Camping and hiking with a dog: the planning that keeps it fun

A dog in the outdoors is doing what dogs are built for, and a camping trip with one can be the best thing you do all year.

It can also go badly in ways a walk round the block never does: heat with no shade, water you can't see the bottom of, ticks, sore feet, a night that turns cold, and a long way back to a vet. None of that is a reason to leave the dog at home. It's a reason to plan the trip around the animal as much as the view.

Choose a trip the dog can actually do

Match the route to the individual dog, not the idea of a dog.

A young, fit adult of a working breed can cover ground all day; a puppy whose joints are still growing, an old dog, a flat-faced breed that overheats, or a couch companion that walks twenty minutes a day cannot, and pushing them is how a nice idea becomes a carried dog and a ruined trip. Build up distance over weeks beforehand the way you would your own fitness, and plan the first trip short enough that you finish with a dog that wants to go again.

Check the rules of the place before you fall in love with it. Many national parks, nature reserves and beaches restrict or ban dogs, especially in wildlife breeding seasons, and campsites vary from dog-welcoming to dog-free. Lead rules near livestock and ground-nesting birds aren't bureaucracy — a dog that chases sheep can be shot legally in some countries, and a recall you trust is the price of letting a dog off the lead near anything that runs.

Pack for the dog, not just the trip

The dog's kit is short but non-negotiable: more water than you think and a bowl, enough of its normal food to avoid a stomach upset from a sudden change, a spare lead and a well-fitted harness, a tick remover, and a way to keep it warm at night.

Pack out what the dog produces the same as your own rubbish. A dog coat earns its space for a thin-coated or small dog in cold or wet, and a mat gives it a defined, off-the-ground place to settle at camp.

Carry a small first-aid kit that covers the dog as well as you — the same thinking as a home first-aid kit, adjusted for being hours from help. Cut pads, grass seeds worked into the skin, stings and minor wounds are the common outdoor injuries, and knowing the location and hours of the nearest vet to your route before you set off is worth more than any single item in the bag.

Camp life, and the dog that has never slept in a tent

A tent is a strange, flapping, semi-transparent thing that smells of nothing familiar, and a dog meeting one for the first time at dusk in a field is being asked a lot.

Put it up in the garden or the living room a week before you go. Feed the dog in it, have a coffee in it, let it fall asleep in it. Ten minutes of that and the tent becomes a den it recognises rather than a novelty to be suspicious of at midnight.

At camp, work out the tethering before you need it. A long line to a ground stake or a tree gives a dog freedom to potter without wandering into someone else's pitch, but never leave it tied and unattended — a tangled dog panics, and a tethered one can't get away from another dog that comes over. A crate or the car is the answer for the times you genuinely can't watch it.

And be honest about the noise. A dog that barks at every footstep is a bad neighbour on a campsite, where pitches are close and everybody hears everything. If yours reacts to passing strangers, pick a quieter corner, feed it something to chew in the busy evening hour, and accept that a wild-camp spot suits it better than a family site in August.

Heat, water and the two silent dangers

Two outdoor dangers kill quietly because they don't look dramatic.

The first is heat: a dog can't sweat and overheats far faster than you on a climb in the sun, so walk in the cool of the morning and evening, carry water for the dog first, and learn the early signs of heatstroke — frantic panting, a bright tongue, wobbliness — because by the time a dog collapses you're already in an emergency.

The second is water you can't read. Fast rivers, cold lakes and the sea drown strong-swimming dogs that misjudge a current or tire far from the bank, and still water can carry blue-green algae that's lethal to a dog that drinks or swims in it. Don't assume a dog can swim, don't throw a ball into water you wouldn't swim in yourself, and carry clean drinking water so the dog isn't tempted by a stagnant pool.

Ticks, feet and the night

Long grass and woodland mean ticks, which carry disease, so use a vet-recommended preventive before the trip and check the dog over each evening, paying attention to the ears, armpits, groin and between the toes.

Feet take a beating on rock and hot ground that soft garden paws aren't conditioned for, so build up mileage in advance, check pads daily for cuts and worn skin, and turn back on a dog that starts to limp rather than pushing it home sore.

Nights outdoors get colder than the day suggests, and a dog loses heat sleeping on the ground. Give it an insulated mat inside or beside your shelter, a coat if it's thin-coated, and its own familiar bedding so the strange place has a piece of home in it. A dog that's warm, tired in a good way and near its people sleeps; a cold, over-faced dog paces and whines and keeps everyone awake.

Wildlife, livestock and the things a dog finds

The countryside is full of things a dog will investigate and you'd rather it didn't.

Livestock is the serious one. Cattle with calves will chase a dog and people are killed following theirs into a field — if a herd moves towards you, let the dog off the lead and get yourself to the fence, because the cattle are interested in the dog, and the dog can outrun them while you can't. Sheep are the other half of the same rule: on the lead, every time, no exceptions for a dog that's usually fine.

Then the smaller hazards. Adders bask on warm paths and bite a nose that gets too close. Ground-nesting birds are destroyed by a dog running through a moor in spring, which is why the seasonal lead rules exist. Carcasses, sheep droppings and anything left at a fire pit are a vomiting night waiting to happen. And a dog that puts up a deer may run a very long way after it, which is the commonest way a camping dog is lost.

The recall is the whole thing

Everything good about camping with a dog — the off-lead miles, the trust, the ease — rests on a recall that works when it matters, near livestock, wildlife, other walkers and roads.

If that recall isn't solid, keep the dog on a long line and enjoy the trip anyway; a reliable recall is something you build at home over months, not something you gamble on in a field full of sheep. Get the planning, the kit and the recall right, and a dog turns a good trip into a great one. Get them wrong and it turns into the story you tell as a warning.