Squeals of delight

Jersey and I used to love to hike and walk.  We would go almost anywhere at anytime to explore, run, poke around and just "be." We had our favorite places and spots; some hidden and private, some not so private.  It didn't matter.  What mattered was being outside.

I'm sorry that when we lived in Colorado we never expanded our area wider than Cherry Creek Dog Park.  We never went up to the mountains, we never went to the prairies.  We spent most of our time in and around the area of where we lived in Aurora.  As limited as it may sound, we never wanted for new experiences, new sights and smells.

The development we lived in was fairly large and kept expanding.  Jersey and I must have explored every inch of it and as much of the surrounding farmland and forest as possible.  There were walking trails both paved and unpaved.  There were streams, there were prairie dog holes, there were pine trees and there were some wide open spaces.  Jersey never seemed to mind that we were within a couple miles of our house, I like to think she was just happy being with me as we wandered outside.

In an earlier post I mentioned bushwacking at Cherry Creek Dog Park.  This was another place we loved to go and get out of our minds splashing through the river and running unbound through wheat fields. We always managed to get out to the "Back of Beyond" and to places where there would be no other people.  We would have these unexplored worlds to ourselves.

After we moved to Maryland it was key for me to find places we could go and run and explore.  I discovered  the Maryland State Park system. I bought our first season pass a couple of years and began looking for those places we could call our own. One of those was Patapsco State Park.

This park is huge and stretches for miles through multiple counties.  There were thick forests, hills, unmarked paths and best of all, no people in those places we would choose to go.  One of those places was a picnic area which was off the beaten path where a trail led from the parking lot and stopped at the edge of a creek.

This was our secret place.  One could wander up the creek bed, exploring the pools which were filled by the clear running stream.  There were rocks to climb over and crawl under.  There was a steep embankement covered with wet leaves, mud holes, fallen trees and boulders. There was a glade to climb up which eventually dumped out to a wide swath running underneath high tension wires. Best of all, there were deer to chase.

Jersey would bolt after deer she would see.  I would never spot them because they blended into the background so well.  Jersey would first smell their scent on the air.  She would stop and stick her nose up into the breeze, her tail wagging faster and faster.  She would frantically start looking around while starting to squeal in anticipation of the coming chase.  When she zeroed in on where they might be standing, she would take off like she was exploding from a cannon.  The deer would bound away.  With each leap they would pull further and further away from her.  She would run even faster until she disappeared from sight.  I never worried though.  I could hear her yelps as she crashed through the underbrush while she charged after them, further and further away from me.

There would be no use chasing after her.  It would have been a futile.  No amount of yelling her name or shouting "JERSEY, GET BACK HERE."  would dissuade her from her task.

The only thing I could do was sit down and wait.  I might whistle out loud, letting her get her bearings so she could follow the sound and know which direction to go.  She always come back and she never got lost.  Eventually she would appear through the trees looking extremely happy and pleased with her self.  She would dance around, happily expressing her delight in the chase and how she almost caught them.  I'd smile and shake my head and turn around to make our way back to the car. She'd always fall asleep on the way home, a happy smile on her face as I wondered what she would have done if she had caught up to a deer.

Today it's been months since we explored a stream bed. I've still got a current park pass which is hanging from the rearview mirror of my Jeep. I long to keep hiking and exploring but I haven't been able to do it without Jersey or return to any of those places we ran free.  Tellie is too little to explore uncharted territory by herself without Jersey to lead her and Skylar is way to young for being let off leash unsupervised in a forest with deer and other critters.

I guess Jersey's now got endless forests to run through and herds of deer to run after though I know she'll still never catch one. For her, it has always been and I'm sure continues to be about the chase. That's her doggy heaven.