Run like wolves
Morris has already clocked that this isn’t standard walkies when we arrive at Bedgebury Forest in Kent on a crisp winter morning. It’s not just because I’m wearing running gear; the venue is not one of our usuals, and we are now heading towards an unfamiliar pack of humans and dogs, all of whom seem very excited (and all of whom are a lot bigger than him).
Morris’s suspicions deepen when, after a friendly greeting, Ginetta George, co-founder of DogFit (dogfit.co.uk), interrupts his forensic sniffing of the undergrowth and gently but firmly fits him into a harness.
To be fair, I’m sympathetic as I struggle into my own, which, rather like a rock-climbing harness, loops over each leg and fastens at the waist. It feels a bit like wearing your pants over your trousers. The final act of kitting up is the most important one – attaching a bungee line to both harnesses so that Morris and I are, quite literally, joined at the hip.
We are about to try our), which held the UK’s first national championships in 2006. I’m hoping the sport might be just the thing for Morris, a socially awkward rescue Jack Russell with the copper top and limitless energy of a certain brand of battery, but zero recall.
