The SpringLeashToGo: A Woofus Product Review

May 30, 2016 by janet

Bicycling is a very big part of our lives. I’ve always loved to ride and my husband Rob is more bicycle than man. He started riding a two wheeler later than most, about age ten, yet from that moment on he was hooked. He rode and raced BMX for years. He was a highly skilled bicycle courier by trade in his twenties. Now he is an avid mountain biker and dirt jumper. Our first trip in the K9 Camper was to a mountain bike park for opening day. He humors me by riding paved trails with me, which is much more my style, yet I am also always happy to hop on a bike and go.

Since dogs are also a very big part of our lives, it has become time for the two passions to become one! I asked for the Spring Leash to Go for my birthday. I had no idea what I was getting into but hoped for the best. What we discovered is a product that is well made and which the dogs took to quite naturally.

The Spring Leash hooks to the bicycle seat post via a heavy duty, stainless steel mounting bar and spring; the included leash itself actually hooks to the end of this spring and thence to the dog’s harness. The mounting bar removes easily when not in use via quick lock buttons. This also allows the bar to attach to another bike if you purchase an extra set of mounting hardware.

Our three pups range in their adaptability to new things. Fiona was a natural and took off running; I had to slow her down to make sure I could maintain control. Secret was nervous but willing. Lobo was willing but easily confused. With a little time and practice, each dog will gradually become more and more comfortable with this new and exciting activity.

I thought I would get a good workout too, but having huskies who love to pull, I did not pedal much at all. It is a great way to exercise them at what they love best – pulling and running. They all were smiling and panting happily as it gives them a tremendous amount of freedom, yet in a controlled manner which keeps them safe. I felt totally secure that the dogs would not get loose. We are also going to teach them left and right commands like true mushers, so we can navigate more freely and easily.

It does take time to get used to it. Occasionally the dogs would try to switch sides behind me and that wreaked havoc. The spring and leash are not long enough to allow it but it does stop you from going forward. Fiona got excited by a neighborhood beagle puppy who was out in his yard and I had to practice her “leave it” command very sternly to make it past this “obstacle”. Lobo stopped to raise his leg at a fire hydrant which was on the other side of the bike and we had to stop. None of this is a fault of the product, but of my control of the pups.

For riding at night, the company sells their “Halo Lights” which are USB rechargeable, light up collars. You can purchase them separately or as a package with a Spring Leash.

I am very excited for this new way to spend time with the pups. They enjoy letting loose and really running. I love seeing the pure joy on their faces!

Where to buy: You can fine more information and order online at http://www.springleashtogo.com

Price: Solo packs start at $49.99. You can also run two dogs, one on either side of your bike (this sounds awesome but I am not ready for this yet!). The two dog or “chariot pack” is $79.99.

At Woofus, we love to see dogs on the go! The SpringLeashtoGo is a fantastic way to spend time with your pup and give him or her some much needed exercise. As an added benefit, you can both spend more time in the great outdoors!

Off to New Hampshire with the Pack

May 29, 2016 by janet

Coleman - Travel Trailer As we left on our first journey with our camping trailer, we were a bit nervous. There were so many things to worry about, including the height of our trailer, which was a bit above the norm, topping 11 feet 2 inches with the air conditioner on top. Rob is six foot three inches tall, so the height of this trailer was a selling point for us. It felt spacious and airy inside, although it was small as trailers go.

When you travel, notice that certain overpasses have the height printed on them, and the height can vary from left, to middle, to right of the arch. We now watched out for these with rabid attention, our hearts in our throats, that a bridge might rip off the air conditioner or worse yet, the whole top of our travel home. We had once seen a Ryder rental box truck which had unsuccessfully tried to navigate under a train bridge not far from our home – the top peeled off that truck like a sardine can lid. That would not happen to us! Of course we had done our research on our route, but it is still unnerving to contemplate what could happen if we were not vigilant or strayed onto a side road.

We began to drive towards the Garden State Parkway, our conduit to get just about anywhere. As we drove, we realized that the “tow/haul” function on our Jeep was not engaged. The darn thing would not turn on! Thinking it might be as simple as a fuse, we stopped at an auto parts store and Rob changed the fuse to a new one. Still no go. We decided to drive on anyway, but as we navigated some big hills we had misgivings while we listened to what we imagined was our SUV struggling to pull the trailer.

