Fall is Lucy’s favorite season to be outside, and it’s easy to see why. The air smells like a thousand new things, the leaves make a satisfying crunch, and every yard has a fresh squirrel situation to monitor. It’s also the season when a few extra habits make walks a lot safer, so these are the four we’ve settled on.

1. Mind the ground

Fall is when the ground gets interesting for a dog. Acorns drop, mushrooms pop up in damp spots, and leaf piles hide whatever was there before the leaves landed. Most of it is harmless. A few things aren’t.

Acorns contain tannins that can upset a dog’s stomach, and they can cause an obstruction if swallowed. Wild mushrooms are the bigger worry: some are toxic, and they tend to show up when the weather turns cool and damp. The ASPCA’s guide to mushroom toxicosis is worth a read before your next woods walk, and Vetstreet’s list of fall dangers for pets covers acorns and a few other seasonal hazards.

The habit that helps most is a solid “leave it.” If your dog does eat a wild mushroom, call your vet right away and take a photo or a sample of the mushroom with you if you can safely do so.

2. Be seen

The clocks haven’t even changed yet, and the evening light is already getting short. That means more walks happen in dusk or the dark, when drivers have less time to spot a dog and her person.

A clip-on light on the collar, a reflective leash, or a light-colored jacket for the human all help. Lucy’s black coat is gorgeous and nearly invisible after sunset, so we treat a collar light as part of the evening routine, not an extra.

3. Check for ticks

Here’s the one that surprises people: cooler weather doesn’t end tick season. Ticks are active any time temperatures are above freezing, and adult deer ticks (the ones that can carry Lyme disease) are actually most active in fall. VCA Animal Hospitals explains why a cold snap isn’t a reliable off switch, and the Companion Animal Parasite Council supports year-round prevention.

After any walk through woods, brush, or tall grass, run your hands over her ears, between her toes, under her collar, and along her belly. It takes a minute, and it’s much easier to catch a tick early.

4. Cozy down time

The best part of a fall walk is what happens when it’s over. We wipe off muddy paws, towel off her coat if it’s damp, and then Lucy picks a spot and goes completely limp. A warm, supportive bed makes that stretch of the day better, and it’s a nice reward for a dog who did a lot of sniffing and a lot of squirrel patrol.

Lucy’s fall walk gear

(Quick disclosure: the links below are Amazon affiliate links. If you shop through them, Lucy earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.)

For the tick check: K9 Advantix II, Large Dog: flea and tick prevention that keeps working after the weather cools off. As always, check with your vet about the right option for your dog.

For the cozy part: The Nap Bed: Lucy’s go-to spot for the post-walk collapse.

Lucy’s official position

She would like it on record that she was perfectly capable of walking safely the whole time. She would also like the treat she got for sitting still during the tick check.

Related: The Creek at the Cabin · The Summer-to-Fall Itch · See Lucy’s Favorite Things

It began the way it always does — a flicker of movement at the far edge of the yard, there and gone before I could confirm it was anything at all. Lucy did not need confirming. She went from lying down to full sprint in under a second, crossed the lawn at a speed I can only describe as structurally concerning, and hit the fence line just as the squirrel made for the maple.

What followed was a systematic search. She worked the base of the trunk in both directions, nose to the bark, checking under the roots. She circled the tree twice. Then she lay down in the grass directly beneath it — dead grass, sun-bleached, one front paw folded under her — and stared up with the fixed, unblinking intensity of a dog who fully intends to wait this out.

The squirrel, from somewhere in the canopy, said nothing and did not move.

Backyard pursuit report

• Duration: 22 minutes
• Squirrels located: 1 (initial sighting only)
• Squirrels caught: 0
• Tree trunk inspections: exhaustive
• Time spent lying in the grass staring upward: 9 minutes
• Patience displayed by the squirrel: better than any dog’s has ever been

Eventually the yard went quiet enough that a nap became the more compelling option, and Lucy made the transition without much ceremony — mid-stare to fully asleep, same patch of grass, squirrel still unaccounted for.

She checked that tree again the next morning. Still empty. Some rivals you don’t defeat, you just keep an eye on.

Somewhere between the last hot afternoon and the first cool morning, Lucy’s scratching changes its whole personality. Summer scratching is quick and specific — a flea patrol behind one ear, a grass-seed investigation between the toes. By the time the leaves start turning, it’s slower and more constant, the kind of scratch that means her skin has gone dry and cranky right along with the weather.

We didn’t clock this pattern until her third fall with us. Now it’s just part of the calendar: the itch changes shape, so the routine has to change with it.

