Mumblings and Musings…

Having a dog in the Bay Area has proven to be difficult. When my husband got into Stanford last spring, we had several offers from friends and family members to take our little pooch off of our hands…so we could live in cheap Stanford housing(which accepts not so much as a goldfish) and have an easier life in general. We were aghast! We could never leave Hollis behind! He is our child, our personal home entertainment! Surely we could find a cheap place to live that allowed dogs and surely he would add to, not diminish, our quality of life on the west coast!

Well, now we are here, ensconced in a house that is twice the rent we were paying in Austin for the same size, and it is in a bad neighborhood.(by bad I mean dangerous). But, it allowed us to have our dog…one of the only places that would. When we want to go for a hike(which is most weekends) we have to pick one from our “Hiking the Bay Area with Dogs” book…because these hikes are few and far between. Just last weekend we drove over an hour to do a hike that was in our book. The four open space preserves that we passed along the way all prohibited dogs. We parked in a beautiful redwood forest, paid the fee, let Hollis out of the car(there is no turning back at this point, he knows that we are hiking and can barely contain his glee), and started walking, only to be greeted at the trailhead with a ‘no dogs allowed’ sign post! Somewhere between the publishing of our hiking book in 2007 and this last weekend, they decided to ban pets from the park!

The places that do allow dogs, only allow them on leashes. Now, I can understand this rationale in some places. Not all dogs behave well, dogs will go after some wildlife, and not everyone picks up their dog’s poop. However, anyone who doesn’t understand why there needs to be off leash dog areas, does not like animals! Dogs need to run, it is in their nature to do so and my sedate human pace, pulling him along with a leash tied to his neck, is not going to cut it! The space also has to be larger than a parking lot of dirt with a fence around it(aka ‘Doggy Park).

I have found some great places to take Hollis…like Fort Funston(though even here, they are talking about making it leash required). It is frustrating to be in a new area…one as beautiful as northern California, and have many of the natural areas closed to me. I could, of course, leave Hollis at home when I go hiking. But, that seems cruel and unusual. I look forward to the day when the new travel search engine, Kango, has added its pages for ‘pet friendly’ activities and things to do. I definitely could have used it last weekend!

The little guy is lucky I love him so much.