Re: [at-l] Re: at-l-digest V1 #1358

[ryan patrick bowles <rpbowles@midway.uchicago.edu>]

> >You want to hike with a dog, that good for you.
> >BUT the other hikers in the shelter may not want to hike with a dog.
> >
> >1. They do not want to have your or anyone's dog walking over their
> sleeping
> >bag with its muddy feet.
> 
> I had someone (a person) spill stuff on my sleeping bag 3 times this year!
> My dog has NEVER walked on someone's bag.
> 
Etc.

I am a dog owner, and my dog also would not walk on someone's bag, or any
of the other really annoying things dogs might do.  However, I won't keep
my dog in the shelter because other people do not know this.  When I come
upon a dog on the trail or in a shelter, no matter how well behaved the
dog's owner says it is, and no matter how the dog acts now, I have no idea
what the dog might do.  This is why dog owners should not let their dogs
loose in the shelter, especially around food.

The most annoying experience with dogs I had during my thru-hike, (not
including the scary situations of loose dogs around Roan Mountain) was
when a dog owner asked if I would mind having his dogs in the shelter.  It
had been raining and the dogs were muddy and smelly, so I said I would
mind.  The dogs somehow ended up in the shelter anyway, and kept me awake
most of the night barking and moving.

This doesn't compare to the worst dog story I heard.  The day before I
went by No Business Knob Shelter, a big white long hair dog stayed there.
I heard from thru-hikers that stayed with it that it discovered some feces
around the shelter, had rolled in the feces, come into the shelter, and
then shook it off- on to the equipment and bodies of the five people in
the shelter.  Yuck.
				Ryan


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