Hey Justin,
Seeing as my wife has a major aversion to going outside unless it's shopping I find that my faithful hound is the only one who ever comes out wild camping with me!
Unfortunately he has a major problem with other animals.....he loves humans and is very soft and gentle with us but HATES anything none human and just wants to kill it (this isn't uncommon for a GSD). Because of this he has to ALWAYS stay on his lead. I use one of the very heavy duty extender leads and find this works very well for him as it gives him more freedom but keeps me in control. He'd be a world beating sheep worrier if he got the chance so I just don't give him any opportunity. At camp I use a plastic coated steel tie out cable and just clip one end to him and the other to a large tree (He's pulled smaller trees out of the ground before!). If it's dry he just curls up and goes to sleep and if it's wet he slinks under my basha to sleep. GSD's are a fairly hardy bunch and even sleeping out in the wet doesn't really bother him.
I've got a wax jacket for him but he only wears it on short walks from home so he doesn't come into my wifes nice clean tidy house all wet and muddy...i.e. the jacket is for her benefit rather than his!
He makes tracking and stalking totally impossible as he's clearly been trained by the brute force and follow your nose school of tracking so we don't try anymore. I spent ages last year trying to teach him to stalk up on ravens in the local school field but the moment I let him try on his own he reverted back to the old tried and tested (and failed) CHARGE!!!!!
I don't take a seperate 1st aid kit for him but he know's his dad will let him use anything his little paws might need out of mine
As an ex-police dog he's fairly agile but I've found the carry handle on the back of his rucksac of great for helping him over styles safely.
He's also very good at looking after me while we're out: Once while camping in Brecon I made a slight error in setting up my basha next to a stream and directly over a footpath (janet street-porter would be upset!)... I had been out on a night walk so wasn't getting up early when I heard him barking and going mad at about 8:30am....I looked out of my sleeping bag to see what I guess must have been an entire school year group on some sort of hiking trip (I'd say about 150 odd teenagers and a few teachers). They were coming
down the path towards me, getting to the edge of where the steel tie out reached to and then having to walk around my camp in a large ark (the distance Samson could get too) and then back onto the path the other side of me....although he's very friendly he won't let strangers into my camp without me telling him it's ok! They looked like ants who's been made to go out of there way....one of the teachers smiled at me and said what a good dog I had before I drifted back off to sleep! :rolmao:
Last time I went to Brecon I took a mate of mine and he brought one of his mates. Samson knows my mate Steve very well but hadn't met Ben before...they got on great all day Saturday and we decided to use the bothy to stay in that night rather than bivvi out as they weren't really that ruffy-tuffy...anyway, halfway through the night Ben gets up and goes out for a pee...it's tipping it down with rainand when he comes back Samson doesn't recognise him and wouldn't let the poor ****** back in until I woke up, realised what was going on and told Sammy to stop being silly and let Ben in...poor Ben was soaked!!!! Boy did Steve and I laugh!!!!
):
Anyway, in short....take your hound wild camping...you'll love and he'll love it :super:
