Whenever you travel with your dog, you need to have water – everyone knows that, right? But when you’re hiking, carrying enough water for both of you can be a challenge. How do you lug it around? How much do you need?
How much you need will depend on many factors – what’s the weather? Does your dog drink a lot? Get hot easily? Will there be safe drinking water available?
Cannon and Karma have very different water needs. Cannon, our Africa dog, requires probably half the water Karma does on a typical summer hike. Katina and I have separately paid attention to how much water our dogs go through and have altered how much water we carry to accommodate our boys.
Karma will easily go through a 32oz Nalgene bottle on a 3-4 hour hike in the summer. To do this I have purchased a CamelBak daypack with a reservoir that holds about 48oz of water. I can also fit a 32oz Nalgene in the pack along with a collapsible water bowl and other necessities.
If you’ve ever used a CamelBak or similar product you know that you must bite the straw-like tube and suck the water out like a straw. It’s a little hard to train a dog to do this – haha. However, if you hold the tube open by squeezing it and then squeeze the reservoir – either by wearing the pack and leaning against a tree or taking the pack off and pushing on it – water will flow out and into the dog bowl.
Honestly, I think it’s easier to pour from a bottle but the CamelBak is a great option and it’s much easier to carry the water in this way.
A note on “safe drinking water:” Just because a trail has water – in the form of a stream or pond or other – does not mean it’s safe to drink! It is so easy for your dog (or you!) to pick up a parasite from a stream that looks perfectly fine. When in doubt, try to keep your dog from drinking water that you don’t know anything about. Also, monitor your dog’s health for a few days (especially his poop) following a slurp from an unknown stream.
