Winter dog walking in Hampstead starts this weekend. The clocks go back at 2am on Sunday 25 October, and from then on it’s dark an hour earlier every evening. By mid-December the sun sets in London at around ten to four. Add a few wet weeks and Hampstead Heath turns properly muddy, which most dogs think is the best news of the year and most owners are less sure about. Here’s how our dog walking in Hampstead carries on through the darker months, and a few things that help when you’re walking your own dog after work.
How our dog walking in Hampstead works through the winter
The good news is that the clock change hardly touches our rounds. Both of our Hampstead walks happen in the middle of the day, when there’s the most light:
- Morning walk: your walker collects from home around 9:30, and your dog is back, settled, about an hour and a half later.
- Afternoon walk: collection around midday, and home again around 1:30.
- A full hour of walking: never less, and the drive isn’t counted in it.
- A WhatsApp from your walker: a video of your dog in action, and who they’ve been running around with today.
So even in the shortest weeks of December, your dog gets a proper hour out on Hampstead Heath in daylight. When your dog is home, your walker marks the booking complete in our app and you get a notification, so you know they’re back in the warm.
We walk in rain and in snow, as normal, as long as it’s safe to drive. The same walker turns up on the same days, in the same small group of no more than four dogs on Hampstead Heath. That routine matters even more in winter, when the days at home are long and dark and a dog with energy to burn can find the evenings hard going. You can read the whole walk step by step in what happens on a dog walk with us.
Mud on Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is a fantastic place to walk a dog in winter. The leaves come down, the views open up across the Hampstead Heath Extension, and the West Heath woodland is full of smells. After a wet spell, though, the paths get soft, puddles form in the dips and the ground can turn into a mud bath in places. Dogs love it.
The Hampstead Heath teams and the Heath Hands volunteers do a lot of work through the winter to help the ground cope, building small leaky dams from branches, digging channels to move water off the paths, and fencing off worn areas so the grass can recover. It helps if we all stay out of the fenced-off sections and give those areas the rest they need. Our walkers know Hampstead Heath through every season, and they choose where to take the group on the day.
Whichever route they take, our vans are kitted out with crates, so every dog travels home in its own space, and the air conditioning runs right through into the back, so dogs stay warm on the drive in winter.
Muddy paws at home: what helps
However the walk goes, a muddy Hampstead dog is a happy one. A few simple habits make the front door a lot easier:
- Keep an old towel by the door. Dry legs, paws and tummy before your dog heads for the sofa.
- Check between the toes. Mud and grit collect between the pads, and sore feet often show up as limping or lots of licking.
- Rinse off grit and salt. Once the roads are gritted, the RSPCA and Blue Cross both advise wiping your dog’s paws after a walk, because salt and grit can irritate the pads and upset a dog’s stomach if it’s licked off.
- Keep paw fur tidy. Trimming the fur around the pads stops mud clumping, and stops ice balls forming when it snows.
- Think about a coat. The RSPCA suggests a winter coat for dogs that feel the cold: older dogs, young dogs, small dogs and dogs with short or thin fur.
Dark evenings: staying seen on your own walks
Our walks are done by early afternoon, but plenty of Hampstead owners like an evening stroll round the block or a weekend walk that runs late. Once the clocks go back, that often means walking in the dark. Some sensible habits for your own walks:
- Be seen. A reflective or LED collar or harness for your dog, and something reflective for you, makes a big difference near roads.
- Stick to lit streets and paths after dark. Save the woodland and the open ground for daylight, when you can see your dog all the time.
- Use the lead near roads. Even a dog with great recall can miss a call in the dark.
- Check the tag. Make sure your dog’s collar tag has your current phone number on it.
Fireworks season runs right alongside the darker evenings, so it’s worth keeping your dog on the lead for evening walks over the coming weeks. Our guide to keeping your dog calm on Bonfire Night has more on getting through it.
Cold snaps, ice and frozen ponds
Hampstead Heath is famous for its ponds, and in a hard frost some of them ice over. Blue Cross advises keeping dogs away from frozen water and on a lead near it, and never following a dog onto ice yourself. If your dog does go through, call for help rather than going in after them.
Winter brings one serious poison to know about too. Antifreeze is very dangerous to dogs, and the RSPCA advises contacting a vet straight away if you think your dog has licked or drunk any, without waiting for symptoms. If your dog is ever hurt or unwell on one of our walks, we let you know straight away and take them to your own vet, or to the nearest vet if we can’t reach you.
Daycare: a whole winter’s day outdoors
For some dogs an hour out isn’t quite enough in the winter months, especially young, busy dogs who would otherwise spend a long dark afternoon at home. Our doggy daycare gives them a full day outside instead. Warren collects from Hampstead between about 8:30 and 9:30 and drives around forty minutes out to the Secret Woodland we’re lucky enough to use, for four hours in real woodland with a group of six. Daycare is run 100% by Warren, with WhatsApp videos during the day, and your dog is dropped home between 3:00 and 4:00, properly tired and ready for a quiet evening by the radiator. It’s £55 a day, including pickup and drop-off.
We love Hampstead Heath, and it’s fantastic all year round. It can get very busy, though, so for daycare we prefer the quiet, untouched Secret Woodland. If you’d like a feel for it, read what a good day of dog daycare in Hampstead looks like.
Booking winter walks in Hampstead
Walks are £25 each, and we ask for a minimum of two walks a week on average. All our walks are group walks, and every one of our walkers on Hampstead Heath holds a Hampstead Heath licence and stays within the limit of four dogs per walker. You can read why in why every one of our walkers holds a Hampstead Heath licence. We’re fully insured, with £2m insurance, and we hold your key, so you don’t need to be home.
You’ll find the walkers, times and daycare details on our Hampstead dog walking and daycare page, and more about how our walks work on the dog walking page. To find out which walker and group would suit your dog this winter, call Warren on 020 8442 0520 or send us a WhatsApp message. Every dog meets us first.