February 13, 2011 Walking Mika in a field near a Railroad.

Today I decided to take Mika to an area nearby that has some gentle hills for her to walk up and down.  This is close to a railroad track and a developing warehouse district we often walk the dogs.  There are fairly big areas of native sagebrush and grass on one side of the Railroad.  On the other side of the warehouses is a big irrigation canal that also has sagebrush along the bank.  A complete circle around this area might be about 2 miles, a good dog walk.

In the past we have used an "Easy Walk Harness" on Mika for walks in the neighborhood.  She immediately goes into a pulling mode with this on and sniffs and smells everything she can get to.  She definitely gives my hands and arms a good workout.

Because she was walking so well with the web harness and retractable leash in the backyard, I decided to try this system on the longer walk in an area she was unfamiliar with.  In general she seemed to be easier to control, maybe because she could range out a little more to the limit of 16 feet.   I also tried to use the easy walk harness with a much shorter range that she could explore and she seemed to pull more.   I felt that the combination of a new place to walk and the retractable leash made it more enjoyable to walk Mika today.