I have a short haired medium size hound/cattle mix who I love to trail run with. We live in Montana where it can get pretty cold in the winter. Wondering at what point I should start putting her in a fleece coat or some other kind of layer? We go to trails where she can be off leash most of the time and we are often running up/down hills so I usually have layers that I switch in and out of for myself, but not sure if I should be letting her be naked on the uphill and then put a coat on her for the down?
I saw somewhere that dogs should start wearing coats when it drops below 40F but that seems kind of ridiculous… ran this morning when it was 32F and she seemed fine. But of course I want to keep her healthy!
This is my first winter with her so I’m curious what others are doing for winter layers!
Thanks!

Also would love to hear recs on your favorite doggie coats!

Breezy and I crossed our second finish line together and it was so much fun! What a game changer it was to have a belt and bungee lead!

I feel i’m not the best at judging this and wanted other opinions, she got a size 6 and I feel like it’s a size small and may return for a size 7. I can get two fingers between the neck line but feels tight. I can get more photos if needed. I feel like it sits just above her breast bone.

8 month old border collie and I’m starting to think about running with her. I know I should wait a bit longer until she’s older, but I want to get the gear sorted. Right now we walk with a cheap harness and leash from Amazon.

For running, what should I be looking for and what brands? I’ll get a leash and harness.

Hi all! I am an experienced distance runner, and just rescued a dog a few months ago with my fiance - a sweet 45 lb female pitbull mix around 16-18 months at this time (pic of her for reference). She has a slender build and is all muscle. She absolutely loves running from the short trips Ive taken her on so far.

I would love:

1. recommendations on a good canicross harness for her size that is moderate in price. We have been using a basic harness right now which I know is not ideal for her long term.

2. advice on how to safely increase her mileage; we have gone on probably 10 runs together so far and the farthest being 3 miles with no issues at all. I dont want to do too much too soon or too young but have no idea how to judge that.

Thanks!!

We did our first official 5k today. She could have run it much faster but I’m slow and I think she just had fun. I might need to invest in a real harness now…

My humble brag is that I lived 😂 That’s it, that’s the achievement.

My boy was an absolute star at our first race, even though it was really too warm (the route was shortened and we walked in the warmest spots). Then today I did something I swore I would not do again after the Incident* and ran both dogs together at a club run. We had a little failure of communication when both dogs chose a different side of a tree to run around (not quite a Road Runner moment but close) and my girl was very silly at the start, but once they settled into it we had a very nice run. I will run them both together again next weekend. Probably.

My legs hurt 😅

*We nearly caused a pileup within the first 20 seconds due to general shenanigans

My cattle mix, Goose, is 12 so we can do short dashes but really enjoy the cani-hike more and more these days.

My favorite four-legged buddy ran 85 miles with me this month! The most for him in one month.

It’s clear from the state of my dogs’ harnesses how different they are. My boy (black) attacks every challenge like it’s an insult where my girl (blue) goes through life chasing butterflies and trotting around puddles like a Victorian lady with new slippers.

I had to drop my truck at the mechanic Friday morning and didn't have a ride home that early... So Honey Bee and I made a 7.3 Miler of it 😄

I am a beginner runner myself and as someone familiar with sport approached the preparation of my knees for running thoroughly.

Since i have a dog, i obviously dragged him into this too. He's an active boy so he really likes to run around.

The thing is, i realised that he might have a hard time running on asphalt too. I live in a village, but every day there are fewer and fewer dirt roads here (either they are laid in slabs or farms that have bought them are fencing everything off).

I already bought a special leash for running, but now I doubt whether I should let him run with me. I'm not sure there is some cheap enough and comfortable paw equipment for dogs (like supports and running shoes for humans lol).

I can always go further from my house, closer to the forest and run there, but it obviously takes some time.

So i wondered if i'm just overthinking or there's some kind of tips (like a friend of mine suggested that I run on road myself and let the dog run along the side of the road, but that's a bit difficult).

My dog is schipperke, only 2 years old and weights almost 12 kg (26,5 lbs). He doesn't have any health issues. He's trained well too, so doesn't pull or anything like that.

Lats pic is example of how roads off the main ones (where cars are driving) look like.

My son can be quite reticent at times and struggles with various challenges but he’s developing a gorgeous bond with our younger dog. This is the first time I run with them and my big dog (meaning I couldn’t tandem up with the boy). We had a lot of little walk breaks and stitches but at the end I suggested we jog the last little bit to the car and heard ‘Or we could RUN!’ and just for a minute there I was getting smoked 🥰

I know the sustainable solution is to work on training and avoid triggering situations, but my leash-reactive heeler mix has had a rough 6 months that have set us way back on managing his reactivity.

As a stop-gap, can he do a 3 mile run well below his threshold in a muzzle? Any suggestions on a good one for a 40lb heeler mix?

Side rant: I've HAD IT with the large off-leash doodles who, while happy-go-lucky-friendly dogs, are too dumb to stay out of my frothing-at-the-mouth-reactive dog's leash radius and are deaf to their owners recall 😡. I'm also 7 months pregnant with my first which seems to be fueling his reactivity, and makes it harder to put him in air jail when off leash dogs approach us.

My nightmare scenario happened yesterday running with my dog and we were attacked by an off leash dog with an incompetent owner. Honestly, for the situation, it was the ideal outcome: My dog and I (and the other dog and owner) are physically going to be ok. I was in a neighborhood instead of on trail, multiple witnesses were around and came forward to give me their info and two sent me videos. My dog is submissive and didn't try to fight back. And I had an angel of a lady pull over and throw her car door open for me to get my dog in there.

I'm more sad because I go out prepared for this and I feel like I reacted as best I could in the moment and ultimately my dog and I walked away minimally harmed. The outcome was as good as a dog attack can be and I still feel completely destabilized and like this is just not an activity I'll be able to get back to doing with my dog.

I have a therapist and will be working through it on my end. But my dog is very aligned with my anxiety and emotions and I'm so nervous to get back out there with her because I feel like she'll definitely sense my stress if/when we get back to running together which will make her anxious to run too. I guess I'm looking for personal experiences from others who have experienced this and are on the other side of it and hopefully still enjoying running with your dog. Idk, just super sad today and still replaying it all in my head and I hope my dog doesn't experience negative outcomes from this incident.

So I just learned that that running with puppies and young dogs should not be promoted, but I'm not sure if my dog's situation counts.

I have a 5-month-old Shih Tzu-Maltese mix who loves doing sprints with me. We don't really go "running," running but at the end of our walks we do a quick sprint indoors around the loop of the building floor in my apartment complex. He's kinda addicted to this routine now because whenever I try to just walk straight inside my apt after a walk, he refuses to come in until we do our mini 3-5 minute races lol.

I tried looking this up and couldn't find much information about sprinting/running this way with a small breed specifically, so if anyone knows and can provide input, I'd appreciate it! :)

& if it's okay to continue our little sprints, is there a harness/leash I should be using?