Dog-friendly walks in Boot

Five miles there and back on the corpse road that Wasdale Head once used to carry its dead over the fell to St Catherine's in Eskdale, before it had a churchyard of its own. The track leaves Boot behind Eskdale Mill, climbs steadily up the west side of Whillan Beck onto Eskdale Moor and drops to Burnmoor Tarn at 252 metres, a big shallow sheet of water with Illgill Head behind it and the ruin of Burnmoor Lodge on the shore. The going is a broad grass and stone track the whole way, which makes it one of the few Eskdale fell routes a dog can do without scrambling. It is all grazed common with Herdwicks on it and the National Trust asks for a short lead throughout Eskdale.

A mile and a bit there and back, climbing 130 metres from the little car park at Jubilee Bridge at the foot of Hardknott Pass to the walls of Mediobogdum, the Roman fort that sits on a shelf 250 metres above the Esk with the whole of Eskdale laid out west of it. The path is grass and stone and steep in places but short, and you can walk the full circuit of the fort walls, the headquarters building and the commandant's house before dropping back. There is no shelter and no water on the way up. It is grazed fell, with Herdwicks around the fort itself, and the National Trust asks for a short lead throughout Eskdale.

Under three miles and an hour and a half, 110 metres of climb, into the deep mossy ravine below Stanley Ghyll to one of the tallest waterfalls in the Lakes. It starts at Dalegarth station, the terminus of the Ravenglass and Eskdale narrow-gauge railway, which carries dogs for a small fare and has a paid car park of about 60 spaces beside it. The lower gorge is enclosed, shaded and full of running water for a dog to drink from, but the path climbs on stone steps and roots with the ravine unfenced in places, so a short lead once you are past the second footbridge, and the Dalegarth fields at the start are grazed with lambs from March.

Three and a half miles and an hour and forty minutes on the flat, along the Esk from Dalegarth to the packhorse arch at Doctor Bridge, past the Woolpack Inn and back on the other bank through Boot. Start at Dalegarth station, where the paid car park is the only real option in the valley bottom - the Boot village spaces are for residents and the Woolpack's are for customers. The Esk is the whole point for a dog: long gravel-bottomed pools deep enough to swim, shade from the alders, and both pubs on the route take dogs in the bar. The valley is grazed throughout with sheep and some cattle, and Doctor Bridge is narrow with no parapet on the upstream side.