The weather has been weird lately. Ive been working on most the sunnier/dryer days, which has been a bummer for me and the dogs, because it has limited our hiking training excercises to the 1.5mi trail across the highway from me. Monday was cloudy, with light sprinkles, and today was supposed to rain all day, even though its been dry with sunbreaks..

Either way, I have both days off, and so I decided to find a lost treasure I had hiked when Soshanna was less than 6 months old and training. Its called Paradise Valley Conservation Area and it is an awesome practice grounds for all things trail related.

Its roughly 700 acres of forests and wetlands, with miles of intersecting trails. Dogs are allowed on leash, as are horses and mountain bikers. We saw a few of both, and everyone was friendly and patient in passing each other.

We managed to walk about 5.5 mi without every walking the same section of a trail twice. I reckon in total there are over 20 miles.

Its WaDNR land, so parking and use is free..

Heres the SnoCo site on it. Itd be an excellent area for any inexperienced hiker to train for a mountain

http://www1.co.snohomish.wa.us/Departments/Parks/Park_Information/Park_Directory/Regional_Parks/paradisevalley.htm

I am about to come undone. It seems that all it has been doing is raining and I have been really wanting to take out my baby girl to go for a nice long nature walk. I have just waiting to get her out and wear her out. However I sometimes wonder if I am too over protective with my little husky baby. I have always wanted a siberian husky since I was about 13 years old and I grew up around dogs alot, but never of the siberian husky breed. Meeka is my very first dog and at times I feel that I do get a little over protective. One thing that I fear with taking her on a nature walk is with how we have had a very mild winter then maybe she might get ticks and then get sick and die. Last year my sister had a dog die on her because of something it caught from ticks. My baby Meeka is only 4 months old and I feel the urdge to keep her away from some things if I feel that she might be harmed. I don't even allow her to be alone with children that are not my own children without my supervision. I guess I just always think that they may try to hurt Meeka by mistake. However I do take her with me when I go to the petstores so she does have some time with others that she does not know to socialize her.

Oh? Im sorry, I dont really understand if there is a question. Most flea applications also prevent ticks, and the culprit is Lyme disease.

K9_Eric wrote:

Its roughly 700 acres of forests and wetlands, with miles of intersecting trails. Dogs are allowed on leash, as are horses and mountain bikers. We saw a few of both, and everyone was friendly and patient in passing each other.

I have always thought that mountain bikers should be on leash. Nice to read it is being taken seriously.