Posing with Piper in front of Fairy Creek Falls.

Our destination: Fairy Creek Falls, a thundering (well, this time of year, anyway) waterfall that mists you on a warm spring day. Serious hikers might pooh-pooh this trail, but except for the hills, it is kid-friendly — we saw a garter snake and a bunch of snails. It also appeals to dogs: streams for drinking water, sticks to carry. And I have to say, with its 120 metre elevation gain, it’s a good hiking reintroduction for  adults.

Fairy Creek Trail is one of Fernie’s many family-friendly hikes.

Four clicks doesn’t sound like a great distance, but for two children and a 12-week-old puppy it is an epic journey. Piper spent the first kilometre pulling at her leash and panting maniacally; I thought she was going to keel over until we came across a small stream. Avery grumbled at the first sight of a hill (Memo: “I like hiking downhill and on flats best.”), while Bennett ambled along in the rear singing to himself and completely unfocused on the task at hand (e.g. reaching the waterfall sometime before dark).

Me: “One of us should stay back there with Bennett.”

Blake: “He’s fine.”

Me: “But what if a cougar snatches him?”

Blake: “A single older woman can have him if she wants him.”

Unlike a regular adult hike, where you settle into a nice pace and enjoy the scenery, Blake and I vied to pawn off the dog on each other, and whoever didn’t have the puppy had to make sure Bennett didn’t fall into Fairy Creek. I shouldn’t grumble, really. The fact that both kids walked the whole way themselves (and that Bennett didn’t want to hold my hand the entire time) bodes well for an active summer. And Piper will have more stamina come July and August. So, thinking positively, I look forward to sharing more hiking adventures as the season unfolds.

Skenazy is a bastion of common sense. And spunk. I like her. So, when she e-mailed me yesterday morning to let me know that Saturday is Take Our Children to the Park…and Leave Them There Day, I thought, this is a holiday I can get behind.

Kids love playing outside, so take them to the park and leave them there.

The premise behind the 4th annual event, spearheaded by Skenazy, is simple: Our children are much more sedentary than generations past and childhood diabetes and obesity are on the rise. The antidote is turning them loose in nature and outdoor play spaces, an idea supported by a whack of studies that show how kids benefit from time outdoors. If you think parks and playgrounds aren’t safe, says Skenazy, think again — evidently, more children go to hospital from falling out of bed than from falling out of a tree.

But Skenazy doesn’t just want you to take your kids to the local playground. If they’re seven or eight or older she wants you to leave them there unsupervised, for a half hour or for the afternoon. Part of the free-range philosophy says that children need time for free play unsupervised by adults. It may sound a little Lord of the Flies, but it’s actually good for them to negotiate games and play activities on their own without adult intervention — this kind of collaborative play with peers hones decision making skills and spurs creativity. If you’re still feeling anxious, remember they won’t be alone — they’ll be with other kids and perhaps even the parents of children too young to be left at the park.

Avery just turned eight and she’s been walking our puppy by herself in the field across from our house. Maybe she’s ready for some play time away from me at the local playground…with some friends, of course. What do you think? Take Our Children to the Park…and Leave Them There Day — yea or nay? 

Want to play?!?!

As I alluded to in an earlier post, our puppy Piper can be hyper. After she wakes up from a nap she wants to chase toys, pounce on things and generally chew the crap out of whatever’s on the floor. In other words, I need to constantly monitor her so I can correct bad behaviours (growling at her hippo squeak stuffie, digging in houseplants) and take away toys she’s trying to “kill” (by shaking her head spastically with them in her mouth). Plus, she now whines by the door to go out. At first I thought, “Great, she’s housetrained! She must have to go pee!” but now I realize she mostly just wants to go into the yard where she can chase balls, pounce on leaf litter and generally chew the crap out of the cedar chips. My point is: it’s impossible to get any work done with hyper Piper on the prowl.

So I was pretty excited when our neighbours told us about Hounds Lounge, a dog daycare in Inglewood. You can drop off your pooch for the day or half day where she plays hard with other dogs and  comes home completely exhausted. Staff there are also on top of doggy interactions, putting the kibosh on things like barking, growling and other dominant behaviours. The price is right too (way cheaper than human daycare), with a full afternoon (up to six hours) costing just $20.

Since we’d institutionalized our children early on I figured 10 weeks old was a good age to cut the apron strings with the puppy. I sent her into the giant indoor playpen with 12 big dogs and let her run with the pack for an afternoon.

At first I worried the big dogs would bully Piper, but it was actually the other way around. She’s the one in the middle being held.

When Blake picked her up five hours later the woman in charge had some interesting observations about our confident puppy. Evidently Piper is a very dominant dog and spent the day trying to get on top of all the big dogs. She showed reckless initiative (and no fear at all) when engaging them to play. This is a good thing insofar as it means she’s probably a good dog for Bennett  (she doesn’t cower from him when he tries to pick her up by the neck, or back leg). But it’s also a bad thing because it means more work for the family to make sure her dominant tendencies don’t turn into aggression toward smaller dogs or children when she’s an adult. The whole incident had me wondering what Cesar Milan would make of Piper.

Beyond this strange world of dog socialization, where a butt-sniff equals a handshake and pinning another dog is akin to staring someone down, my main priority with doggy daycare was realized: I got a lot of work done for the first time in three weeks. As a bonus, Piper returned home exhausted and slept for 12 hours straight. Thank goodness for doggy daycare.

A happy dog is a tired dog.