A Pup's Big Three

One of the most common questions I got on the Appalachian Trail this time is "What kind of gear do you have for your dog?" When I first started thinking about bringing Sawyer on my second thru hike, I had no idea where to start gear-wise and compared to human gear lists, there really isn't too much info out there for dogs. Sawyer has been on plenty of day hikes and a few overnights, but I had no idea how he would do or what he would need for something as big as a thousand or so miles on the Appalachian Trail. This is Sawyer's "big three"- which means his tent, sleep system, and backpack. I should also say that I carried all of Sawyer's gear the entire time he was with us- so even though you see a backpack listed here, we ended up not using it.

Tent

Obviously, Sawyer slept in the tent with Cobra and I every night. When he started hiking with us in Vermont, we were carrying the Z Packs Duplex. This is a two person tent and the three of us had plenty of room in it as long as we left our gear in the vestibules. For winter, we switched to the Big Agnes Tigerwall UL 2.

Sawyer in the Tigerwall

We soon found out that not all two person tents are made equally as we had noticeably less room in the Tigerwall. With a dog Sawyer's size (100 pounds) I can't believe we made it work for as long as we did. We actually had to start sleeping with our heads in the footbox of the tent since it was smaller at that end, so that Sawyer had more room to curl up at the wider end of the tent. All in all though, the tent grew on us a lot because of how well it kept our heat in during the winter and we began to get used to (and maybe even began enjoying) being smashed together.

The Bean and the Duplex

Sleep System

This was what I struggled with most in my research phase with Sawyer. Because he is a Bernese Mountain Dog, he is almost always hot. However, I knew we would be experiencing some wild weather on the trail and didn't want him to be cold at night.

Wrapped in my puffy and emergency blanket on a chilly night in PA

In the warmer months- I only carried my old Gossamer Gear Thinlight 1/8 inch pad for him to sleep on. When the temps began to drop around mid Pennsylvania, I started carrying a piece of Thermarest Z Lite I had cut a few sections from since it has at least a little insulation. For nights when it would drop into the thirties, I had an emergency blanket that I would wrap him in and on exceptionally cold nights I would also cover him with my puffy. When we began getting some serious weather around mid Virginia, I began carrying his 'sleeping bag'. This was actually just a down blanket I had found on Amazon and had a local seamstress sew in some Velcro on two of the sides to turn it into a type of 'doggo quilt'. I had no idea how warm it would be, but was pleasantly surprised, as I used it myself quite a few nights to wrap up beside the camp fire. It was light, packable, and fit around Sawyer perfectly.

It doesn't look like it here, but I think Sawyer really did like his sleeping bag!

Backpack

I'll go into detail about the number of backpacks Sawyer has tried (3... sigh), in another post. But for the sake of this gear list, I'm going to post the only one that worked for him (even though he only carried it for 2 days- which is another thing I will expand upon at another time).

Sawyer in his custom Groundbird Gear harness & pack

The Groundbird Gear Pack and Harness fit Sawyer perfectly as it's custom made based on your dogs measurements. For something as big as a thru hike, where you can't afford rubbing and chafing on your dog, this is something I highly suggest. The bags on either side of his pack are roll top and are super easy to get into while the pack is still on your dog. For breaks, you can unclip the pack from the harness to give your pup a break without having to unclip the entire harness.

The pack can be unclipped from the harness for breaks

Shelter Sleeping and Cowboy Camping

When the real winter weather began to hit somewhere around Virginia, the three of us took to sleeping in shelters more often than we thought we would. With no one else on the trail, we had them completely to ourselves and were able to set our tent up inside them for added protection and warmth. There were only a handful of nights that we slept in a shelter without our tent or cowboy camped (slept on the ground with no tent). Sawyer has never ran away from us but I am a very worried and protective dog mom so I always clipped his leash on and secured him to me in these situations. I wouldn't be able to sleep anyway worrying if he would wander off at night.

A shelter we stayed out of the wind at in southern PA