M~ wrote:
I want to get my Husky into this next year. Any tips for starting out?
My experience is that your dog will let you know if they want to skijor, and if they do, it is not hard to train them. If it's not for them, they will let you know!
So about 5 years ago I got a husky and thought for sure she would love skijoring, so I got her a harness and I got a belt and lanyard for myself and started taking her for runs. She did OK, but she really did not like wearing a harness. She ran much much better without a harness and she would kind of protest by going really slowly when she wore a harness. Also, she cannot do any real running unless it is below freezing out. Otherwise she is overheated pretty quickly and needs to go slow. So I could take her for three mile easy runs in cold weather, but that was about it. She would pull me for the first mile, but after that, no pulling, or I would pull her! It seemed skijoring was not in our future.
Then we adopted this GSP from a rescue. On our first day, he was anxious and kinda going nuts, so I figured I'd take him for a little trail run to help calm him down. I tried to go an easy 8min/mile pace on this 4 mile loop, and I put him in my husky's harness and attached him to my belt with the lanyard. Immediately, I knew this dog was different. He pulled so hard that no matter how easy I tried to go, there was no way to run slower than 6:30 pace. At the end of the 4 mile loop, if anything he was pulling harder than he was at the beginning. So I just kept going, for about 9.5 miles, until my legs were feeling kinda wrecked - even if you're trying to go easy keeping the foot speed up so the dog doesn't put you face down in the dirt takes a lot of effort. After 9.5 miles he was STILL pulling just as hard, having the best time ever, and I knew I had a skijoring dog.
There is no really good place to practice skijoring near Boulder, and I also have to work in my triathlon training, so Hobbes gets very little "formal" training. I take him up into the mountains to a closed road that people hike and ski on in the winter so it gets kinda packed out and we skijor there a few times a winter, but it is often not possible for me to really skate in the conditions. He gets about an hour of real exercise a day - not walking on a leash. Mostly running off-leash in the mountains or at this amazing and huge dog park with a lake. A couple times a week I will take him on 4-5 mile runs with me, where he is sometimes off-leash and he will cover 4-7 miles in the same time, sometimes in the harness and pulling. In cold weather the husky joins us for those, off leash. Then maybe every 2-3 weeks I'll hook him up in the harness and do 9-11 miles with him. I don't do more of that because I'm usually pretty sore afterwards, trying to keep from being pulled onto my face for 1-1.5 hours.
In the harness, by giving his lanyard some directional tugs and saying, "on by" whenever we encounter other runners, hikers or dogs, he has learned that when I say "on by" that he is to ignore everyone else and just keep running and he does really well at that usually. He has also learned that when we approach an option to turn, if he looks like he is heading one direction and I say, "other way" he knows to choose the other option. "real" lead dogs learn "gee" and "haw" for commands to turn right or left, but I have not bothered to try that.
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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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