We called our Jeep dealership. They recommended we bring the car in but at this point we were about 45 minutes into our journey. They suggested another dealership in Paramus, NJ. We stopped by and the parking lot was so tiny that it actually had valet parking. Rob struggled to find a spot to park the Jeep and trailer, while the valet parking guy waved him this way and that. Rob ran inside to ask for assistance, but no one could look at the car without an appointment. The general consensus was that the jeep would be fine without the tow function considering the weight we were hauling. Rob navigated out of the parking lot like a pro, backing up the car and trailer around a tight corner to exit onto the busy route in Paramus where this dealership was located.

We were at last on our way, two hours behind schedule, but feeling more comfortable about our transportation. The pack was well behaved. They are great travelers. Secret was a bit hyped up to start with but she is that way even on a short drive. She settled down after the first hour….

We arrived in New Hampshire around 6:30 PM, well after the pack’s usual dinner time. They were remarkably patient. We even took a wrong turn and navigated down a dirt, dead end road before we arrived at our campground. It’s not easy to make a wrong turn, with a travel trailer in tow, and turn around on a dirt road! Luckily our doggy daddy Rob is a great driver. Once we arrived at the Meredith Woods Campground and parked and set up the trailer, the three dogs and I trooped inside around 7:30. I placed their food in the new bento bowls and they chowed down happily. It was a chilly evening in the forties, and I turned on the heat to warm the place up.

We’d passed a diner on the road to the campground and thought we’d try it out. It was too late to find a supermarket and cook in my little kitchen. We packed the pups back into the car and drove down the road to the diner. With my gluten allergy I am used to very limited options. When I walked in and asked if they had gluten free meals, I was shocked that they had an actual gluten free menu! I ordered a hamburger with bacon on a gluten free bun, with a side of garlic mashed potatoes. I was in heaven!! This town of Meredith is awesome! They also had great soda choices, with real sugar.

After a trying and longer than expected journey on the road, we ate our delicious dinner (I know it doesn’t sound like much – but to be able to order a good hamburger on a gluten free bun is actually a rare treat; restaurants in general have a lot to learn. It would be so simple to keep some gluten free buns in the freezer. Charge extra – I don’t care! I just want to eat with everybody else). We watched a little tv, walked the pups around the campground, and settled down for a much-needed sleep.

The next morning on Saturday we headed out early to the Highland Mountain Bike Park. We passed much beautiful, forested countryside and “moose crossing” signs along the way, but no moose sightings yet. If Fiona goes crazy for donkeys, I can’t imagine her reaction to a moose! It was a brisk sunny day, perfect for opening day of the park. We found a nice spot on the porch of the shop to set up camp for a while. The pack and I relaxed while Rob rode his mountain bike. The pups made lots of new friends and I got in some much welcome reading time.

Secret sleeps in traditional husky style

We arrived back at the camper around dinner time and it had started to rain. No cooking outside for me. So I decided to cook up some hamburgers on the tiny stove in the trailer. This was great in theory, but I soon filled up the place with smoke and set off the smoke alarm! I was trying out a new cast iron grill pan and it was not yet seasoned. The dogs weren’t that phased by the smoke and alarm, and we pulled out the battery to stop the alarm and opened a few windows. We ate undercooked burgers with a chill breeze blowing through our little travel home. All five of us collapsed onto the small bed and slept deeply.

All three dogs crowded on the camper bed with us

The next morning held more rain. It looked like our hiking plans would have to wait until the next trip to New Hampshire. Unless we wanted to stay in the trailer all day or get completely soaked, we needed an alternative plan. We found an indoor bike and skate park in Rye near the shore and decided to head that way. I’d never been to Rye so why not? Luckily the park allowed the dogs inside so we took our place in the balcony and watched the action down below. It is a beautiful place to ride, with many interesting features to navigate.

After riding we found a wonderful local Mexican restaurant called Tacqueria. Very gluten-free friendly and amazing food. We drove happily back to our camp site, the K9 Camper awaiting us with a warm welcome on this rainy, chilly day. We weren’t surprised at the weather. This is New England, after all. We had been here tent camping last year in August, traditionally a very warm month at home in New Jersey. It dropped to the forties at night and we were shivering in our tent, huddled up with the dogs!! We would have fun no matter the weather.

Our first trip posed its challenges, both mechanical and meteorological. We also discovered that New Hampshire is top in the nation for cases of Lymes disease and deer ticks. We found at least a dozen ticks on each dog, luckily none embedded. Next trip we’ll try a natural tick repellent spray in addition to the traditional topical vet-prescribed tick preventatives. Despite the challenges, we learned that this pack loves to travel together and that our new travel camper was a great success for the family.

