Long distance walking with cocker: tips / advice

[Vicki]

Hello all

The OH and myself are gearing ourselves up to enter the Walk the Wight next year, a 26 mile walk from one end of the Isle of Wight to the other. It's a dog friendly event - apparently there's event a medal for canines that complete the course!

We'd love to take Sally, our cocker sidekick, along with us!

She is 4 years old and is used to our longer tramps of 8-10 miles. However these only take place every couple of months - her regular walks are more like 2-4 miles.

OH and I will be increasing the length of our weekend walks in preparation - and so Sally's fitness should improve along with ours. However I really don't want to push her little legs further than they can cope with. (She is more of a sofa-type than a worker, if you know what I mean.  )

If anyone has done a long distance walk with their hound I'd appreciate any advice or words of wisdom.

[PennyB]

I vaguely remember when a now ex COL member did the wight walk she did a training schedule and at least once a week did a longish walk - think she even did a training blog as well but can't remember its name now

[Pearly]

Hi Vicki,

There was a thread on here recently about walking in Scotland with some really good advice given.  I would suggest taking something sweet, like a piece of fudge, to help keep Sally's energy levels up plus a bit of food every couple of hours.

You could also consider taking Sally to hydrotherapy sessions as part of her training - Pearls fitness level has improved significantly since she started going 
 
Sounds a wonderful event - enjoy!

Jayne

[elaine.e]

Walshies does a lot of hill walking and long distance walks with Fudge, so you could PM him and see if he has any advice.

[Vicki]

Thank you for the replies so far!

I have found the old Walk the Wight topic but unfortunately the training blog has been taken off-line which is a shame.

Keeping energy levels up with fudge sounds like a great idea - and one that I'm sure Sally will heartily approve of!