nwg, YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! Enjoy! I hope your maiden voyage goes smoothly. Very happy for you!

Thanks for the clarification on the trails you were talking about, Crankin. We only occasionally ride those kind of trails; they are mostly for hiking, and yes, walking dogs, in my mind. As you know, we mostly ride "official", marked trails, rails-to-trails, city-maintained trails, national forest trails, and the like. Not many loose dogs on those, thankfully. Behind our 11-acre property in NC we used to own, there was an established hiking trail that had been there for many years, unmarked and across the back of many privately owned properties but known by all who lived in this wooded area. We used to walk our dogs there -- but on leash. We did occasionally run into other folks with their dogs off-leash on it, and one of our neighbors' dogs ran into our yard from it and attacked our first Boston Terrier, who defended our property. Needless to say, our vet bills were paid, and that only happened once -- we made sure of it!