Woof Walk Challenge – Week 3 Update!

Well, we have made it through three whole weeks of the Woof Walk Challenge now!! Grace, Benson and I have walked a total of 80km towards our 1000km goal! If you haven’t yet, there is still time to sign up and join us! Read the original post HERE for the links to donate and join! The best part is that even though the challenge has been going on for a while, you can still pick different distances to meet your goal by the end of the year!

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Glen Stewart Ravine

The pups and I spent a lot of time exploring the Glen Stewart Ravine over the past week. The ravine is a stunning walk where you feel like you are in a different world, never mind in the middle of a big city! We are incredibly lucky and blessed to have this ravine a short two block walk away from our house!

The Start – Glen Stewart Park

When we are planning on going over to the ravine, we usually start by heading over to the Glen Stewart Park which is at the south end of the ravine. There are usually a lot of neighbourhood dogs out in the park at any given time of the day so Grace and Benson get a nice visit and play in at the start of our walk!

The Ravine

After Grace and Benson have had some play time with their friends we head north through park and up to the start of the actual ravine. The very north end of the park is closed off for construction now so we have to loop around to the street for a short bit. The dogs always get really excited when they see where we are going! It is a great option for a nice walk in the city on the hotter days when the beach isn’t an option.

Wildlife

Besides birds and typical city wildlife such as squirrels, there are BIG warning signs when you head in about the wildlife in the ravine. There are coyotes in the ravine and likely some fox visitors as well. This can be something to keep in mind in particular if you have smaller dogs. My daughter and I have heard them howling at night in there on some of our evening walks, something you definitely don’t expect to hear in the city!

The Scenery

As I mentioned above, the scenery once you get in the ravine is nothing short of breathtaking! It is like you walked into some sort of a fantasy world! The ravine is lush and green, with giant and rare trees such as Red Oak and Red Maple. The city sounds are non-existent. Some parts of the 1.3km trail are dirt path, but much of the trail is an elevated boardwalk with railing to keep people and pets from venturing off the path. There are also several spots on the trail where you can take staircases up back into the neighbourhood. If you take the whole trail to the end, you end up back on Kingston road. The dogs love the ravine with all the new and interesting smells! There is also the Ames Creek which runs through the ravine where the dogs love to stop and have a drink. It really is a great option to keep everyone cooler on hot days and still get our walks in!

Kiera Gets Leashed

If you have already read the post where Kiera gets leashed then you know what comes here! Kiera is one of the dogs that we run into on our morning walks over to the dog park. And for some reason she is quite taken with me, and will ignore and run away from her walker to come find me! Over the past week she has started becoming a little possessive even, snapping at other dogs I pay attention to! It really is unusual since she is not my dog and apparently doesn’t even do this with the owner…The result is that poor Kiera gets leashed when we are in the dog park! I feel so bad about it, but she is still allowed some play with her buddy Benson while we work to try to stop this behaviour.

Play Time With Frost!

Frost is a huge long-coated Collie that lives a block over from us. Grace and Benson have known him since they were first home and they are all really good friends! When we walk by his house and he is outside, we are usually invited in for some play time! We had been over at the Glen Stewart Park and were headed home one day and Frost was out! We went in with Zoey, who lives a couple houses down from us, and everyone had a great play! Grace in particular is enamored with Frost and it is so great to watch the two of them bounce around and play!

Benson Gets in a Fight

One of the downsides of the dog park is that even with well behaved dogs there is always the risk that some tempers will flare. Benson had the zoomies and was running full force around the park, with a couple other dogs running with him. When Sully joined in, I thought nothing of it. Sully is a GIANT Irish Wolfhound who’s head comes up to my chin when he comes over to say hi and get a treat. Benson and Grace have known him forever without any issues. So when his body language with Benson changed and he stiffened up and went into attack mode I was really surprised. I was screaming for Benson to come over, but he just couldn’t manage to get away from Sully and had to fight back to protect himself. It was really scary to see two big dogs fighting with each other like that. The walker got Sully leashed and off Benson, and the big guy came running right to my side. He had cried out in pain at one point, so I checked him over and was relieved nothing was bleeding. But looking in his mouth, he was bloody on his gums around a few of his teeth. Sully was about the same. The next day when Sully came sauntering over to greet us I was really nervous, but him and Benson went nose to nose without any issues! I was really relieved and there were no incidents on that day, almost like it never happened.

Rain came overnight, so the dogs have little interest in going out right now being that they are divas and apparently can’t get wet…unless it’s in the lake or creek! Last week certainly had no shortage of adventure, and we are looking forward to seeing what the next week brings!