Earth Day Dreaming: A Season of Adventure with the Pack

April 22, 2016 by janet

Fiona and Secret in woods A week from today we begin a long-awaited season of adventure, traveling with our three woofuses and staying in our home away from home, the K9 Camper. Our first destination? New Hampshire. I think it is a fitting topic for Earth Day today, exploring our big blue-green marble. What do I think I know of New Hampshire? Pine forests, rocky beaches and maple syrup. I know once there, we will discover much, much more!

For far too long my husband Rob and I have traveled with a purpose, usually business, and this left us no time to explore and enjoy the places we visited. Now we are like the crew on Star Trek, planning a voyage simply to explore and make the “unknown” known to us. Travel beckons, lifting the spirits and inspiring day dreams of unexplored fields, mountains, streams and tiny towns.

I have so many places in mind to visit. I don’t call it a bucket list, because that to me says that I won’t visit that place again. I enjoy going back to places I love. Let’s call it a dream list. I have yet to visit Saratoga Springs, Niagara Falls or the shores of Maine. All of these populate the dream list. Then there’s Chincoteague Island (I was a fan of the Misty books as a child), the Florida Keys and The Great Smoky Mountains of the Carolinas. All of this is just staying on the east coast.

To travel west, we need time. It takes time to get there and we want time to explore once we arrive. This requires more than a long weekend. Journeys further afield like this may need to wait a year or two until we organize our lives to accommodate it. However the dream list knows no boundaries of space or time. So let’s add the Redwood Forests, The Grand Canyon, and Glacier National Park to the itinerary of our dreamscape. And I must see the Dakotas. My father told me once of staying at a motel in North Dakota, and each parking spot had a heating device to warm your engine. Weather that cold – our snow dogs would be in heaven! We would probably visit in the warmer summer months; the K9 Camper has a heater but I wouldn’t want to test it on sub zero degree weather.

Fiona and Lobo in woods Dogs need to travel as much as we do. I know a lot of dogs, like people, are home bodies. Yet dogs’ senses are so finely attuned, that they smell and hear intensely, at a far greater level than humans. Imagine the joy they feel in an entirely new environment, with foreign smells and sounds to investigate! Ecstatic sensory overload. Knowing that a change in routine – new places, new faces – is not just acceptable, but loads of fun, will make both you and your dogs more confident and happy.

We’ve picked up some light up dog collars for night time exploring. I’ve packed a new tiny tea kettle to make tea every day, to jumpstart each day’s adventures. We’ll be sleeping in the camper this weekend (in our driveway) to further acclimate the dogs to our new holiday home. We are ready to explore!

Hiking the Manasquan Reservoir Trail with the Woofuses

April 17, 2016 by janet

This weekend we were blessed with pristine spring weather – sunny, blue skies and temperatures in the sixties. Birds sang, flowers blossomed and all was beautiful. We decided it was an opportune time to visit New Jersey’s Manasquan Reservoir with the pack.

Fiona, Secret and Lobo were ready to take on the trail. We’ve been pretty sedentary of late. This was a good chance to shake off the cobwebs of winter and embrace spring with gusto. This 1,200 acre park features the beautiful reservoir, which helps supply Monmouth County with fresh water, as well as woods and wetlands, and a five mile perimeter trail around it all.

The five mile trail features a varied landscape. We walked past the reservoir, through forest, along meadows filled with deer, past streams where wild turkeys quenched their thirst, and over picturesque wooden bridges. Hawks flew overhead. Striped bass and bullhead catfish swam in the water.

For the most part, the trail was wide and fairly even. The majority of it was in shade. It really is an ideal placed to walk dogs. I love finding shady walks because our snow dogs overheat quite quickly when they are in the sun on a warm day. We walked at a moderate pace, completing the whole five mile circuit in about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. We stopped a few times to chat with folks who wanted to pet the dogs, of course!

The park features a large visitor’s center with clean, well-equipped bathrooms. There are water fountains as well as plenty of indoor and outdoor seating to look out over the reservoir. There is a fireplace which must be lovely in the winter when the park offers ice skating, ice boating and ice fishing as conditions allow. You can rent rowboats or kayaks during peak season and there is a boat launch ramp which you can use for your own boat with purchase of a day or season pass.

We met many people and many dogs along our hike. Despite the many folks we met, the park never felt crowded. It is simply too large. I still can’t believe that we rounded a corner and saw in the distance a herd of what must be over a hundred deer. They were too far away for the dogs to go bonkers, but close enough that we could see them grazing. I have never experienced that in New Jersey in my life. I felt like an early settler for a minute, transported back in time to old Monmouth County of the seventeenth century.

