Bela and I got a late start today but by about 4pm, we had reached the parking area for the 201 trail, just off of the Pioneer Pass road 112. The trailhead is about a mile past the trailhead for the 197 Six Shooter Canyon trail.
I had spotted someone camping here earlier in the week. It was a neat camp from a distance with no obvious humans in the vicinity. There was an older, 1970's Ford pickup parked in front of a blue, 4 person dome tent. Off to the side were two comfortable camp chairs, sitting side by side, allowing a long view of the opposite hillside and Pinal Creek below. It looked like an ideal setting, almost romantic, with perfect weather in a relatively isolated location.
Today, the spot was empty and from the moment I let Bela out of the truck, I knew something was up. There was the remains of a small fire, conservatively built and cold to the touch, built in front of where the two chairs had been placed. She ignored the fire completely and headed straight for the shrubby perimeter of the area where she quickly located her favorite food--maybe every dog's favorite-- human shit. The campers had made no effort to dig a hole or a trench, they just wandered 20 or 30 feet from their tent and let it loose under the cover of a couple large manzanitas.
Bela will go after fox, coyote, bobcat, or domestic dog crap wherever she finds it, despite my loud prostrations to the contrary. "Leave it! Drop it! Jesus, Bela, that's disgusting." There is no telling what more she eats when I'm not right on top of her watching her every move. She will step over dry cow pies to find the fresh ones that have just barely formed a thin crust, easily breaking through the air-dried barrier with her tongue, exposing the fresh, green custard inside. But human shit is her personal gold standard and it's always surprising how often she finds it in what you would think are civilized surroundings. I find it everywhere I go to run Bela. Sometimes it's hidden behind a large boulder or tree in what approaches a conscientious (but still predictable) attempt at waste management, but more often than not, it's right out in the open, oftentimes marked with the univeral white flag: four or five still connected sheets flapping in the wind.
True to form, she zeroed in on these scattered human defecants within seconds. She never gobbles fresh human feces, any more than I would gulp down a soft serve ice cream cone, and when I caught up with her, she was licking away, happy as a clam. I grabbed her by the collar and yanked her away, her tongue still lapping, and put her in the back of the truck until I put on my pack, pulled out my bincoculars and strapped my camera through my belt loop.
The trail head was about 50 feet away, and well before we reached it, Bela had found the heel of a loaf of white bread within throwing distance of the small fire. I never went back to look, but as we walked down the trail towards the distant sound of Pinal Creek below, I suspected that anything that wasn't burnable had probably been pitched over the hill. The glass bottles probably made it to the ground, shattering in coarse brown shards beneath the dense shrub canopy; everything else was probably caught by the tangle of branches, suspended, waiting for wind or rain-- or another dog-- to clean it up.
I had spotted someone camping here earlier in the week. It was a neat camp from a distance with no obvious humans in the vicinity. There was an older, 1970's Ford pickup parked in front of a blue, 4 person dome tent. Off to the side were two comfortable camp chairs, sitting side by side, allowing a long view of the opposite hillside and Pinal Creek below. It looked like an ideal setting, almost romantic, with perfect weather in a relatively isolated location.
Today, the spot was empty and from the moment I let Bela out of the truck, I knew something was up. There was the remains of a small fire, conservatively built and cold to the touch, built in front of where the two chairs had been placed. She ignored the fire completely and headed straight for the shrubby perimeter of the area where she quickly located her favorite food--maybe every dog's favorite-- human shit. The campers had made no effort to dig a hole or a trench, they just wandered 20 or 30 feet from their tent and let it loose under the cover of a couple large manzanitas.
Bela will go after fox, coyote, bobcat, or domestic dog crap wherever she finds it, despite my loud prostrations to the contrary. "Leave it! Drop it! Jesus, Bela, that's disgusting." There is no telling what more she eats when I'm not right on top of her watching her every move. She will step over dry cow pies to find the fresh ones that have just barely formed a thin crust, easily breaking through the air-dried barrier with her tongue, exposing the fresh, green custard inside. But human shit is her personal gold standard and it's always surprising how often she finds it in what you would think are civilized surroundings. I find it everywhere I go to run Bela. Sometimes it's hidden behind a large boulder or tree in what approaches a conscientious (but still predictable) attempt at waste management, but more often than not, it's right out in the open, oftentimes marked with the univeral white flag: four or five still connected sheets flapping in the wind.
True to form, she zeroed in on these scattered human defecants within seconds. She never gobbles fresh human feces, any more than I would gulp down a soft serve ice cream cone, and when I caught up with her, she was licking away, happy as a clam. I grabbed her by the collar and yanked her away, her tongue still lapping, and put her in the back of the truck until I put on my pack, pulled out my bincoculars and strapped my camera through my belt loop.
The trail head was about 50 feet away, and well before we reached it, Bela had found the heel of a loaf of white bread within throwing distance of the small fire. I never went back to look, but as we walked down the trail towards the distant sound of Pinal Creek below, I suspected that anything that wasn't burnable had probably been pitched over the hill. The glass bottles probably made it to the ground, shattering in coarse brown shards beneath the dense shrub canopy; everything else was probably caught by the tangle of branches, suspended, waiting for wind or rain-- or another dog-- to clean it up.
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