As it is across the rest of the country, winter is here in full force! The area lakes have frozen over and a heavy blanket of snow has settled across the great Wisconsin Northwoods. Rather than spend all winter inside, the time is right to begin a new adventure with our dogs.
As detailed in a previous post, I acquired a used dog sled and have since busied myself with the preparations necessary to actually go somewhere with it. Some refinishing of the wood and shock absorption system was all that was needed…then I needed to find the time to give it a try.
"You want us to do what?"
With the holidays now behind us, I thought the past week would be a good time to start experimenting with the sled. This whole thing is new for me and I am hoping it will be a great outdoor winter exercise for the dogs. Recently, I’ve been accustoming the dogs to the new feel of the “X-back” harnesses. These are not very different from the harnesses used during the summer for our bike rides. Seeing that the dogs were at ease with the harnesses, I figured that hooking them to the sled and going for a ride would be a snap.
Now we're moving...FAST!
On our maiden voyage, I just took my two males, Hawk and Cody. With time, I plan on using my four dogs together. The chosen location was the very center of a remote lake. My goal there was to have as few distractions as possible. All told we spent about an hour just walking around pulling the empty sled. Try as I might to encourage them, the boys were very content walking at heel next to me, or jogging at heel when I tried to pick up the pace.
As it turned out, my earlier assumption couldn’t have been further from the truth! While exercising the dogs next to the bike during summer, they are actually next to you. Confusion reigned as I tried to get them used to having me actually behind them, but still running forward. Thankfully, I remembered there is nothing like time to make dog training easy. All you have to do is know that it doesn’t “have to” happen today.
Teamwork!
There were three times when they decided to make forward progress. As quickly as I could, I jumped on and enjoyed the ride…as short as it ended up being. Talk about fun! I can’t wait for another session later this week. I’ll make sure and keep everyone posted as things start to come around. Time is all it will take to keep things moving in the right direction.
Related Posts:
- How To Exercise Your Dog Indoors
- Dog Agility (series of posts)
- Exercise is Necessary For the Health of Your Dog
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That’s great! I taught my lab mix dog to pull me on one of my kids scooters. I got her used to pulling something behind her by having her start with a skateboard. Now she really loves it. I used on of the specially made harnesses by Alpine, where you send them your dog’s measurements and they make it for you.