Bundas the Adventure Dog

Our dog Bundas (pronounced boon-dosh) is our go everywhere do just about anything adventure sports dog. She’s now 8.7 years old and in pretty darn good shape for a senior. If she could talk, she would tell you that she’s in the top 1% of happy dogs because she loves adventure and she does it all of the time. Besides hiking at least 3 miles daily, she’s done some amazing things such as regularly high-diving from 8 feet up into a lake, swimming rivers and ocean beaches, running long-distance with her master while he mountain bikes or XC skis, camping in a roof-top tent, and exploring exotic locations.

She’s a prolific trail dog when it comes to mountain biking and she probably has well over 4000 miles of mountain biking under her paws. She averaged about 12 miles per trip at about 7 miles per hour. Of course, she would literally run circles around the bikers, so her mileage would have been a bit more as with her speed. She prefers technical terrain with rollers and drops and she especially loves hurdling over fallen trees. At times when we’re in dry terrain, she drinks from my Camelbak, but when we’re near a water source, she jumps right in. The great thing is she’s done very well with staying on the trail within close proximity while also minding her manors by not cutting off bike riders, although there have been a handful of incidents, especially when she was young and reckless.

Bundas is also a mountaineer having climbed over a dozen mountains. The most notable are Black Elk Peak, Mount Mansfield, Mount Washington, Camel’s Hump and Cadillac Mountain. She especially enjoys epic views and she takes time to appreciate the beauty around her. Without a doubt, her toughest climb had to be Mount Washington. The trails were especially steep and the sun was pretty harsh above tree line. Due to a nagging bought of tennis elbow, she had to have her elbows wrapped to take the rugged terrain. Once she reached the top, she developed exhaustion and needed time to rest and refuel before the trek back down. What was more impressive is that she did this at 7 years 11 months old.

Her most exotic trek was a day hike through the dunes of White Sands National Monument. She followed the Alkali Flats Trail which wasn’t at all flat. In fact, the sand and dunes made the 5-mile ordeal feel like at least 15. Meanwhile, the white sand was so believable as snow that Bundas took a few mouthfuls only to spit it out in a state of confused disgust. Even in November, the sun’s brutal rays gave her a short spat of heat exhaustion. Her master dug a hole revealing refreshingly cold sand below the surface that completely revived her after a short rest in the pit. Bundas was mildly annoyed that the white sand was shedding from her fur for a solid week after the excursion, but she thought he inconvenience was worth it.

Some other notable locations she enjoyed were the beaches at Block Island because she could swim with people and not feel discriminated against, Palo Duro Canyon because the colors of the canyon walls were mesmerizing as with the smell of wild hogs, Grandstaff Canyon because it ended with a giant natural stone bridge and the Black Hills of South Dakota because the granite outcroppings and needles were just awesome.

Bundas loves to camp. She’s stayed in ground tents, Adirondack shelters, cabins, roof-top tents and the back of an SUV. But her favorite by far was the rooftop tent. The added height gave her unprecedented views of the landscape around her and she enjoyed watching wildlife from the tent during sunrise. She also liked that her master would carry her up the ladder and place her directly into the tent. What luxury!

When my wife and I decided to get a dog, I knew it had to be an athletic breed because we both enjoy hiking and mountain biking. Neither one of us wanted to put up with shedding, so it had to be a non-shedding dog. Since I was going to need the dog to run with me off leash, I also needed it to be intelligent and obedient. The labradoodle appeared to be the best fit for us. So, I took a road trip to meet a guy that was selling a litter of labradoodle pups and after a few minutes of playing with them I had one that stuck right by my side. This was Bundas, which means furry in Hungarian.

I wanted her to be well trained, so I started right away and she responded quickly. She learned the command “stay” on the first few days. It took her about a week to be fully house trained and roughly 4 days to tolerate being left in her bedroom in the basement at night. She had lots of toys and bones in there as well as a comfortable doggie bed. This kept her busy and her gnawing teeth away from our furniture and shoes. Bundas was a natural retriever and pretty much started playing fetch on her own.

