Your dog friendly guide to the Peak District
Two loopy labs playing in snowdrift
With all the heavy snowfall that we have had in the last week, we are still left with huge drifts and piles of snow by the roadside. This can be a real pain for most of us, but for two dogs, the snow drift in the garden proved an irresistible game….
Check out the video to see two loopy labradors having lots of fun in the snow!
Tilly’s little stick
Mum’s been laughing at me this week, cos of my new game. The game usually starts once I have checked out all the new smells and scents during my dog walk. I like watching mum panic when she can’t see what I’m getting up to.
I like to start the game by picking up a relatively short stick and trotting along with it, until my mum notices and comments on the stickiness/danger/length (delete whichever doesn’t apply) and tells me to “leave it” in no uncertain terms. Obviously because I am such a well behaved dog – most of the time, I oblige and leave the offending stick in the most awkward place that I can find. This is usually followed by a cross noise from mum and results in the stick being hoofed out of the way.
A little bit later, I generally emerge from the undergrowth with a slightly bigger stick. Sometimes it’s bigger because it’s longer, other times it’s bigger because it resembles a log that you’d throw on the fire. I struggle sometimes to get my jaws around the log, but I always manage. Mum’s often getting comments like “collecting wood for the log fire?” She wouldn’t mind, but we don’t have one.
After a while, I smell something nice and rush off to explore, pheasants usually take off from the undergrowth at this stage, often making mum jump out of her skin, which is quite funny to watch.
Just when she thinks I’ve forgotten all about them, I bring out my piece de la resistance! The biggest, longest stick you could imagine. So big, that I often have to drag it by the end, because its just too big to try and counterbalance. My record so far, exceeds the width of the Monsal Trail, and that’s no mean feat, as it is possible to drive a vehicle along it (so that gives you an idea of the width). Mum usually let’s me carry it for a short while, but she’s usually watching for unsuspecting cyclists to suddenly appear. It’s never happened yet, but there’s always a possibility that I might unseat one of them…..felled by a dog with a stick!
Check out my latest masterpiece.
Challenging weather for dog walks
Snow tipped Peaks view from the Monsal Trail
This week has been a bit challenging from a weather perspective. I don’t mean huge snow drifts and difficult driving conditions – we’ve already had all that. I mean how quickly the weather changes. To demonstrate what I mean, I thought I’d show you some pictures of a dog walk that I did earlier in the week.
I decided to walk along the Monsal Trail before doing the school pickup, and was enjoying a pleasant winter sunshine walk. It was so cold, I had resorted to wearing cycling shorts underneath my jeans and I had no less than 5 layers on my top half! The sun was out and the dusting of snow that we’d had was sparkling, so I decided to take a picture.
Beautiful blue skies on the Monsal Trail
Shortly afterwards, I met one of my usual doggie walking friends and we remarked on how lovely the weather was. I don’t think I’d walked much further, when the first snow flakes started to waft around. I looked up, and noticed that the sky had gone from bright blue to light grey and foggy looking. It had been no more than 10 minutes from taking the first picture, and now look at the weather…….
10 minutes later, a snow storm
They say the weather in the Peak District changes fast, but this is ridiculous.
Not sunny in the South
A couple of days later, after watching in amazement the media pictures from the South, showing traffic chaos in what seemed like less than an inch of slush, I decided to take a picture of some of the snow spectacles up here. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this beautiful snow drift. This had appeared after a day of very light snow and strong winds. Amazing the force of nature.
Pretty snowdrift on my dogwalk
Discovering new dog walks
During a particularly nice day this week, I decided to go to the Goyt Valley for a dog walk. I parked at The Street car park, which lies almost in between Errwood and Fernilee reservoir.
I walked to the top of the carpark (uphill) and followed the roughly trodden footpath which runs parallel with the road. After a short walk, the path naturally crosses towards the road and you will notice a five bar gate on the right hand side with a signpost to the Midshires Way. The post is signed Hoo Moor and Fernilee Reservoir.
This path is actually a wide stoned track which goes through the centre of some woodland. It was such a beautiful day, I took a photo.
Crisp Winters morning on the Midshires Way in the Goyt Valley
There are signs indicating that there is forestry work being undertaken, so care would be needed if you heard vehicles moving around. There was plenty of evidence that tree felling actuvities had taken place!
Neatly piled logs on the Midshires Way
I continued along the track until I reached the gate at the end. At this point, you have an opportunity to turn right and go towards Fernilee reservoir or carry straight on towards a farm and head to Taxal. I chose the latter option, but in hindsight it would have been far better to turn back and follow the signs to Fernilee, since the walk was not particularly stunning and Tilly had to negotiate a nasty stile, where the local farmer had decided to fence all around the stile and not allow any animals under or around it. The only resort was to jump over it. Thankfully Tilly is pretty athletic and managed it without any problems.
By the time I had negotiated my way round the various footpaths and stiles I arrived back at Fernilee reservoir and walked through the woodland back towards Errwood reservoir and The Street car park, where I had begun the walk.
Looking forward to the weekend
I don’t think the weather is going to be very nice. It’s given rain and light snow during the weekend. There are the usual Craft fairs on in Bakewell, but I think it will be a case of donning the waterproofs having a swift march around with the dog (or at least my husband will..) and then off for a bit of Retail Therapy in the “big smoke” (aka Sheffield!)
Enjoy!
For those of you, who have been following my antics over the last couple of days, you will realise that I have had a poorly paw. Well actually it was the inside of my back leg, my mum thought it was my paw, as I was hobbling around to get a bit of sympathy….
Anyhow, during a bit of rough and tumble with the "little person" of the family, she spotted some gunk in my wound. Off I was rushed to the V.E.T.
After a great deal of licking and jumping around in excitement (me, not the V.E.T.) I was presented with some rather attractive headgear! Obviously, I tried to get it off, with a great deal of pawing, but it was not budging.
Mum has made a lot of fuss of me, and given me lots of hugs and cuddles, but the stupid thing still hasn't come off. How I'm going to sleep in this thing is beyond me, but if I can't sleep, then nobody else is going to either. I'm going to make sure I bang into every object around the house, during the wee small hours, so that everyone knows how I feel.
Yours in misery……Tilly xxx
I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself today. Which stupid two legged person invented barbed wire?
How was I to know there was some nasty sharp metal lurking around when I was sniffing rabbits….
Mum tried to chase me round the kitchen with some nasty salt water, once she realised that I had actually hurt myself and wasn't doing my "dying swan" act, as she calls it. She said that I should be on the stage with the looks that I give her sometimes….
Anyhow, mum and I are just putting together our newsletter for this month. We are a bit behind, something called "school holidays" seems to have caused a few problems this week. Mum says we'll get back to normal next week (whatever normal is?) As long as I get my walks, some grub and a bit of love, that all I care about. For now, I'm going back to licking my poorly paw and feeling sorry for myself – it might get me a bit more gravy in my dinner tonight…….
Yesterday, whilst walking our dog in Monyash, in the Peak district, we came across a dog running loose near the public toilets. It narrowly avoided being hit by a car as it dashed across the road towards our dog. It had a collar on, but no ID tag, and it was subsequently found that it was not microchipped either.
I contacted the Police and was told that they no longer deal with lost dogs and that my two options were to either contact the RSPCA or the local council. I opted for the latter and got in touch with the local dog warden. Two and a half hours later the dog was collected by the dog warden with no sign of the owner.
The local police station in Bakewell has been informed that a dog has been found, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that the owner is reunited with the dog as soon as possible.
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