The trails were slick with a clay mud up on the upper parts of the hill ridges.  Walking down was tough, so instead of walking I ran flat-footed knowing that there was no stopping gracefully until I got to the bottom.  How to make a normal hike into an adventure.

An Old Closed Road Walk in the Rain

 Carquinez Scenic Road out of Martinez, California is where we head on these wet days.  By 8 a.m., this morning, it was 43 degrees and pouring.

Chloe and Bailey were waiting for their walk.  We had missed our walk yesterday because of the rain so today was not an option.  We were going out come hell or high water.

 This road has been discussed quite a few times in this blog.

(you can search Carquinez for other posts)

Today was the wettest day by far.  Our other trails, we might have walked, would have been little rivers of mud.

Nothing like a huge ocean going cargo ship cruising by as you walk in the rain.

 Not the best of times, but they still gave me my 20 smiles per hour.

 

They were so wet they could not get any wetter by swimming.  All in all, a good walk. 

 They now are napping quietly in front of the fire.

Walking in the rain

Rain fell all weekend but that didn't slow us down.
We took some great walks in either a mist or a down right down pour.

We had a great walk along the Carquinez Straits trail with Diane and her 5-year-old Vizsla, Moose. There we met about a dozen other hearty souls enjoying the wet but mild weather with their dogs.


Tonight it was up to Shell Ridge for a quick hour walk. Bailey and Chloe love to run in this open space. We had the place to ourselves. Because of the heavy mist, birds were in abundance in the bushes.

This gave Bailey plenty of enjoyment flushing large flocks of dove, black birds and pigeons. They would explode into the air by the dozen.


Yesterday morning along the ridge, Bailey spied three deer in the valley. Off he went after them. These were his first deer that I recall him chasing.





When he was about 300 yards away in flight, I yelled out for him to "leave it" after I had dialed the training collar controller to high and pressed the momentary correction button. He quit his chase and returned to me.




I told him: "Poor Bailey, those darn deer, like coyote, goats and cows just must know how to shock you when he chase them! Maybe it's better just to leave them alone."