No more over the hill and faraway for me, well, not my usual path up the hill that begins at the bottom of Canyon Acres to the Top of the World, at least. I’m a wanted woman (not in that way!). Here’s what happened.
Three days ago, on a late afternoon hike with Jake and Fergie, I’m halfway up the hill when a white monster truck swoops around the corner, mighty tight fit it was, and a Park Ranger gets out–$50 fine for not having the dogs on leashes. He tells me that it’s not good for the dogs to run in the brush, they’ll get ticks, that all they want is to be with me, they don’t care if they’re on a leash or not. He also tells me he used to be a cop and that he’d seen some awful things in his time that the public doesn’t get to see.
I don’t say anything–where is my inner bushbaby now? WTF? Why didn’t I at least ask him if he’d ever heard of Frontline (tick prevention)? And seriously, the dogs don’t care if they’re on a leash or not. And his grisly cop experience? He really didn’t have to throw that one in. I’ve been doing this hill for twenty-five years now and have never seen or heard of an incident with dogs (neither have I seen the likes of a Park Ranger either during this time!). Come to think of it, wouldn’t he have cited some gory incident in his litany of reasons if there had been an incident with a dog? Coyotes, yes, but dogs? Why the crackdown?
Yeah, yeah, all this is elementary, right? The law is the law, leashes wherever you go, even in one’s own house. That is The Way. (Sorry, this is when I yearn for Africa). He ended up giving me a written warning with a pointed remark at the end that I was now “In the System.”
Too much.
So, today, me, Jake and Fergie went the back way up the hill, a single rutted path where you have to use a rope to negotiate the steep climb, where mountain bikers fly down. If the dirt was snow it would be deep powder. I won’t tell you I didn’t use leashes, because that would be incriminating in these days of the internet. So there we were heading for the second to last climb before the path converges with the regular one at the top when I spot a bright orange blob on the hill where I got the warning. It’s not moving. Is that the glint of binoculars?
I duck down, slip the leashes on Jake and Ferg–somehow they’d come off, ahem–and glance back, the blob is gone. Waiting for me at the top, no doubt. I charge back down the hill, mostly dragged by the dogs all the way down to the bottom. Feeling like a fugitive, I run home, all the while expecting to see the white truck barreling down the other hill after me. Would the Feds be waiting for me there? They had my address. God! Listen to me.
Anyway, unless they took a snapshot of me, I should be okay if I follow the rules, sigh. Otherwise, there’s the “other” hill, the one in my previously mentioned blog that’s on private property. Maybe I’ll use use that one, maybe not.
LOL. My dog is property trained and has an area in the back where she goes to the bathroom so I don’t have to worry about walking her on a leash, but when we just have her in the yard with us, our security person gives us looks. They’ve said things to us before but we claim to have invisible fencing–I mean, we have invisible fencing. 😉
I do have a yard, but they’ve trained me to take them for walks where they can run amuck, I mean, walk nicely on a leash!
Great story…funny but not really funny. I love the part where the ranger said dogs don’t care if they’re on a leash or not. Is he kidding??
Seriously!!
Well, in addition to worrying whether or not serial killers read my blog, I have also thought about the fact that I also walk my dogs off leash and who might be reading that and who might be spiteful and in possession of handcuffs and citations and seek me out just to make their quota. Some would say I worry too much. But clearly, my paranoia has been validated by your post, LOL!
Hilarious. Thanks Cindy. I’m going in again tomorrow, leashless!
This is hysterical. So guy on a power trip. Men -sigh- what do we do with them?
As I mulled over this whole thing, I wondered if this was about a guy with a task to do, and he was just trying to put a palatable spin on it, you know? Okay, he was kinda clueless. But what pisses me off is that I didn’t call him on any of it. Grrrr!
Haha! People and their power trips. Sounds like he was just bored and needed something to do, or was just flirting (badly) and needed an opening line. Was he at least cute? I really hope he wasn’t the shiny binoculars you thought you saw. That would be pretty creepy.
Flirting! Hmmm. No thanks. And no, he wasn’t at all cute. He sure knows his dogs though, doesn’t he? They don’t care if they’re on leash or not. Puhlease.
Hahaha! You just never know. Some guys are still very socially awkward as adults. But since he wasn’t cute, let’s be thankful he didn’t show himself again. 🙂
Yesss! Hopefully, I won’t see him again, because that would mean a dreaded pissing-off $50 ticket.
Awesome.
Come to my hill! No one cares in my neck of the woods. (Err… I’ve never been caught, anyway.)
[K]
I’d love to do that. Thanks for the invite. Gorgeous poodle by the way. Just kidding, not about the gorgeousness.