I have moved the past year's animal posts to this new forum so we have a good data base here. If someone wants me to go back farther, I will. It actually took me only about 15 minutes to do this.

I did not move anything that was in "Off Topic," so the cute "Doggonit" joke and the "Dog Names" post have remained in that section. If the post was incidental to another topic (such as mentioning having room for the dog in a post primarily about tents), I left it where it was.

If someone remembers posting about other four-legged hiking buddies (llamas, goats, burros, cats, etc.) in the past year and wants their post moved to the new section, please let me know.

Hey OM, I remember a great thread about hiking with llamas that was fascinating. It had pictures and everything. That one should be moved over. I don't recall if it was within the last year. OldScout

I don't know if I moved it or another mod, but it's here! Down at the bottom of the list.

I moved the llama thread here. The big question now is whether to move some of the more interesting (and moderate) threads about horse packing over here. They've always tended to attract some controversial exchanges, so it would seem to me a good idea to read through any candidate threads before moving them.

A horse is an animal. Of course my parents and I horsepacked every year starting from when I was 9 until I left the nest to get married, so I am partial to horses. They were our pets, our buddies, just like little children (and behaved accordingly, except that they weighed 1200 or so pounds).

However, I don't think I'd want to horsepack most places these days because you have to be so restrictive. Back in the 1940's and 50's, we were usually the only people out there except maybe for the occasional sheepherder or cow camp rider. Grass was always up to the horses' knees or higher and a night or two of grazing hardly left a dent. When we did an out-and-back trip instead of a loop, the grass where the horses grazed on the way out had already grown back three weeks later.

Nowadays you have to pack in all their feed, shovel all their manure out of the campsite (instead of the next campers at that site being us the following year, they will most likely arrive the same day), tie the horses to a picket line over rocks (so they won't paw up the vegetation), etc. Many more people, many more horses!