The summer hangover

Summer allergies don’t actually end on the first cool day — they linger. Grass, ragweed, and whatever pollen is still airborne in September keep irritating a dog’s skin well past the point the humans have moved on to sweater weather. The fix isn’t complicated: keep up the after-walk wipe-down, keep flea and tick prevention going through the transition instead of stopping the day it feels cooler out, and don’t assume “it’s fall now” means allergy season is over.

The fall arrival

Then the actual autumn problem shows up: the air dries out, and so does everything attached to a dog. Coats get flakier, skin gets tighter, and an itch that was “seasonal allergy” in September starts looking more like “just needs moisture” by October. This part is less about fighting something and more about repairing — hydrating the coat and skin barrier instead of just managing an irritant.

Lucy’s Seasonal Transition Kit

(Quick disclosure: the links below are Amazon affiliate links — if you shop through them, Lucy earns a small commission at no extra cost to you.)

The Summer Protector: K9 Advantix II, Large Dog — flea and tick prevention that keeps working past the point the weather cools off, because the bugs don’t read a calendar.

The Fall Hydrator: Burt’s Bees for Dogs Oatmeal Shampoo — an oatmeal-and-honey formula for the stretch when a regular bath starts leaving her coat drier than it found it.

The Internal Shield: Zesty Paws Wild Alaskan Omega-3 — a salmon-and-pollock oil blend mixed into her food for skin and coat support from the inside, which matters more once the air stops doing the humidity’s job for her.

Lucy’s official position

The itch changed. The routine changed. She would like this noted for the record, then never discussed again.

Related: The Creek at the Cabin · See Lucy’s Favorite Things

The cabin came with a neighbor this trip: a six-month-old collie mix who is, somehow, already bigger than Lucy.

We met him on the gravel path between cabins, and Lucy clocked the size difference before she clocked anything else about him. There was no barking, no bluster — just a long, careful once-over, the kind she usually reserves for large dogs at the vet’s office. He, for his part, walked right up like they’d known each other for years, tail going, completely unbothered by the fact that he already outweighed her.

They ended up nose to nose for a solid ten seconds, neither one moving, both of them clearly doing math. Lucy’s math seemed to be some version of “he is a puppy and he is already this big,” which is, frankly, a fair thing to be concerned about.

First meeting report

• Size assessment: concerning, but not alarming
• Bark count: zero
• Tail status: cautiously still, then a slow wag once he sat down
• Verdict: acceptable, pending a rematch once he’s fully grown

By the end of the walk she’d relaxed enough to let him sniff her ear, which in Lucy terms is basically a hug. We’ll see how this goes once he’s stopped growing — which, by the look of those paws, might be a while yet.

There’s a creek that runs along the path near the cabin, and Lucy found it about four minutes into the walk. True to form, she waded straight in — paws first, no hesitation — right up until the water hit past her ankles, at which point her whole posture changed. Ears back. Expression somewhere between “I meant to do that” and “I would like to leave now.”

She held her ground in the shallows just long enough for a photo, damp and clearly reconsidering every choice that led her there, before turning to study the water like it owed her an explanation.

This is, more or less, the exact policy she’s had on lakes for as long as we’ve known her: technically willing to get in, strongly prefers to be the one who decides when to get out. Trails over swimming, every time — but she’ll allow a good long look at the water first.

Creek report

• Time spent actually in the water: roughly four seconds
• Time spent staring at the water afterward, deeply suspicious: several minutes
• Paws: wet. Dignity: intact
• Verdict: acceptable as a photo backdrop, not recommended as a swimming hole

The moving truck showed up on Tuesday. By Thursday, a small, wobbly puppy was out on the opposite lawn on a leash roughly twice its size, and Lucy spotted it through the front window before I’d even registered there was anything to see. She went instantly rigid — front paws planted, ears up, the exact posture she reserves for squirrels and delivery trucks — and let out a single, considering “woof” that seemed to be more question than warning.

The puppy, for its part, noticed absolutely nothing. It was busy attacking a leaf.

We took the next walk on purpose, angling wide toward the new house without quite admitting that’s what we were doing. When we got close enough, Lucy did not bark again. She just stopped dead on the sidewalk and stared, the way she does with the neighbor’s cat, except this time her tail was doing a slow, undecided wag instead of staying stiff. The puppy finally noticed her, promptly fell over its own front feet, and looked thrilled about it.

Lucy took one cautious step forward. The puppy took four enthusiastic ones. It was, overall, a lot of commitment for a first meeting.

