Monday, June 25, 2012

Weekend Recap


I am covered in mosquito bites. We decided to take the dogs for a hike on Saturday, but after an hour of internet research, I still didn't know what insect repellent we could use that wouldn't be harmful to our dogs. So we went sans-repellent. HUGE mistake.

After about 10 minutes of being swarmed by mosquitos, we gave up and headed to the rail trail instead. This is a paved pedestrian/bike/etc (no motorized vehicles) trail that was built on an unused train track. Since it had recently rained, and the ground was still wet, we mostly had the trail to ourselves. The trail wound through town, introducing us to shops we had never seen before - mostly law offices and doctors' offices, but also a pizza and gelato shop that I promised Llamaentity we'd try out sometime.

We enjoyed our rail trail walk so much that we headed back on Sunday. This time, the trail was a lot more crowded. The first time a biker passed us, Mushroom pushed me off the trail in her attempt to get away from it. Keep in mind that Mushroom weighs 34 lbs. We spent the rest of our walk giving the dogs treats whenever something "scary" passed us. Hopefully we'll go back to the rail trail often enough to desensitize them to the following list of "scary" things:

-Bikers
-Bikers towing buggies
-Elliptical bikes*
-Rollerbladers
-Runners
-Cross-country skiing rollerbladers*

*We've never seen these except for on the rail trail, and to be honest, they scare us a little too.

Because we didn't get any pictures of our dogs on our weekend adventures, here are some pictures of them standing around in grass.

How's the weather down there, Mushroom?

Badger shows off the patch of fur on his butt that stands straight up


What bug spray do you use when you hike or camp with your dog? (Both on yourself and on your dog.)

6 comments:

  1. We HATE mosquitos too. I use anyhting that also prevents ticks (for me). The vet told us anything without DEET, mostly the family friendly repellants were ok for Nola.

    P.S. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but you should check out my post from last week, I bet you're going to like it! http://mrandmrsandnolakisses.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/our-first-award/

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    1. Thanks for the award! I'm still going through my blogroll, so tomorrow I'll do a real post about it.

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  2. I purchased an all-natural bug repellent for dogs on amazon.com . I can't remember the name, but it's Ina beige bottle and I featured it on a past post. It has a very strong menthol smell, but it works!

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    1. I saw the award from your blog too. Thanks! We feel doubly-loved!

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  3. Luckily the bugs haven't been too bad this year. Yet. I have a feeling things are going to get nasty pretty fast. I am not a big fan of bug repellent but perhaps it is something I should like into for my dog's sake. Thanks for the reminder!

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  4. I use the Skin-So-Soft bug repellant. It was recommended to me by a dog-trainer I met randomly while hiking with my girls. She recommended the SSS brand because even without the bug repellant it supposedly wards off horseflies which terrify my girls.

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