Originally Posted by
FarmerChef
Our family hikes with our Alaskan Husky, Sara, and, as Shelterbuilder pointed out, we always leash her in camp too. As a breed Huskies are nomadic and will often go chasing after the first thing that goes "peep" (gotta love all the AT chipmunks). After a full day of hiking, she just usually wants to eat her dinner, have a drink and hit the sack. Unless, of course, there are other people nearby. Then she wants to wag her tail and get some attention, which most are willing to provide. Could we take her off leash in camp? Probably. But a couple of times chasing a Husky through the woods quickly teaches you that an ounce of prevention is worth miles of cure.
As to our particular approach, Sara is not a chewer so we don't have the same problems others have described with regard to night time tie outs. And we've found through experimentation that the right combo for her/us is her leash extended by about 10 feet (total of 15 or more) with whatever extra cordage we have on hand and clipped to a tree, our packs, the center pole of the tent, whatever. She won't pull on it except if she gets tangled up and runs out of cord (rarely an issue). With that length she can get up and move about freely and can come in and out of our tarp as she feels comfortable. She usually likes to sleep in between the kids on top of their bags. They get warm feet/heads and she gets a soft bed. Everybody wins!