New Year's Day Drive With the Dog in Chester County

Our New Year's Day drive with the dog is a late start, a loop of Chester County back roads in the Camaro with Ella, one short cold walk and home before dark. We do not plan it tightly, and that is the point of the day.

This is how the day goes for us, from the first cup of coffee to the last treat in the pouch. Take whatever fits your own dog and your own roads.

A late start after a quiet night

We do not leave early on New Year's Day. New Year's Eve is an early night at home for us, so there is nothing to recover from, but we still take the morning slowly. Ella eats, we eat, and nobody looks at a clock until the middle of the day.

The drive is the first one of the year, and we like to keep it small. No destination, no list, no reservation. We pick a direction, and if we get tired of it, we turn around.

What goes in the car before we leave

The car gets packed in about five minutes. A towel goes on the seat for Ella. The console treat pouch gets filled, a water bottle and a bowl go in the trunk, and my coffee goes in the cup holder, where it stays until we are home.

I mean that last part. The coffee does not come on the walk and it does not come out at a stop. A driver with a hot cup in one hand is not paying attention to the dog, and a dog next to an open cup is a spill waiting to happen. It sits in the holder and stays there.

The pouch holds two kinds of treats. For the walk we use freeze-dried beef heart, which has medium sized pieces that are firm and snap into smaller ones, with a flavor milder than liver. It is a single ingredient, freeze dried, with nothing added, and it comes in 1.5, 3 and 6 ounce bags. For the car we use freeze-dried cheddar cheese bites, which come in one 8 ounce bag and stay crunchy and not greasy. Cheddar contains dairy, so it is not for a dog with a dairy sensitivity. Check that before the pouch is packed.

How our New Year's Day drive with the dog goes

We head out past the horse farms and take the back roads. The roads are usually quiet when we go on New Year's Day, with most of the usual traffic still at home, and that is the reason we go. Nobody is pushing us along and no one is behind us.

Ella rides in the passenger seat on the towel. For a daytime drive she wears the white circle-logo bandana. It has our 3-inch circle logo on the front, a classic tie-on fit, and it comes in white or black. We save the black one for night drives, like the one we take on Christmas Eve, which we wrote up in Christmas week with the dog in Chester County.

We drive slowly, past the horse farms and out along the gravel roads. Nothing on the route is special. It is the same loop we drive in every other season, and on the first day of the year that sameness is what we are after.

The short cold walk

About halfway through the loop we stop for a walk. It is short, a stretch of one of the gravel roads and back, and it ends when we are cold, not when the dog is tired. Ella gets a piece of heart at the start and another near the end.

We keep our winter walking habits in one place, winter walks with your dog, so we will not repeat them all here. The short version of this stop is that it is brief and it is on a road we already know.

The walk is not a workout and we do not try to turn it into one. Park, get out, walk, hand over a treat, get back in. It is the same rule we use all year, and it works just as well on the first day of January.

Back in the warm car

When we get back to the Camaro, the heater goes on before anything else. Ella gets back on the towel, and the towel does what it is there to do, which is take whatever the walk brought back with her. We shake it out later at home.

This is when the cheddar comes out of the pouch. A few pieces at the car door, one at a time, and then the door closes. Nobody is in a rush to leave, so we sit for a minute with the heat running, and then we pull out and take the long way home.

If your dog is on a special diet, ask your veterinarian before you add any new treat to the day.

Home before dark

We aim to be back before it gets dark. The drive is better in daylight and the walk is easier to see, and a day with the dog in the car feels finished when you are home and the sky is still light. The coffee in the cup holder is the last thing out of the car, usually cold by then, and I drink it anyway.

Ella goes straight to her bed. The towel goes in the wash, the pouch gets wiped out and refilled, and the Camaro goes back in its spot. That is the entire day, and it is a good way to start the year.

More drives to try

If you want a longer day out, we put the rest of our driving habits into winter road trips with a dog. For the other treats we pack through the winter, the shop has a training treats collection.

Questions

How long is the drive?

We do not time it. A loop of the back roads, one short walk in the middle and the trip home fills up an afternoon, and we turn around whenever we feel like it.

Where do you go?

Chester County back roads, past the horse farms and out along the gravel roads. We pick no place ahead of time, and we do not name a stop, because the route is not the point of the day.

What do you pack in the car?

A towel for the seat, the console treat pouch, a water bottle and a bowl in the trunk, and a coffee for the driver that stays in the cup holder. That is the whole list.

Which treats go in the pouch?

Beef heart for the walk, since it snaps into small pieces, and cheddar bites for the warm car afterward, since they stay crunchy and need no refrigeration. The cheddar contains dairy, so skip it for a dog with a dairy sensitivity.

Does the dog come on the walk?

Yes, and the walk is the reason for the stop. It is short, on a gravel road we know, and it ends when we are cold.

Why home before dark?

Because the day is better that way. We like to see the road on the way back, and we like to be in the door with the day still behind us.