TRAPPED!

A nice Christmas day hike in the Burro Mountains was ruined for us when Ranger got himself caught in a leg-hold trap just down the road from where this photo was taken.

We were hiking along our favorite road near the Continental Divide Trail. The dogs were running scent trails back and forth across the road, as they usually do, while I was making my way along the road. All of a sudden from off to the right I heard a snap, like a branch breaking or an animal crashing through the brush and then one of the dogs began screaming as if they were in extreme pain. I had seen a herd of javelina in the area just two days earlier, so my first thought was "Oh no, they ran into the javelina!" I couldn't tell by the sounds whether the dog in trouble was Ranger or Sue, but I knew that one of them was in a bad situation.

I raced towards the sound and found Ranger hopping around and digging at the ground about 15 yards from the road, behind a fallen log. My next thought was "I hope that's not a badger", but since I've never seen any sign of badger in this area and I wasn't hearing any noise other than my dog screaming, I soon realized that wasn't the case. As I got closer, I discovered what the issue was. Ranger had a leg-hold trap attached to his left front foot.

The adrenaline helped me to have the strength to remove the trap from his foot. I did get bitten in the process, but since he was in pain, I didn't mind the nip. As soon as he was released, Ranger raced off seemingly unharmed. Upon further inspection later I determined that the trap had hit his head first and then ended up on his foot. He received cuts above his left eye and along the left side of his muzzle. Needless to say, I was not happy and I will be choosing my hiking areas a little more carefully until trapping season is over.