UA-60701407-50 6 Benefits of Hiking with Your Dog - Golden Daily Scoop

August 15, 2014

6 Benefits of Hiking with Your Dog

There are so many benefits of hiking with your dog!

We love to hike, its a nice way to unplug from the world, reduce stress and get the heart pumping.
staying active and hiking with your dog #walktober
Here are a few benefits of hiking for you and your dog:
  1. Exercise: Regular consistent exercise is necessary to keep your dog in shape and it's a great way to get your heart pumping, making exercise seem like fun.
  2. Bonding: I can't think of a better way to bond with your dog than out in nature. 
  3. Scenery: Rather than just walking on pavement, its a nice change of scenery where your dog can experience new sights and scents. For humans, its a great way to unplug and get away from it all.
  4. Reduces Boredom and Stress: A nice long hike is a great preventative for destructive behavior for your dog at home. For humans, hiking is a great way to get those endorphins flowing!
  5. Socializing: Hiking is a great way for you and your dog to meet other hikers and their dogs. And it's also a fun way to spend time with your family and friends.
  6. Rewarding: Reaching the top of the mountain or end of a trail is a great accomplishment not only for you but for your dog and the best thing is that you did it together.
We are fortunate to live only 5 minutes away from one of our favorite mountains, Wachusett Mountain. You can ski down it during the Winter months and hike up it in the Spring and Summer.

For this hike we only took Bruin with us. When you have three dogs, sometimes it's nice to spend some quality one-on-one time with just one of them. (More about that in another post coming soon.)

Along there are many trails you can take to the top of the mountain, we took the paved road since this was Bruin's first hike.

hiking with your dog at wachusett mountain

Here is one of the ski trails you would ski down in the winter...

hiking wachusett mountain

Taking a rest under the ski lift that takes you back up the mountain...

keeping your dog active by hiking

A reminder to take pictures of the beautiful scenery, like we would ever forget! lol

hiking with your dog at Wachusett Mountain

One of my favorite stops, Harlow Lookout...

Old Stone House lookout point at Wachusett Mountain

One more quick break and photo opt...

living a healthy lifestyle by hiking with your golden retriever dog


Almost to the top...

the benefits of taking your dog for a hike

We finally made it! 

From the top you can see the Boston Skyline, which you can't see from this shot. Next time I will have to remember my longer lens! Darn!

top of Wachusett Mountain

 We are joining the FitDog Friday blog hop brought to you by SlimDoggy and co-hosts To Dog with Love and GBGV Life.

17 comments:

  1. What a great place for a first hike for Bruin. Harlow lookout is very pretty and quaint. Lucky you to have such a lovely place on your doorstep. Have a fabulous Friday.
    Best wishes Molly

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  2. We usually hike with our pawrents but right now we are having troubles with it being too hot.

    Your Pals,

    Murphy & Stanley
    Mayorz For All Paws

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  3. Beautiful spot for a hike - everything is so green. With our drought out here in CA, our hikes are all shades of brown. Thanks for the tips and for joining the Hop!

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  4. Lovely hike. We are also lucky to have a National Forest and a State Forest with many great hiking trails. And we live in a closed community with lots of hiking trails we use during hunting season and peak tourism.

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  5. You always have such great adventures.

    Here in AZ there is one added benefit - getting off the pavement can be tremendously cooler for your pup. We still don't recommend walking them when it 110 out, but if you have too it's the better way to go.

    Monty and Harlow

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  6. We love hiking here too!! We follow the 1 dog per hiker rule (of course our pups are 1/3 the size of yours. I bring one dog if I am hiking solo, this way I can spend quality time with each pup. If my hubby and I are both going, we will take 2 pups...

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  7. Hiking with your dogs is the best. I also agree with your 1 dog per hiker suggestion. I never actually thought about it be I follow that most of the time. The only exception is our Sunday morning hikes. That trail is only about 1 mile long so we take three dogs and them sit at the picnic area for a good 30 mins.

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  8. Love that camera sign! I have a seventh tip...after a good hike you can eat tasty snacks because you burned the calories ;) Looks like a super fun hike!

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  9. I think that sign reminding you to take pictures it adorable. Particularly funny when you take a picture of it.

    Looks like a really great hike!

    Wags (and purrs) What a sweet video!

    Are our 3 dogs (and 4 cats) equal? No, but they are loved equally.

    Wags (and purrs) from Life with Dogs and Cats

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  10. What a beautiful place, and a great walk!

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  11. We love hiking for all those reasons too. Looks like a beautiful spot! The camera sign amused me too!

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  12. Your pictures are awesome! We love to go hiking, too!

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  13. Mr. N loves hiking and as the sole dog, he gets to go on every hike!

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  14. I wish we'd had a scenery like yours here ;-) Have a lovely weekend.

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  15. That looks like such a nice hike!! I have a lot of family down in that area (Gardner). We used to hike a lot with the dogs, now it's only occasionally, but I always enjoy it and so do the dogs.
    Jan, Wag 'n Woof Pets

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  16. I want to take our dogs hiking, but I know that I can only take 1 or 2 at a time. I'm taking a vacation soon and this is one of the bucket list items I have planned.

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