I found an area to road the dogs so I don’t completely destroy the grass in my yard. What I found is probably a flood plain along the Missouri river. I found an area with good gravel roads for more than 4 miles with no houses. Almost every farm house will have some dogs that are running loose. And farm houses means traffic on the roads. I have roaded the dogs for 3 mornings and have seen only two vehicles. One stopped and talked for a few minutes but the other, I pulled over to let him by and he kept going.
I got there at sunrise this morning.
Sally and Mann at one of our water breaks.
Abby and Boss at one of our water breaks.
The first morning we ran I was afraid the gravel road would be hard on the dogs feet but it doesn’t seem to bother them. The first morning I put a GPS collar on Mann so I could see how far we went and how fast. According to the GPS we 4.63 miles at 10.14 mph. Part of the time, mainly at the very first part, on level ground, I didn’t have to get on the throttle. The dogs were pulling the 4-wheeler.
The temperature was in the low sixties the first morning. The next two mornings were warmer. Theis morning the temperature was 78 when we started. I stopped them twice for water and watered them again when I put them back in the truck to go home.
The second morning when I got the dogs ready I couldn’t find my GPS collar. I looked everything over and decided that the time before I had taken it into the house and left it. We ran any way and I had them run farther than the first day. A little over 6 miles. I never thought any more about the GPS collar.
A friend called me a day later and said he had seen a dog collar, he thought an e-collar, beside the road at the round about about a mile from my house. He said he saw it twice as he went around the circle. He stopped and picked it up the third time and the second day that he had seen it lying there.
GPS reading from the first morning.
As he was telling me this I was thinking, “that’s where my GPS collar went”. I said, “That’s mine”. I could tell he wasn’t sure that I was serious. I said, “Does it have Mann written on it”. Then he came right back, “It sure does”.
That evening he was driving by my house and dropped it off. It had not been run over and it worked just fine. The Lord has always taken really good care of me. If you want to see another time that He has taken care of me, go to October of 2013 when I got a shotgun back that had been stolen from me about 17 years before.
I watch the dogs closely as they are being roaded. All 4 of them will, sooner or later, have to poop. That’s hard to do at 10 mph. As soon as I notice one trying to squat I stop the 4-wheeler. Occasionally, more than one will go at a time but not often.
Boss and Abby being roaded at the house.
The second morning we went farther than we had the first morning and Sally was getting tired before we got back to the truck. She didn’t squat. She laid down. She lies down with her belly on the ground and both hind legs spread out. She lies down like a frog. I drug her for a short distance before I got the 4-wheeler shut down. And there she lay, looking like a frog. After a minute or so she stood up and I said, “Okay”. They went back to roading.
It was much warmer this morning. The temperature was 78 degrees when we started. I put the GPS collar on Mann after turning it on. But I forgot to turn the handheld on. This getting old is hard. A lot of the stuff I want to do I forget some portion of it. Oh well. I still have a great life.
This morning I had 2 one gallon jugs of water and a couple of feed pans with me. When we were roading I went at about the same speed as always but I stopped several times to water them and to just give them a break. These dogs are English setters with long hair. I have clipped them but it’s still warm. They work better at about 30 degrees. This days roading started 48 degrees warmer than their favorite temperature.
Sally and Maqnn at the house.
Next week should be some cooler than this week. And for sure, the cooler part of the year is coming up. I’ll keep roading them and we may start working on some pigeons this next week. The dogs seem to enjoy the roading but they enjoy anything we do, seems like. They will enjoy working on pigeons even more than roading, I’m sure.