I took her to the trails right away when she was about 3 months old. Fortunately for me, we literally have trails on our property right outside our door. I kept her on leash and walked the trails with her. At this point she was learning what a trail was. They were meant to be walked on and not pooped on, so I praised her for pooping off trail and discouraged her during the few times she tried to cheat. I also gave Bundas praise for staying on the trail when walking. During this time, she began to understand the commands “no” and “good girl.” At two weeks into her training, she understood “come” and “down.”

During 4-6 months, I introduced Bundas to off-leash hiking by using a training collar. This is really the only surefire method of ensuring obedience at long distance. If she ignored a command she already knew, it was followed by a beep. If she continued to ignore a command, it was followed by a light reminder shock which reset her attention on me. This is the purpose of a training collar, to reestablish attention; it’s not supposed to be used as a punishment by setting the shock value to a painful setting. So when the training collar is used appropriately, it’s effective as well as humane.

We continued working on the previous skills she learned while also working on true trail dog stuff. She learned the command “follow the trail” which was exactly what it sounds. This was used for times when she wanted to romp off trail. We also worked on setting limits for how far she was allowed to run ahead and she learned this very quickly. I also began taking her up short rocky scrambles to get her used to heights and steep grades. Night hiking became a part of her training starting around 5 months old. At this time, I also began training her for accompanying me on mountain bike rides; we would go maybe a mile and she would practice running alongside me.

A much more difficult skill for her was the command “slow”, which meant for her to walk alongside us. We used praise for when she followed the command. She misunderstood this command for when we were hiking, but she responded very well to it for when we were mountain biking. I came to realize later that she associated the command SLOW to her slow trot beside me while mountain biking. So when we commanded SLOW while hiking, she wanted to trot. In hind-sight, I know we should have used treats more during the training process for her to walk slowly beside us during hikes. But she eventually learned that while she’s wearing a harness on leash, she was to be with us and she stopped pulling.

Bundas also got her first experiences in and around water for swimming when she was 5 months old, but she was pretty skeptical about the whole thing. I had to get into the water with her before she learned to accept it. I also found myself jumping from rocks and high places to teach her it was ok to jump into the water.

When she was 6-12 months old, she was now ready for some intense trail running. I took her on training rides for mountain biking starting at 3 miles and ramping up to 8 as her endurance and listening skills improved. She was now hiking much longer distances off leash and we began taking her along mountain trails which tested her rock scrambling abilities and reduced her fear of heights. Bundas also began retrieving objects from the water and swimming much more frequently.

Once Bundas was a year old, she was now reaching peak physical condition and was able to do long fast trail runs with me mountain biking 8-12 miles. She also was able to tackle the most difficult climbing and scrambling up mountainous terrain while we were hiking. Bundas was also given a lighted collar which she used to begin accompanying me on night mountain bike rides.

Here are some things I learned along the training journey:

Puppies-in-training need a lot of short-sessions because their attention span is so short.

I try to feed Bundas about half her usually meal size about 30 minutes before taking her hiking or running. This prevents her from scavenging for turds or dead animals.

I also noticed that her attention span dissolves when she’s hungry, so we’re sure to bring snacks with us on longer trips.

We bring a lot of extra water on long hikes are long rides when we go into areas without lakes or streams.

She has run off a few times when she was a puppy trying to chase deer and she always came back. I found it to be helpful to just wait at the location I lost her and intermittently call her name. She usually returned within 5-15 minutes.

Avoid discount training collars. They aren’t dependable and they have a short range. This was also the reason why she was able to run away to chase deer. I now use SportDog.

Dogs often respond to harnesses by pulling hard, much like a sled dog. Using this as a solution for a dog that pulls while on leash will probably make it worse. You must resort to treat training for walking right alongside.