Our Dog Walk Essentials
I never thought I’d be a girl who has a specific bag for dog walking but here we are. When walking two dogs you want to be as hands-free as possible and because female clothing rarely has pockets unless I’m wearing my Barbour it’s rare I’ve got enough space for everything I need and to be hands-free. For my birthday I had one request for a gift and that was a dog walking bag from Redhound For Dogs and here are more details on the bag itself and everything we generally use day to day!
REDHOUND FOR DOGS hold it all BAG
I’d been using an old small handbag for over a year and it had become very worn out and the handle was starting to crack so I knew it was time to get something a lot more practical. I’d looked at the Redhound bags before and always admired them but what swayed me is the fact they’re waxed which means they’re waterproof which is a must. Even though I don’t tend to walk the dogs in the rain because they absolutely hate wet weather it’s good to have something waterproof just in case. The inside is simple, there is a compartment for my phone and the large section is roomy enough for sunglasses, car keys and then all the dog's things. It’s comfortable to wear even when it’s full which my other bag certainly wasn’t. When it was packed it dag into my shoulder quite a lot whereas this is so comfortable, even on bare skin. Debbie kindly made mine with an adjustable strap so that it could sit higher on my hip so it can be left open which means treats are easy to reach which is exactly what I needed from my new bag. With regular rewaxes this bag will be something that I can keep for many, many years I’m sure and can’t wait to wear it in a little more.
GREY FELT BAG & SMALL TREAT BAG
A bag within a bag might seem a little silly but it works well for keeping the inside of my bag clean and tidy. I originally bought the grey felt pouch off eBay as I thought it was smaller but it was way bigger than I expected but it turns out it was perfect for my blue bag that holds all treats and then poo bags and whistle all in one so if I ever need to transfer things to a bigger bag it's easy to grab. For a long time, I used plastic sandwich bags for treats but a tiny little cosmetics bag is the more sustainable answer for keeping them from going everywhere and then you don’t end up with seriously crumby pockets. And whenever this has got a bit disgusting I’ve simply thrown it in the wash and it’s come out fine.
ACME DOG WHISTLE
This is a relatively new purchase for me and one I wish I’d made way sooner. Something that our one on one trainer suggested was to retrain Josie with a whistle and we picked the Acme brand as it’s plastic so the pitch never changes. Before we had a metal one that we picked up in Kennelgate and we found that the pitch constantly changed so it wasn’t as effective as it could have been. We still have a little while to go with whistle training but so far both the dogs respond to well to it, once we’ve really nailed it then it’s going to perfect for those occasions when they have wandered into the thick of the forest and might not be able to hear our voice that well.
POO BAGS
A must have for any dog owner for obvious reasons. We don’t typically go through a lot of poo bags as the girls do the majority of their bowel movements at home but obviously you never want to be without one just in case. We’re still using plastic poo bags at the moment and after reading an incredibly insightful post from Hattie over at The Cornish Dog about why biodegradable poo bags aren’t as eco-friendly as they sound so I think we might stick with them until we’ve used the current pack up. Like the majority of people on the planet I want to do as much as I can to reduce plastic but I also don’t want to buy into something that is not only more expensive but is really difficult to get it to biodegrade.
TREATS
We take our treat choice very seriously in our household as they both need something very tasty for training to be effective. A simple biscuit will not do when the stakes are high so this is what we regularly have in our treat bags;
Cheese
Mini sausages
Tripe sticks
Homemade biscuit chunks
BRINDLE & WHYTE COLLAR + LEAD
The girls are currently banned from wearing their beautiful B&W collars until they stop rolling in fox poo every other day. But typically, these are the leads and collars we use day to day and they not only look beautiful but they’re perfect for hounds that like to back out of other collars and harnesses. It’s only happened only a couple of occasions when Josie and Edie have been spooked by something but it’s not a good feeling knowing they can get out of their collars if they try hard enough as obviously that's very unsafe. The material that the collars and leads are made of is super soft against sensitive hound skin and it’s comfortable enough to hold as sometimes I find leads can be incredibly harsh on your hands. They’re also washable (do be careful of the brass though when washing frequently) which is the biggest reason why we love them as like I said, fox poo is a common smell in our house at the moment and they come out as good as new.
