The doggo and I went on an Adventure
12 Jul 2020R1#
I have a new roommate and his name is Gilberto (HEEL-berto). He’s changed my life.
This past week we ventured outside on a multi-day camping and backpacking trip. It’s a Summer tradition and Gilbert had to be initiated.
The week’s journey took us to the Southwest lands of Colorado and it didn’t disappoint. Weather favored us the entire week. The mountains and vegetation of the area are incredible. It provided an excellent window to spend time outside with the dog for the first time.
It was fun adapting my pack and gear to bring along Gilbert and so far it has only added a couple of pounds to the backcountry pack. The biggest difference to my usual camping routine has been that I must keep track of where my four-legged partner is at all times, which also applies to everything else I do these days (Surprise!/s).
11 Lessons from Backpacking with Gil:
- He loves Millie. Everyone loves Millie. She’s an amazing pup and a great role model. Gil will play with her forever and can’t wait to see her first thing in the mornings.
- He prefers to lay over a pad than the bare ground. Not gonna lie, so do I. This did not stop him from gathering about 50lbs of dirt under his fur LOL.
- Naps are great. Long naps after a long day hiking are guaranteed. Somehow he rebuilds that energy almost immediately to be able to play and follow Millie around.
- Dinner meals early. After long hikes he would appreciate his dinner about an hour earlier than usual.
- He is slow. At 9mo I don’t expect him to be very good a covering long hikes. 4mi hikes under the sun tired him out and he struggled. I’m hoping this gets better with training.
- He gets very thirsty. Drinking a lot of water is indeed necessary to staying healthy. Gil will drink all the water you put in front of him after playing around with other dogs. Providing a good amount of water every mile was necessary to keep him going at a good pace.
- He can eat before long drives. Technically a “before backpacking” lesson. We made a 6-7hr trek and he had breakfast right before. He didn’t throw up #win.
- The ecollar is amazing. Gil would 100% respond to commands when assisted with the ecollar (Tapping), but …
- …Not good at voice commands alone. Voice recall is a work in progress but I was surprised that without the ecollar he would 50/50 respond to them, even when rewarding with treats.
- He will bark at wild animals … sometimes. I was sitting by the river minding my own business when he started barking. As I was about to tell him to keep it down a see a bear on the other side of the bank! Good doggo. However, later that day a deer and random dog approached our campsite and he didn’t faze. To be fair I rather he alert me about a bear than either of those other two.
- He likes living outside. The only one that matters, really.
The pack:
On the gear side, I have some additions to make our lives in the wilderness more comfortable. When I go camping I have the following needs: shelter, pack, food, sleep system, warmth, hygiene, tech. And Gil, as it turns out, has the same needs.
Doggo Gear:
Tech:
The only tech Gil needs is his ecollar. The ability to have my dog off leash in the backcountry is wonderful. A leash can get caught on bushes, it’s tiresome to have to hold it for hours, and most importantly it prevents the pup from exploring - going outdoors is about freedom. I want to make sure I have a way to get Gil close to me when he’s too excited to listen to voice commands and the ecollar is perfect for this. If you’ve never used one but are interested in it, talk to a dog trainer to get your pup used to it.
Gil wears an ecollar with a flashlight feature, so when it gets dark I can turn it on and know where he is in the field. This is also a double edged sword as I found out, because having the light on seems to use more battery and when you’re camping/backpacking, access to an outlet is limited (No USB charging for these devices). We had some issues charging it in my friend Eric’s fancy car with a 120V outlet so on our final backpacking trip I was out of luck with the ecollar and had to resort to the leash. Because I still wanted him to have some freedom, I used the long training leash which I got from Amazon and haven’t experienced any issues with it breaking or falling apart, it can get very dirty but it’s easy to clean in a bucket with water.
Hygiene:
I don’t do much here other than poop bags from AmazonBasics. I try to keep track where Gil does his business, wrap it up and pack it out. During the hikes he will poop in the middle of the trail (work in progress) so just keeping the trails free of waste seems like the decent thing to do for the next hiker. In the backcountry poop in general is to be buried 6-8in underground (as per the Leave No Trace principles) but doggos won’t dig or necessarily find the best spot to go so I just pack it out.
Warmth:
CO backcountry temps can get pretty chilly at nighttime - a few years ago I found myself in mid 30 temps in July! The average this past week was mid-50s.
This may seem extra but I found myself putting a dog jacket on Gilbert after he decided to go for a late afternoon swim with barely any sun left to dry him off and keep him warm. He got a pat down with a towel and since that didn’t help with the shaking, the jacket was the next best option.
A backpacking towel is also useful as a blanket to lay down or cover up at night.
Sleep System:
This one ties into the warmth section because good sleep is king. I got Gilbert a sleeping pad to help with any rocks or twigs under the tent as well as to provide a layer of insulation from the cold ground. We use my sleeping bag as blanket to cover both of us. I currently have a mummy style sleeping bag that opens up wide enough for us both but if he moves to the lower part of the tent then covering becomes a little difficult due to the design of the bag. A quilt may be a better solution.
Overall Gil sleeps better when under the sleeping bag, if I pull it from over him he starts getting up and turning around, once under it he goes back to resting very well. He’s a hot furnace so even though the sleeping bag is not sealed with the zipper, his heat keeps us both very comfortable.
Food:
I pack each of Gil’s meals on their own ziplock bag. When is meal time I just expand his food bowl and pour it out - no need to start measuring then. He’s got two bowls, one for food and one for water since we don’t always camp near a water source. When I was testing out bowls for camping I wanted something light and collapsible that could fit anywhere. I got both a cloth - with some plastic linen inside- and a silicon one. I soon found that water sweats out of the cloth one after 30mins or so. And now the cloth bowl is being used for solid foods and the silicon bowl for water. Although some people might only use one bowl for both, I find it nice to be able to put the food smelling bowl away after meals.
Pack:
In order to keep my own pack light I decided that Gil could carry some of his things. At the end of the day you want to enjoy and accomplish distance in your hikes and an uncomfortable, heavy pack does not help. The Ruffwear Approach Dog Pack (M) is where Gil is carrying his own gear. This pack has big pockets. Holding food for 2 days, bowls, a towel, 5ft leash, poop bags, and eventually actual poop, and still has plenty of space left. I’m thinking a 4 day trek with this bag should not be a problem.
The main issue I have with the pack is that every time Gil gets in a water stream that is deep enough (~1ft+) water will make its way into the pockets and it doesn’t have a way to drain. I must get everything out, flip the pockets inside out to let all the water out and repack. Feature request: add drain holes. Interestingly, Ruffwear’s Palisades pack has these drain holes at the bottom to deal with this exact situation. Although it is twice as expensive, I may consider the upgrade for next year. My friend Eric’s doggo had the Palisades pack and definitely did not experience the same issue - his pack also has 2 water bladders for those long hikes that barely have any water sources.
Two types of dogs.
Shelter:
This took a bigger investment on my part. I had to upgrade from a 1-person tent to a 2-person tent to accommodate both of us and still have space for the gear. Although we both fit in the 1-person tent, I still need space for my pack and shoes and that was too tight and uncomfortable. My main asks for a tent that I plan on taking backpacking is that it must be spacious and light so I went with Big Agnes. I trust their build and as it turns out, there was no damage the few times that Gil scraped the tent walls while stretching.
Here is a list of the gear we used on this trip:
Enjoy the outdoors!
lifestyle dog Gil backpacking camping