Gus Goes to Hilltop
A New Adventure in an Old Place
Some places don't need to be new to be an adventure. They just need a dog who's never seen them before.
There are places that are special because they're spectacular. And then there are places that become special because of what happens there. For Gus, the old Hilltop Golf Course in Coshocton, Ohio, might just become one of those places.
Ted has been running at Hilltop for a while now, and Pike has become a regular companion on those outings. So when we decided it was time for Gus to come along, we knew we were taking one dog somewhere familiar and introducing another to an entirely new world. This was Gus's inaugural Hilltop Explore, and he seemed pretty happy about it.
What you should know
Location: 23253 OH-83, Coshocton, Ohio
Footwear: Trail shoes recommended — good support and stability with tread or grip matter here.
Off-leash: Yes, with a caveat — be mindful of other people using the space (more on that below).
Difficulty: Moderate
Hilltop isn't a flat, easy stroll. There's a fair amount of climbing, and the old paved pathways are in varying shape — some sections holding up fine, others being steadily reclaimed by nature. Grass, weeds, and vines encroach onto the paths and can tangle around your feet if you're not paying attention, and acorns, sticks, and fallen branches make for uneven footing in spots.
Watch where you're walking, and keep an eye on your dog while you're at it — Hilltop has plenty of wildlife, including rabbits, groundhogs, and deer. If your dog has a strong prey drive or a habit of taking off after interesting things, this isn't the place to find that out the hard way.
Which brings us to Gus.
Welcome to Hilltop, Gus
Gus hadn't been to Hilltop before, and that wasn't an accident. We've been cautious about giving him off-leash opportunities, because there's a pretty big difference between "Gus comes when I call him in the backyard" and "Gus comes when I call him while something extremely interesting is running through the woods."
Lately, though, he's been consistently showing us that his skills might actually be even better than Pike's — and that got us thinking it might be time to test him.
Hilltop seemed like the right place to try. There was plenty of room to explore, and the stakes of a recall failure were relatively low compared to some of the places we might otherwise choose. That didn't mean there was zero risk — it meant we felt comfortable giving Gus the chance to show us what he could do.
And, as it turned out, he did pretty well.
Pike: the unofficial tour guide
Of course, Gus had an advantage: Pike. He already knew the paths, the terrain, and exactly which spots were worth a thorough investigation, so this wasn't really a first visit for both dogs. Pike was revisiting familiar territory while Gus collected an entirely new set of experiences, and there's something great about watching that dynamic play out. Pike has the experience. Gus has the enthusiasm. Together, they make a pretty entertaining exploration team.
There was no formal tour — no orientation, no map, no helpful "You Are Here" sign. Just Pike doing what Pike does while Gus followed along, sniffing out whatever caught his attention. That's really the beauty of exploring with dogs: they don't need an itinerary. They just need somewhere interesting to go.
A former golf course becomes a new adventure
To us, Hilltop is an old golf course. To the dogs, it's a giant sensory playground — grass to sniff, trails to investigate, sounds to listen to, an entire landscape of information their noses could pick up long before ours ever would.
We saw a field. Gus saw a story. And there was a lot to read.
The wildlife made that recall test more than just a training exercise — it made it a genuine safety skill. A dog who reliably turns away from something exciting and comes back when called has a much better shot at staying safe when the unexpected happens. That's exactly what we were testing with Gus: could he enjoy the freedom to explore without forgetting he was still connected to us?
So far, so good.
Then came the recall test
We didn't have to manufacture a test for Gus — Hilltop provided two.
The first came when a rabbit suddenly darted across the field. Gus saw it, and I mean saw it — he stopped dead and locked on, one back leg trembling with the effort of holding himself in place. Every instinct in that little dog was telling him to go.
So we called him with the remote.
He broke his stare, turned away from the rabbit, and came straight back to us. No hesitation, no second glance, no "I'll just chase it for a second and then come back." He felt the buzz, made a choice, and came. That was the moment we knew we might have been right about him.
Test number two was the pond. Apparently Gus has decided water isn't terrifying anymore — this was news to us. One minute he was exploring the course, the next he'd apparently decided that a nice, scummy pond was exactly where he needed to be. In he went. We called him back, and again, he immediately climbed out, shook an impressive amount of questionable pond water all over us, and took off up the hill like nothing had happened. Which, honestly, is probably the most Gus response imaginable.
The bunny was the more important test. The pond was just Gus being Gus. But together, they told us something we'd been hoping to see: his recall isn't just working when the environment is boring — it's holding up when something genuinely interesting happens.
That's the difference between a dog who knows the command come and a dog who's learned that coming when called is worth it, even when there's something else he'd really, really like to do.
For Gus, that day, coming back to us won twice.
A word about the off-leash thing
If you're thinking about visiting Hilltop with your dog, there's something important to know: the open space can be a great place to work on recall and give a reliable dog some freedom, but it's also a public space.
Hilltop is now a public disc golf course, so there may be people playing, practicing, and moving through the area.
Please be courteous. Not everyone loves dogs, and even people who do probably don't want an unfamiliar dog sprinting toward them mid-throw. Your dog may be friendly, adorable, and impeccably socialized — none of that means a stranger wants to interact with them.
If you're using Hilltop as an off-leash training opportunity, stay aware of what's happening around you, recall your dog when necessary, and give other people plenty of space. Off-leash should never mean out of control, and that's especially true in a place where people are using the space for something other than walking dogs.
A different kind of exercise
Watching the dogs at Hilltop, I noticed how much of the experience was about more than exercise. It's tempting to measure a good dog outing by distance — the number of steps tracked on a device, how long were we out, how much energy we burned, or even how sweaty we were by the end of the trek. But dogs experience an adventure differently. Sometimes the most important part is stopping to sniff, investigating something we'd have walked right past, pausing to listen, and choosing which direction to take.
For Gus, a new environment meant taking in a whole lot of information at once, and watching him work through it was every bit as interesting as watching him move through the landscape. He wasn't just getting exercise. He was learning the place.
Seeing an old place through new eyes
I've been to places dozens of times and suddenly noticed something new because one of the dogs got interested in it. Dogs have a funny way of changing how we experience familiar places — they slow us down, make us look, remind us there are things happening around us we aren't necessarily paying attention to. At Hilltop, Pike already had his history with the place. Gus was starting his. I got to watch both versions happen at the same time.
Of course, we brought cameras — there was no way we were letting an inaugural Gus adventure go undocumented. I took photographs while Ted captured video, and the video is especially fun because there are things you just can't get in a still image: the way the dogs move through a space, the moments they stop to investigate something, all the little pieces of personality that make an ordinary outing feel like an actual adventure.
So ... what did Gus think?
I'd call his first Hilltop Explore a success. He got a new place to investigate. Pike got to revisit an old favorite. Ted got to see if he can trust another running partner. I got my photographs. And the dogs got something that's easy to overlook in our busy lives: time to simply explore.
It wasn't an epic road trip. It wasn't some exotic destination. It was a former golf course in Coshocton, two dogs, a couple of cameras, and a little time outside. And sometimes that's all you need — because life with dogs has a funny way of making ordinary places extraordinary. You just have to slow down long enough to see them through a dog's eyes.
Judging by Gus's first visit to Hilltop, I have a feeling this won't be his last.
Day Trippin' with Dogs is a new My Barking Life series about exploring the world with our dogs, one adventure at a time.
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