closing the loop on my first full backcountry season with our young aussie and writing down the conditioning arc and the trip planning learnings because the published trail dog material reads like a gear list and underweights the piece that actually determined whether each trip worked, which was the slow build of cardiovascular base and trail miles across the spring rather than anything we bought
Pippin is five and this was the first season i finally pushed our trip ambitions into the range i had wanted since we got him at ten weeks. we did two overnights, four long day trips with elevation...