A Hike ~By Morris

Here she goes again.  She puts on her coveralls.  I stare at her hard.  
I walk over to my crate and stand.
Is she going out to do chore stuff?  Is she going to leave me?

I have to carefully watch for signs.  If she goes for the camera bag and gun belt I will start to hop around and whine a lot.  I will circle under her feet and jump on her.  
If she allows that, then I think I can go with her on a hike of some sort.

I start to quiver.  She is certainly taking her time with her boots, the lace up kind.  I move in close and whine, and do my very best to look desolate and cute at the same time.  Will she take the bait?  

YES!  She reaches for the red leash she keeps by the back door and tosses it over her shoulder.

OH JOY!  Hike time!  Perhaps I can find things to make her go "Icky Icky!"
I start to race around the small kitchen and keep bumping into her.  

Come on, come on! Let's not be wasting any time!  I don't want you to change your mind!
Let's go, let's go, come on, come on.

What she hears is "Whine, whine, squeak, squeak." It is obvious that she doesn't speak Jack Russell language.

Out the door we go and I race off!  She puts on her snowshoes and I know that we are in for a good time.  The snow is deep and great fun to race through.

She makes a trail and I go off on my own looking for deer pellets and other good smells.  

What a NAG!  She is always keeping an eye on me and won't let me run off too far.
Doesn't SHE know what great smells are under the snow?  There are mice smells, rabbit pellets [yum], deer smells, and today there are no coyote smells at all!
She calls and tells me to stick close.

I am close, I can SEE you!

Let me be!
I need to find some smart pellets, I have such a taste for them.

She ignores my ultra-cool body language and points to her snowshoes and gives me that stern look.  I know, she wants me to stay close enough so that she can protect me from wild animals.
Does she not know that I can detect them much better and faster than she ever could?
Humans, they are so hard to work with sometimes.

I'm a good dog, I obey her and stay with her.  Besides, if I walk in her trail, I won't have snow up to my chin.  

She gets caught up in the "beauty of the snow" she tells me.  "Isn't it beautiful Morris?"

What, I am supposed to talk back at her?  

To me, it is just so much harder to find goodies that have been left behind.  I wander off while she takes photos.  I have to dig deep for Smart Pellets.  I find a few.  Yum!

She is not even looking!

I run up and down the deer trail and try and get her attention. 
Finally she notices me and we head up the hill through the woods.

She asks if I am cold.  I am not cold, I am enjoying being outside.  I have a fur coat on and I am fine. She can be such a worry wart.

If I get cold, I will start to quiver and give her such a look of pity that she will pick me up and carry me.
I've trained her well over the years.

When we get to the place in the trail that comes out on the road, she nearly has some sort of fit.
She is saying things out loud like, "Wow!" "Oh my goodness!" "Beautiful!"

I look around and see snow. And more snow. And a plowed road.  I tear off to the road because the snow is not deep there.

She stops and takes pictures.

I hear a truck approaching and as the sworn duty of a Jack Russell, I must surely stand in the middle of the road and see if whoever is driving will stop and let me go for a ride with them.

Oh, I have this thing for riding in vehicles.  It can be a riding a lawn mower, a tractor, a skid steer, and any kind of vehicle.  I once hopped in the mailman's car and sat on his passenger seat.

All of a sudden you would have thought all heck broke loose. there SHE is on the side of the road screaming my name.

"Morris, Morris, you get your -ss over here right now! Damm-tt you! Get. Over. Here. Now!"

Oh as if I am deaf, really?
A big truck came roaring around the corner. I trot off to the side of the road. They didn't look interested in giving me a ride.

Ho-hum.

I return to her. And she hugs me with a death grip.

Really?  Wow, that seemed a lot more intense than her yelling at me for eating Smart Pellets in trails.

When I got home I was ready to hit the couch for some serious snooze time.

I think She was still a bit excited about me thinking about hitching a ride.

People.  So difficult to train.
But I can get her to cover me up in nice warm blankets when I snooze.
Isn't that nice?