The village walk

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FayRose

Location
Close to Devon/Somerset border
Our village and 2 others within a couple of miles arrange a village walk twice a year, spring and autumn. This is no pussy-footing totter, it's a serious yomp over hill and dale and usually attracts around 25 + villagers. At the end, we gather in the village hall (of the one with a church and village hall) for a cream tea, good old gossip and raffle to raise funds for the village hall and a chosen charity.

The point of this waffle is that a good 50% of participants take their dogs, so often a dozen or more. There are usually a few labs, spaniels, a batch of jack russells, a pointer or 2 , a couple of mixtures - and a bassett hound. Also there has been for a couple of years, 1 on lead re-homed lab.

Thinking of what happened to Leanne's Mas when out with a gathering of off lead dogs and 1 on lead I've been wondering if there is a breed 'thing'. I can honestly say, that in the 16 years I've been involved with this, there has never been a nasty incident, all dogs seeming to get on without a problem. They don't all know each other, coming form different villages, also over the years, oldies have gone and new pups joined, so all ages present - Molly had her 1st village walk when less then 6 months.

Mostly they are 'gun dog' type dogs and I wonder if this has any effect on their attitude to other dogs. Just a thought - any comments? :hmm:
 
Atemas

Atemas

UK Tour Guide
Location
North Cambridgeshire
What a great way of raising funds for the village hall. A few years ago I organised a dog walk around the fields of our village to raise funds for our church. We all ended up back in the church and had soup and rolls and a raffle. The dogs were so well behaved in the church. I like the idea of the cream tea.
 
Selina27

Selina27

Location
Herefordshire, UK
Yes, it is interesting. I think I agree with @Jelinga, maybe the walk has some other "purpose" that the dogs pick up on so it doesn't have a lot of hype around it. Or maybe the dogs are spread across the age range and/or do this sort of thing more often and are not there for "socialization".
The village walk sounds great, what a lovely thing to do, even if it's not for the fainted hearted :)
 
F

FayRose

Location
Close to Devon/Somerset border
Ah, yes, I'd missed the fact that Mas was in a group that was just left together without a purpose. There is always such a good atmosphere on the village walks and we stop half way when one of the farmers brings lemonade and chocolates to keep us going :D The dogs just mill around hoping for dropped food I expect, no trouble and then off we go again. They all seem to thoroughly enjoy themselves. We're walking for around 2.5 hours, so we do work for our cream tea ;)
 
Mabel’smummy

Mabel’smummy

Location
Coventry
@FayRose that sound idyllic. Enjoy. I belong to two groups that do organised walks. The one group has had the occasional altercation although nothing particular that’s caused a problem, the organiser always states that dogs should be well suited to a group walk. She is also in the good position that she knows the dogs because it’s only open to anyone who has used her training classes. The second group I belong to is superb offering different types of group walks, and if there is a problem the owner in question is informed privately that there is an issue and asked to not come along until the problem has been addressed. I personally stay away from any group of dogs where it appears to be a free for all.
 
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