I'll See Your ATV and Raise You a Labrador

Filed in archive Rants on March 15, 2008

Think an ATV can damage a trail? Go Lab or Go Home

I recently had a conversation with a nice old fellow about ATVs destroying topsoil. He assuredly and smartly informed me about how much "damage" ATVs do to our natural resources. Going on about how "permanent damage" is being done to forests and trails all over the country by these "damned ATVs!".

I couldn't help but point out that I own some of these "damned ATVs", and that I in fact have a track in my back yard to ride these "damned ATVs". After I convinced him not to run off and hide while his head explodes for even TALKING to someone like me, I calmly explained that I also have a male Yellow Labrador that is about a year old who, with the part time help of a slightly older Beagle from next door, have done just as much or more damage to my back yard, AND my track, than 3 years of me, my kids and their older twin cousins riding their quads and dirt bikes in the back yard.

I smiled when I got home that day and realized that much of the track had been over-grown with only a few months of non-use, and was well on it's way to being gone if I didn't get out and start using it again. The destruction done by the Labrador and Beagle, on the other hand, will require me to literally import topsoil (or get it from someplace else in the yard) to repair the destruction.