Our 2 year border collie "graduated" to carrying her own pack this year. At first we put her dog food inside, then because she loves to swim so much, we had to instead load her pack with stuff that could get wet - mainly our water-crossing shoes. Although heavy, we brought her brush this time, and were really happy with that. A good grooming before getting inside the tent really kept it cleaner.

One unexpected problem we had were black flies. We happened to camp exactly during the short black fly hatch. She is a black haired dog, with thick fur- all we noticed was that black flies were on the tent ceiling and when squished they were full of blood. We finally looked under her fur and the poor dog had nearly a hundred black fly bites. The ones under her arms were getting raw due to the pack rubbing. We confined her to the tent but she would not eat. We left next morning and were out of black flies, and from then on she was fine.

Do any of you who live in black fly country know how to protect a dog from black flies?