When it was summer, going for a walk was a simple case of my human getting my harness, me running out onto the balcony through my dog door, her chasing me through the human door, me running back inside through my dog door, her coming back through the human door, me running back out my dog door... etc.
But now it's winter it's dark when we leave for our morning walk, and dark for our whole evening walk. So we need more stuff.
In the picture below you can see: my human's reflective cycling vest with little red flashing lights; her new raincoat (because it's tricky to pick up poo whilst holding an umbrella in the rain); her cycling jacket; my treat pouch with my new reflective collar; my harness; and my leash with poo-bag holder.
My human's very into wearing reflective stuff, because she says that when she's driving at night she quite often doesn't see pedestrians or cyclists until she's very close, and that if you are a pedestrian you think the cars can see you because you can see them, but that's not always the case. And you never know if your puppy is going to try to dart out into the street, or suddenly stop, particularly when you have to cross a main road at early peak hour in the dark. So we need all the help we can get.
This is my new flashing reflective collar. I only wear it when we go for a walk, it goes on over the top of my normal collar.
It has a thingy inside it which glows red, so not only is it reflective, but it blinks red as well. It's very good in the dark, especially for letting cyclists know where I am, as well as my human when we go off-leash in the park in the mornings.
Here's what it looks like when I'm wearing it, and you can also see my harness, which is a soft mesh from Puppia. My human prefers harnesses to collars when walking, because she's seen so many dogs being dragged around by their collars that she's worried about hurting my neck.
This is my normal collar. It's got white reflective stitching, which turns out to be very reflective, as you can see
here. It also has my council registration tag and my name tag, with my name and phone number on the back. It used to have my microchip tag and pet register tag as well, but my human decided there were too many tags, and if I get lost someone can just call the number on my name tag, and anyway I have a microchip so they can always get me home.
Here's a close-up of my leash. My human particularly likes it because the pattern colours are reversed on the other side. My poo-bag holder is nice and soft, so it doesn't accidentally bash into things like my head. You can see my blinker on the right. Blinkers are also very good for visibility, but my human has decided she prefers my new reflective collar, because you can see it from more angles.
A very important part of our walk equipment is the treat pouch. We like to do some training when we go for walks (though how much we do depends on how many other interesting things there are in the park at the time). This treat pouch goes around my human's waist, and has pockets to hold the clicker and a spare poo bag. It's also big enough to hold a small torch.
This is our walking torch. My human uses it to make sure we're not walking into broken glass, in the spots where the trees hide the street-lights. And also to see what I'm eating.
The most important thing to take on any walk is, of course, me!
