Yoni and I at the begin­ning of the 10,000

I was born on April 1, 2002 to a Saint Bernard mom and a Bor­der Col­lie dad. I guess my dad need­ed a step-stool to get that to work. Basi­cal­ly, I like hik­ing, being out­side, and run­ning around. I get bored watch­ing tv and sit­ting around, unless it is Ani­mal Plan­et on a rest day from hik­ing, oth­er­wise get me out­side. I am always on a leash because my dad says that I need to be because some peo­ple don’t like dogs. I am ok with that because at least I get to go with him and be out­side. We usu­al­ly walk a long way each day and some­times we go swim­ming or cross rivers and oth­er times we walk through the snow all day. My favorite is walk­ing through the snow. Some­times when we hike the same trail twice I get all excit­ed because I remem­ber the places where I saw deer, bear, and oth­er cool things last time.

Hiking With Your Dog

I get a lot of e‑mails regard­ing tips for bring­ing dogs hik­ing and long dis­tance hik­ing, so I have typed up some tips that have worked well for us. Please note that a lot of these things may be indi­vid­ual and it will be best if you find your own sys­tem that works for you and your dog.

1. We start­ed hik­ing togeth­er when Yoni was a pup­py so she got used to it grad­u­al­ly and built up the tol­er­ance, mileage, and lifestyle from a young age. As a a result she just seems to know what to do when it comes to cer­tain things. For exam­ple, she always drinks a lot of water at every water source so I rarely need to car­ry water for her unless it is real­ly hot out or over 30 miles with­out water and she also knows that if I stop to talk to some­one that she should take advan­tage of the time not mov­ing and lie down and get off her feet, just as I would do nor­mal­ly when I stop walk­ing. She also knows that when I take my back­pack off she can lie down and when I pick it up then we are going. So she goes straight to sleep when I stop to set up camp, but when I actu­al­ly go to sleep then she seems to sleep a lit­tle lighter and keep an extra eye out for things (I guess she knows that I usu­al­ly sleep through any­thing). I think that start­ing her young was a very impor­tant step in intro­duc­ing her to it all.
2. I always keep her on a leash, even though she would be fine off leash. I think it is best because then I am reg­u­lat­ing her walk­ing a lit­tle bit more, so she nev­er does extra unnec­es­sary miles. In addi­tion, I just feel it is the prop­er thing to do out of respect in case there are oth­er peo­ple around because some peo­ple may not like dogs. I can also keep an eye on her bod­i­ly func­tions so that I can prop­er­ly dis­pose of them. There are too many places that have already banned dogs and I feel that if dog own­ers do not act respon­si­bly and respect­ful­ly then we will lose many of the remain­ing areas where they are allowed.
3. Food Ideas: Yoni will get trim and fit and lose a lit­tle bit of weight, just like any long dis­tance hik­er, but she can main­tain her body weight well and most impor­tant­ly keep her ener­gy lev­el high. Here’s how we do it, I feed her twice a day, but she usu­al­ly won’t real­ly eat in the morn­ing because she is thirsty, so if she has left over food from the night­time then I will add water to it and then she will eat the “cere­al” because she wants the water. I always feed her pup­py food when we are hik­ing because it is high­er in calo­ries and then at night I also add cook­ing oil (usu­al­ly corn or veg­etable oil) to her food for extra calo­ries. I also give her dog vit­a­mins every oth­er day. On the trail she will nor­mal­ly eat 2–3 lbs. per day. How­ev­er, I try to keep the same phi­los­o­phy for her that I do for myself. So I try to have her binge a lit­tle when we get to towns also. I will buy a can or 2 of wet dog food and add it to dry food in town and some­times cook­ies (they are high in calo­ries) and feed her as much as she can eat when we are in town.
4. oth­er ques­tion that I get a lot is how to take care of the dog’s pads/feet. We have nev­er had a real issue with this, but I have car­ried booties a few times and put them on her a few times, main­ly in Ore­gon on the PCT when you walk across the sharp lava around Macken­zie Pass and also while hik­ing in the win­ter on the east coast when the moist snow would oth­er­wise ball up between her toes and dri­ve her crazy. Oth­er than those few times, I real­ly haven’t done any­thing about it. One thing to be care­ful of is extreme heat, hot ground, and espe­cial­ly black­top on hot days if road­walk­ing. This can eas­i­ly hurt dog’s paws.
5. When ford­ing a swift riv­er, I hold onto her col­lar on my down­stream side so that she won’t get swept down­stream and she won’t push into me and throw me off-balance.
6. You will find your own tricks and learn how to read your dog’s expres­sions. I think that we have a con­nec­tion now that is lit­er­al­ly beyond words. I can read pret­ty much all of her expres­sions and know what they mean and I have even learned things about myself to gauge of my behav­ior towards her. For exam­ple, I know if I start get­ting frus­trat­ed with her while we are walk­ing, then I am start­ing to get dehy­drat­ed. Always break your dog in slow­ly with mileage, time hik­ing, and weight in their dog­packs (if they are car­ry­ing one). I usu­al­ly start with all of this before a hike and will nev­er load her with over 4–5 days of food dur­ing the hike, even if she is in opti­mal shape. I think that is just too heavy for her and would rather be safe than sorry.
   I hope this helps. If you have any oth­er ques­tions feel free to drop me an e‑mail.