Hiking Georgia With Dogs: Garland Mountain Horse and Hike Trail

Last weekend we headed out for another agility and hiking day with our pals Johann the Dog, Gracie, Rach and their mum Leslie. 

After playing agility for a few hours at the Canine Ranch, we headed up the road to the Garland Mountain Horse and Hike Trail, near Waleska, Ga. 

There are 12 miles of trails for both horses and hikers. We mapped out a 2.5-mile course on the yellow and green trails. It's still super hot here, so we didn't want to overdo it.

The parking lot was filled with horse trailers when we got there, and we weren't sure how the dogs would react to horses on the trail.  But as it turned out, these were the only two we saw at the start of the trail, and we didn't come across any horses while hiking. 

I thought the sign was pretty amusing! Do horse people carry horse-sized poo bags?

Probably not! Here's the rest of the sign! The parking lot was pretty clear of horse poo, the trail wasn't too bad, either.

At the start of the trail, we saw this nifty horse playground. Some of the instructions reminded me of dog-training tips.



Seems like they're using shaping techniques by rewarding the slightest try and waiting for the horse to offer the behavior.



Here's the Cowboy Curtain. Rocco was too short to demonstrate!



The second challenge was the Step Up Tire. These look like the same exercises we do on our K9FITbone.



Rocco shows his all four feet on technique! That's a big tire!

Next, it was time to head down the trail.



It was a nice surface, soft and a bit sandy, and nicely maintained.

We saw some interesting tree trunks. And some of the trees were labeled.

I especially like this one. Did you know a PawPaw is a type of tree with large, simple leaves and large fruits? I didn't see any fruits or leaves on this one, but it did remind me of this tune... Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch! Listen to the whole thing...  you can thank me later (you'll be humming it the rest of the day!).

That's Rach, Rocco, Johann and Gracie! They sure had fun on this hike! 

Have you ever seen a PawPaw patch? Let us know in the comments below!

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