Our 2016 trip to Algonquin Park marked the third time Maya had hiked the Beaver Pond Trail. This is a fairly short trail, just over 2 kilometres, but that’s getting long for a 14 year old dog. The trail isn’t flat either, so her harness allowed us to give her help up and down steep hills and steps.

The trail started off with a newer boardwalk / bridge with a warning about a steep cliff and that children (and dogs) should be supervised.

Maya successfully navigated around tree roots and rocks, even though her sight wasn’t 100 percent at this point. She seemed to do much better on more difficult trails and stumble on the flatter ones.

Large erratic boulders were seen throughout this and other hikes, left here by the glaciers.

It had rained off and on during the day, so we had to be extra careful on slippery surfaces.

The large logs did not make this incline easier for Maya so she was taken up along the outside edge, with the help of the handle on her harness for support.

After reaching the top of the hill, Maya looked back to see what she had accomplished.

Here’s a better look at the handle on Maya’s Webmaster Harness by Ruffwear. Excellent quality and extremely helpful for older dogs who still love to hit the trails.

The handle also gave us piece of mind that she wasn’t going to slip or trip on anything dangerous.

The harness was still pretty new to her and we had never had one on her in the past so we didn’t hook the lease to the back hook, it was hooked to her collar. After a snack at the top of the cliff, we made our way back to the trail head and then went to the Costello Creek Picnic area for lunch.