Saturday, January 7, 2012

Skijoring!

Today, I took off for the mountains with the dogs and my mom. She is taking off to warmer climates soon and we decided to take a trip to the snow before she leaves to celebrate my birthday, since she will be gone for it.

My mom packed up the car with the cross country skis, the snowshoes, and a sled, picked up me and the dogs, and then we headed into the mountains to look for some snow. We figured we would choose our sport based on the conditions we found up there- lots off loose snow for snowshoeing, nice hills for sledding, or moderate snow with little/no hills for cross country skiing. It was a relatively last minute decision on my part to take along the gang lines, waist belt, and harnesses for the dogs. But I ended up being so glad I did!


The snow wasn't deep enough for snow shoeing and we didn't find any good slopes for sledding, but it was great condition for cross country skiing. And, I figured why not, might as well hook the dogs up and see how they go.

* ETA: This is the first time I have ever taken the dogs skijoring. 

They went great!


Me and my mom actually started off taking one dog each. Both dogs were a little hesitant about the whole thing, Pallo a little more so than Koira. We did a short little run like that, then realized we had forgotten the water bottle at the car, and the spare batteries for the camera, so we headed back. At that point, I hooked up with both dogs. They seemed to settle in to pulling really easily, happily leaning into their harnesses.


Of course, being only a moderate skier at best, it did get a bit interesting at times (like when the squirrel took off across the trail right in front of us). My back up plan for anything going seriously wrong was to simply sit down- even together, my dogs don't have the power to pull me along for very far if I don't want to go. But luckily for me (and rather surprisingly), both dogs worked their commands really well. Koira has some gee/haw training which helped a little, but most useful were the "whoa" (come to a stop) and "easy" (go slow, don't pull too hard) commands. Koira stopped great every time with the "whoa" except the squirrel, though she did stop after a few seconds even then. And of course, their "let's go" worked wonders to get them started off and encourage more speed once going.


After a while on the main trail (which was actually just the snow covered road), we decided to venture off to the side when we saw some old ski tracks leading into the woods. It was harder in there, and Pallo especially became pretty distracted, but overall it was a lot of fun to go true cross country.



At the end of the day, we spent over two hours in skis. Skijoring was so much easier on me than cross country skiing minus the dogs, and way more fun as well. I had a total blast, only fell once all day (which has to be a record for me on skis), and I plan to get back out there again as much as possible this winter.

15 comments:

  1. What a great way to spend the day. We had snow to play in too. I love winter.....

    Great pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So awesome they actually pull you in a straightish path. Elli'd be all over the place. She has no clue what to do lol.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is such a cool way to spend a day. :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. That's great! I need to teach Skye to pull Parker on a sled, since he becomes a frozen pupsicle in about 5 minutes in snow. Of course, it has yet to actually snow here in New Hampshire, so maybe I don't need to worry about it this winter...

    ReplyDelete
  5. That looks like so much fun!!! And it totally looks like you were all working as a team.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That looks like so much fun. It would never work with a Cavalier. I could just see us stuck in the same place all day while Kendall took a nap.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Awesome! They did great -- real naturals for sure. I totally know what you mean about skijoring being wayyyy easier than skiing without dogs :-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Reminds me of Alaska :)

    Stop on by for a visit
    Kari
    http://dogisgodinreverse.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. Sounds like fun but we don't ever have much snow here.

    ReplyDelete
  10. That looks so cool! What a great day with some snow. Our snow only lasted a couple of days. :(

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love to Nordic ski too! You will have to check out my blog about Nordic Skiing sometime! I haven't ever tried with a harness! That looks a little more challenging!

    ReplyDelete
  12. that's so fantastic! i've always wanted to try skiijoring with our dogs. you make it look easy :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. WOW! That looks like a lot of fun. I have never heard of skijoring before, but am eager to try it now!

    ReplyDelete
  14. This looks like such a blast! I've never gone before either but I wonder if my dog would love it. I am going to have to see what all is involved. Thanks for sharing your awesome photos!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Glad to hear your first trip out was successful. Gretel is too short to run in snow but I just bought her a harness, and me a waist belt, so we can try canicross. Imagine getting passed by a weiner dog? Ha!

    ReplyDelete