I am grateful that our county park system preserves such spaces for residents to enjoy. The pups sure approved. They were so happy and exhausted from their walk, that they fell fast asleep in the bed of our camper, all tumbled in a heap!!

Home Is Where the Pack Sleeps: Pup-cations in the Travel Trailer

March 15, 2016 by janet

Spring is right around the corner and we are very excited to begin traveling with our three woofuses. Rob and I have talked about getting a travel trailer for a few years now, and this year it has finally happened. We did some research at our local Camping World and one week later found ourselves driving home an adorable new vacation home on wheels. It’s perfect for pup-cations!

Our Coleman “Lantern Edition” lightweight travel trailer is large enough to be comfortable yet small enough to be towed by our jeep liberty. We walked into the model on the lot and instantly knew it was the right one for us.

This little recreational vehicle has everything we need to travel comfortably with the pups, in miniature. A tiny kitchen equipped with a small fridge and freezer, a double sink, a three burner stove with a half sized oven (it fits half sized cookie sheets – hence my term of measurement), a functional bathroom equipped with toilet, sink, medicine cabinet, shower and small bath tub, and a cozy but sizeable bed nook. There’s a small dinette area with booth seats and a table (it’s like always getting the cool booth at the diner) and a mini fake leather couch which folds down to a bed (aka dog bed). The fake leather upholstery was actually a big selling point for us, as dog hair sweeps off easily, unlike cloth seats. There is an electric canopy out front with a string of LED lights, providing substantial daytime shade for people and pups, and fun ambiance at night. When the weather is cold, we have heat and when it is hot, we have air conditioning (very important for snow dogs).

We hung a small TV on the wall by the dinette so we can enjoy movie nights (with home made pop corn popped on the tiny stove, of course!). The first movie we watch will be Star Wars. This is a tradition of long standing.

Years ago when we started traveling with our first husky Sabrina, we went tent camping. We had a small tv with a VHS player built in which Rob’s mother had picked up for us at the thrift shop where she volunteered. As crazy as it sounds, we brought it along and watched Star Wars in that tent on that tiny, second-hand TV. We still remember it as a magical moment in time, watching one of our favorite movies from childhood, in a tent in the middle of the woods. Some may regard watching a film as anti-camping but I say to each their own – it gave us joy and the woods were not insulted by it!

Sabrina curled up on the floor of the tent right in front of the TV and fell asleep watching Star Wars with us. That dog was born for travel! She took to it like a champ. And thus two unique traditions were born – traveling with pups, and watching Star Wars on the road.

This past weekend we slept in the travel trailer, in our driveway at home. We were so excited and wanted to see what it would be like to spend the night there in our new little vacation home. We leashed up the dogs and walked them into the trailer, locking the door behind us. When we went to sleep, all three dogs piled onto the “short” queen sized bed with Rob and myself. After a little while, Lobo jumped off and onto the floor.

The bed is tucked in to the right of the doorway as you enter the trailer, with walls on three sides, one of which sports a small window. There’s no walking room around it, which provides a snug, cozy feel. I’m not sure why, but it reminds me of the loft beds in the Little House on the Prairie books. We live in a quiet cul-de-sac so all was silent in our neighborhood. We slept well with one major exception….

What we discovered was no surprise as we’d been forewarned by a number of reviews. The bed was horribly uncomfortable! Hard as a rock. We are planning to add a foam mattress pad on top – we’ll report back on that later. I am very glad we did this trial run at home before we spent an uncomfortable weekend on the road.

I love the book Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. The famous author travelled in a pick up truck with a small camper built on top of the truck bed. He lived in this cool camper with his large standard poodle Charley while they travelled across the USA. Together they rediscovered the grass roots United States which Steinbeck had immortalized in books like The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.

Do I seek to emulate this book-worm inspired journey? Heck yeah! It’s the coolest travel book I know. Onward, ho, to the pack and the peeps. Stay tuned for our journeys when we sally forth in the spring, leashes in hand, bikes on board, and adventure in our hearts. Home is indeed wherever the pack sleeps.

The SpringLeashToGo: A Woofus Product Review

Off to New Hampshire with the Pack

Earth Day Dreaming: A Season of Adventure with the Pack

Hiking the Manasquan Reservoir Trail with the Woofuses

Home Is Where the Pack Sleeps: Pup-cations in the Travel Trailer

Our Woofuses

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