One woman told me she wanted to go backpacking with me, using her Rottweiler to carry her pack. Until then, I didn't know they made backpacks for Rottweilers.

She worked as a dancer in a strip club and wanted to go rock climbing. We were both living in Florida. Florida has no mountains. There's no such thing as rock climbing a cliff in Florida.

To take her rock climbing, we'd have to travel about 700 miles due north to the Smoky Mountain National Park. Her husband wanted her to take a week off and run away with me.

I was assuming it'd be a week long affair to remember. Goodness gracious, that woman could shake it on stage. I was expecting to stay at the bottom of the cliff and see her rocket to the top, jiggling all the way. I am no rock climber but I know how to enjoy a view.

However when I checked up on the park, I found out they don't allow dogs on the trails, not even dogs on a leash. That's partly because dogs like to taunt bears. The local bears like to lead dogs into laurel hell and eat the dog. In the likely case you don't know, a laurel hell is where laurel trees grow so close together, it's almost impassable. Neither dog nor human can easily wiggle their way out of a laurel hell. Once the hiker's dog goes to hell and gets eaten, hikers head to the nearest ranger's office and annoy the rangers.

Rangers don't want to hear about it. Dogs provide enough pain in campgrounds that letting them off into the woods provides even more nonsense for the rangers. Inside the campgrounds, dogs bark at all the campers walking by the dog. Throw in those who don't clean up after their dogs, the dog winds up spending most of the time in a pet carrier.

As a result, we didn't go camping, hiking or rock climbing. No affair to remember.

All of which is going to lead me to explain one of the reasons people don't take their cat camping. All those dogs inside campgrounds makes the cat run off into the woods where they're never seen again.