At the last minute we decided to take Kirra camping for part of Easter weekend. The weather looked pretty good, so we booked a site at the Pinery Provincial Park and started to prepare for the trip.

First we had to decide what to do about Kirra’s sleeping arrangements in the tent. Through the years Maya usually slept on a bed inside the tent or in a crate either inside or in the vestibule. Kirra has been very good at staying in her bed at night but she isn’t crated, so we decided that probably wasn’t a good idea. We set up a soft sided crate with an old sleeping bad in it to see whether she would go into it and if she would sleep in it. For the two days before our camping trip, she blissfully slept in her own little tent in the room.

The next decision to make was how much space would she have in the back of the truck. Usually the entire back section, behind the dog gate, is hers but space is at a premium when you are tent camping. So, we tried  a few different setups to see what would work for her but also work for us. For a couple of days she shared her space with an empty cooler. It worked out well enough, after she got use to the fact that she had to jump into the truck while avoiding it. She almost fell back out a few times when she wasn’t paying attention.

During our couple of days, Kirra enjoyed our early morning walks up and down the river. There were lots of birds in the trees, ducks and geese on the river and she even spotted some beaver. We were also really lucky to see a pair of Bald Eagles flying up and down the river during our stay. The mornings were quite cool, so we were all in warm jackets.

Kirra was quite good at the campsite, only barking at dogs, people and bikes periodically. She also learned to follow the sun around the site while she rested in the soft sand. I’m sure she already knew how to do this, but she did it well.

Since it was still spring, we only let Kirra put her toes in the water. We aren’t sure how well she swims but we will definitely be encouraging her to learn and love to swim this summer. Nearby there was a black lab making trips out into the river to fetch sticks.

We usually would put a small tarp and a dog bed out for Maya while we camped but we came across this swanky bed at Winners and thought it might be a good thing at campsites and even at the beach. This collapses down into a bag and it should be easy to clean. It also keeps Kirra up off the potentially wet, dirty, cold or buggy ground. We always find it important to have a “spot” that a dog knows is theirs. We call the spot her “place” and we can use that as a command while we are eating or when we want her to lay down out of the way. She quite enjoyed napping in this hammock type bed and we figure in the future we could always put a blanket over it to keep her warmer or even mosquito netting, which she might rip (so maybe not).

Kirra enjoyed sleeping in her soft crate during the nights, especially when the temperature dropped. We didn’t close the door, so she would often sleep for an hour on the end of one of our sleeping bags before crawling into her own bed. In the morning she would come out and get a snuggle and then curl up against one, or both of us and fall back to sleep.

Kirra was still suffering from some allergies, so you enjoyed the brushing she got after a hike on the Heritage Trail. The brush must have felt good on some of those itchy spots.

The second morning Kirra cuddled up to Chitra and got her morning pet which is much more like a massage.

The night before she somehow had a bit of stored up energy at the end of the day, and she tried to FRAP around the inside of the tent. It’s very hard to get up to much of a speed inside a tent, but she tried. Luckily it was short lived.

Here we are on the dock at the end of the Heritage Trail extension. We were watching nearby Canada Geese who wanted us to know that they had nests nearby and we shouldn’t consider getting any closer. I was good with that but I think Kirra would have jumped into the cold river to chase them if I would have let her.

Camping with Kirra had it’s ups and downs. She exceeded some of our expectations and failed others. We are extremely concerned about her wariness of strangers on walks and hikes. We will need to muzzle her until she hopefully learns not to lunge, bark and nip at people. We hope this is behaviour that we can modify since we spend so much time outdoors where there are going to be other people on narrow trails that we can’t possibly avoid.