“California bay, buckeye, coast live and black oak, and big-leaf maple provide a canopy. In the understory you might see honeysuckle, toyon, coffeeberry, snowberry, and lots of poison oak.” That was the description of the final leg of a gorgeous hike my husband and I took last weekend with my dog Jade and my parent’s dog Shana. What I want to highlight is the last piece of the last sentence of the description “and lots of poison oak.” In my opinion, the descriptions should have read something along the lines of “Poison oak abounds on this trail, sprinkled with the occasional maple, honeysuckle, poison oak, coffeberry, poison oak, black oak, and of course, poison oak.” In other words, don’t attempt this part of the hike unless both you and your dog are completely encased in impenetrable chain mail.

The trail itself was actually fairly well maintained, so unless the poison oak oil actually lept off the plant onto my body, I was pretty confident that I could avoid the plants by sticking to the center of the path. What worried me more was the dogs. Jade, my 6 year Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, does not believe in straying from from hiking paths (unless there is something really, really dead and really, really smelly that he must go investigate). Shana, my parents 3 year old Coton, is the opposite. She doesn’t believe in staying on

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the path. I considered leashing her, but knowing Shana and leashes, I suspected that all that would happen is that Shana would manage to consistently wrap the leash around my legs and I, in attempting to untangle myself, would fall straight into the very poison oak I was trying to avoid.

And I had reason to be concerned. When pets brush up against poison oak (or poison ivy if you live in the east coast), some of the oil transfers from the plant onto their skin. Pets can then transfer that oil to their human owners without being the slightest bit affected themselves. So the scenario playing through my head was as follows: Shana decides to go investigate who knows what off-trail. Shana brushes up against every poison oak plant within a two-mile radius (a very plausible situation based on Shana’s nature and the amount of poison oak on the trail). We return to the car. Shana forgets that she knows how to jump from the ground and into her crate (mind you, she is extremely capable of jumping into her crate when we are leaving to go for a walk, it’s only upon the return trip that her memory mysteriously fails her). When I pick Shana up to put her in the car, the oil transfers from her fur to my skin - which is exactly how humans contract poison oak or ivy from pets (they touch the fur of an animal that has come in contact with the plant or plants being discussed).

Fortunately, I did not contract poison oak from Shana this time around. I attribute this mainly to the fact that when we reached the car I announced to my husband “I’ve got Jade, you’re responsible for Shana,” and hastily jumped in the car with Jade before he could protest. Fortunately, I have since learned that are some very easy steps you can take to help prevent poison oak or ivy from spreading from your pet to you. And I’ll talk about those solutions in tomorrow’s posting.