Mine hate rain,mud,wet grass etc so walking them during winter isn't really a major problem as they avoid puddles,mud,etc all apart from Kissy at the moment and nothing phases her

I'm just not enjoying this toilet training malarky in gale force winds and pouring rain Kissy is doing well though even though the floors ain't

Same here, Lynne. We go to the park in the dark, there's always joggers and other dog walkers, the lights at the astroturf football pitch are usually on till 10pm, if not, we still go! It's pitch black but beside a main road, and the dog have their disco lights on and still get off lead. Mad I hear you say? Yes, but it's gotta be done and the love it!

Oh I definitely prefer the cold, frosty-but- sunny mornings that we can get this time of year - but wet wet wet just gets depressing! Hate walking in heat though!

same routine here as well, we just walk with head torches, i quite like it, because theres nobody else there, as for the cleaning and all the rest of it, cleaning gets done as and when and if i need cake i go to ASDA

The routine here stays the same, well with these three it has too. Although as the darker nights come earlier Reah stays here on the last walk but then Reah has never liked the dark.

I was out the other night at 7pm cleaning out the chickens and rabbit.....torches and security light come in handy

I love the dark frosty walks so do my dogs as for the mud, these get/find mud and water whatever the weather

Our routine stays the same...I'm always up at 6, make Clive a cuppa and take Leon out..how long I'm out depends on him as sometimes he wants to go all the way round the park and the Toot, (about a mile), other times he does what he needs to do and heads for home.

Fortunately, where we live now, although it is dark over the park and the Toot, there are street lights along the way that come on as you approach them, so although its still quite dark its never pitch black. Leon is a good boy and I always let him off once we're away from the road, and he stays close, I'm not sure I would let him off if he wasn't so obedient though.

If I'm working then he gets his lunchtime walk during my lunch break..but I do realise I'm very lucky these days in that I work from home most of the time so can accomodate his walks around the weather etc., but he is a real creature of habit and he rarely lets me deviate timewise on his walks.

The only difference really is that in the summer I take him out for his last walk at about 9 pm whereas his last walk in winter is around 7pm.

When I had all the babies I remember having to scrub the kitchen floors and wall several times a day and I was forever washing their bedding as it was always soaking wet and muddy from them going in and out all day to the garden. Ohhh I still miss those days

Those of you with a park/open space nearby - are they lit (paths etc?), and are you ok walking your dog with a torch?

Because of where we live (rural area), we have hardly any street lights, and the majority of the roads (single track, no pavement) and footpaths are absolutely pitch black after about 4pm.

The only open space we can walk the dogs off lead is the beach, which, in the dark, or even with a torch, I wouldn't feel safe letting the dogs off lead. It's difficult enough in the daylight, having to control them both. There are foxes, badgers, sinkholes filled with water, sharp rocks, not to mention the dead fish/animals washed onto the beach. And that's when the tide is out!!

Our only option in the winter is a 1 mile round walk on pavements, with no chance of an off-lead run at all

Do you not have access to any fields or anything? I definately wouldn't feel comfortable walking on a beach at night, either.

Thats how it was when I lived in Lincolnshire Shelley, wonderful in the summer but really limits you in the winter months...I wouldn't have dared let the younger setters off lead, especially if I had the beach as close as you do And I don't think they would have relished the idea of staying on the lead for a long walk either, they love to run as your two do.

The lighting around here is brilliant really as the street lights are quite dim but come on brighter as you approach them...I suppose thats what you get living in a city..we are lucky in that we get the best of both worlds where we live now...country walks and the town just a short drive away.

Nope, it's all agri-land here, with sheep or cows on, no crops. There's no way of telling what is in the field unless you bump into it

There is only one little park in the area and it's a kiddie's park, with swings etc in, and I don't really want to walk the dogs there, given the fact that all the local littlies play in it.