New neighbor report

• Initial threat level assessed: high (from the window)
• Threat level after seeing it fall over a leaf: significantly reduced
• Tail wag status: cautiously optimistic
• Verdict: pending, but leaning toward “acceptable”

We didn’t linger long — puppies have the attention span of popcorn, and this one was already distracted by a passing bee. But Lucy kept glancing back at that house the rest of the walk, already rehearsing round two.

It happened on the quiet stretch of trail where the trees open up into a little clearing. Lucy was mid-sniff, nose fully committed to some fascinating patch of dirt, when she looked up and found herself about ten feet from a young deer who had apparently been standing there the whole time, equally unbothered and unaware.

Neither of them moved. Neither of them breathed, as far as I could tell. It was less a chase and more a full system freeze on both ends — two animals suddenly recalculating their entire day around the fact that the other one existed. The fawn’s ears swiveled forward. Lucy’s tail went stick-straight. For a solid, silent ten seconds, the trail belonged to whoever blinked first.

Nobody blinked first. Eventually the fawn made the executive decision to wander off into the brush at an unhurried pace that suggested it had never once considered Lucy a threat, which — fair. Lucy stood rooted to the spot a beat longer, watching the space where the deer had been like she was still waiting for stage two of the encounter to begin.

Standoff summary

• Duration of the stare: roughly ten seconds, felt like ten minutes
• Barks: zero — this situation apparently called for silence, not sound
• Winner: technically the deer, who left first, but Lucy is framing it as a draw
• Post-encounter behavior: three full minutes of sniffing the exact spot where the deer had stood

We finished the walk with Lucy checking over her shoulder at every rustle, clearly hoping for a rematch. The deer, presumably, was already three fields away and thinking about literally anything else.

The first rumble of the evening was so far away that we barely noticed it. Lucy did. One ear lifted, then the other, and suddenly she was standing very still in the middle of the living room like a tiny weather forecaster who had received alarming news.

By the second boom, her usual confidence had gone straight under the coffee table. This is a dog who will loudly question every delivery driver, patrol the yard for suspicious squirrels, and investigate a crinkly bag from three rooms away. But thunder? Thunder is apparently a completely different category of nonsense.

We made a little nest with her favorite blanket, turned on some music, and stayed nearby while the rain tapped against the windows. Lucy kept one paw on the blanket and one eye on the ceiling, just in case the sky needed to be personally monitored.

Storm report

• Thunderclaps tolerated: approximately zero
• Safe places identified: under the coffee table, beside the couch, directly on a human foot
• Best remedy: snacks, blankets, and very serious reassurance

By the time the storm moved on, Lucy was brave enough to emerge for a treat and a quick inspection of the windows. No squirrels had taken advantage of the weather, no strangers had arrived, and the ceiling was still where she left it.

The verdict: thunderstorms remain unwelcome guests. But Lucy handled it like a champion — a slightly nervous, blanket-wrapped champion.

The introduction happened by accident — the cat, a fluffy orange thing with zero interest in diplomacy, was sunning itself on the fence line when Lucy rounded the corner mid-walk. We braced for the usual: barking, lunging, a full neighborhood-watch escalation. Instead, Lucy stopped dead, stared for a long, silent moment, and then very deliberately looked away and kept walking.

The cat, for its part, didn’t even open both eyes.

It was less a standoff than a mutual and immediate decision that the other party wasn’t worth the energy. No barking. No hissing. Just two animals independently concluding they had better things to do. Lucy spent the rest of the walk in a mood best described as “personally offended,” occasionally glancing back at the fence like she couldn’t quite believe the nerve of it.

Post-encounter debrief

• Barking incidents: zero (a genuine surprise)
• Times she looked back at the fence: at least six
• Overall verdict: cat remains unranked, under review

We’ll see how round two goes. Lucy is, at minimum, aware the cat exists now, which for a dog who once treated every squirrel like a five-alarm emergency feels like restraint.

The bear in question was spotted right there in the park, so for once Lucy’s caution isn’t entirely theoretical. Ever since word got around the neighborhood, every walk has come with an extra layer of vigilance: slower pace, more sniffing per square foot of trail, and a lot of pointed staring into the tree line.

Is she likely to cross paths with it again on our usual loop? Unlikely, but not impossible. Has that stopped her from taking her self-appointed role as neighborhood watch captain extremely seriously? Also no. We appreciate the dedication, even if the odds remain in her favor.

Current park protocol

• Extra sniff breaks at every suspicious rustle
• A noticeably slower pace through the wooded section
• Full alert status maintained until we’re back at the trailer

Stay safe out there, Lucy. The squirrels remain the real menace.