Max Joins the Crew

From Thanksgiving to Christmas we had the distinct pleasure of watching our friend's Australian Shepherd, Max, while his owner was hopping though the islands of Indonesia.  She was probably kicking back the equivalent of a Corona while we were freezing our tails off on this run, not that we minded much with these fun pups along for the run.

Stinchfield Woods -- owned by U of M but open to the public -- is where we ran in some of the first snow of the season in early December.  Needless to say, this winter has been weak in terms of snowfall and bone numbing cold, but I'm sure it'll make up for things come February and March.  

Andrea has consulted the local dog whisperer, *ahem* Alaina, many times while raising Max, so he knows the same commands and is as well behaved as our rascal.  Which was awesome because we knew we could have both of them off leash in these deep and rarely used woods.

Stinchfield Woods doesn't allow hunting, which makes it an awesome find for running, but we still put these hi-viz jackets on the dogs so we could see them.  I love Max's playful bounding run, which you can see here with his paw so high off the ground.  He loves life, is far less serious than Cody, and has amazing endurance for a 2 year old.

I always make sure to run through the gravel pit, pictured above, which I think was used for mining at one point in this land's history and now makes for quad crushing hill repeats, as I'm about to test out.

The walls of the gravel pit aren't terrible high, maybe 100 feet at most, but they're steep enough to turn running into hiking toward the top.

This is one of my favorite pictures, with the winter light cascading through the old pines and both dogs tired yet still having the time of their lives.  Oh, and I'm a wee bit happy to be there too.

Those are my trail scouts right there.  Most of Stinchfield looks more like this, with dense woods and trails that are a bit overgrown since the park is both remote and difficult to find parking.  But that leaves it just for those that want to be there the most.  Namely, the Case family.