I'm not even sure where to start with todays training stories.
It was a full day of off and on training.
First thing this morning half way through my first coffee I couldn't wait any longer to get out and try it again.
Started with Elmo first, he is so friggen energetic that early in the day that I figured he would enjoy a good late morning run.
Our solo trip out together was pretty nice, same as the other runs yesterday but he seemed far more confident and sure of himself. I did a lot of the work for him but he did really good at keeping his line tight and pulling quite a bit.
When we got back I grabbed Karma and put Elmo in the house for a little break.
Karma and I went out solo, she was quite lazy today, not really into this sledding thing or wanting to turn as she was asked but once we got half way around she decided to kick into gear and get to work.
Twice around with Karma and I called it quits for the early part of the day. Had horse chores to do. Looking over at monster Marv and the several square bales of hay I had to bring down to the horses I decided to hook Marv up to the sled and get him to pull the sled with hay into the horses. Since he is the kinda guy who is all about using his brute force to get his point across when pulling why not encourage that and get him working too.
He hauled the hay in, stood like a gentleman while I unloaded it and we went back up to the house. On our way I decided to try him around the training oval in the horse field to work on our getting him up front of me thing while pulling a sled. He did very well, didn't waste any time jumping around but instead he just walked nice around the trail and back up to the driveway. I turned him around re did the little oval back by the horses and then put him back. He was quite pleased with himself and did a victory roll/wiggle and went into the dog house to take a nap.
After I finished the horse water and everything I needed to do for the day I sat down to have a little break and check out Facebook. Was offered to borrow a few harnesses to get this moving along a bit better and hopped in the truck to go pick them up. Yup, a half hour ride to pick up some harnesses at the beginning of a snow storm was just the perfect idea.
Once I got home with the rainbow of harnesses and being as excited as a kid on Christmas morning, I went and got Elmo and Karma and my make shift line and head out with them both. Miss Lazy was a little "la dee daa" at the beginning but when she realized that she had to keep going with Elmo they both got pulling really well.
When we got back up to the house I got ambitious and hooked up Miss Tibby.
Once we hit the trail I had to move her up front with Elmo as she was really pulling and wanting to get going. Once I had her up front with Elmo we were flying.
The storm really picked up while we were out there and it started getting dark so I went around once more as quickly as possible and came back to put everything away before it got too bad out.
We probably will have to go out and repack the trail tomorrow morning as there was starting to be quite a few drifts at some points at the end of the run. Right now I have one Elmo who is sound asleep and 3 very content TM's.
Rambo and Kita are also quite tired as during our break earlier I did some major obedience work with Rambo to get his attitude in check and Kita lolly gags around with us through out the day, shes not a part of the team but I may hook her up tomorrow and get her moving too, she's old but is still more than capable of joining in on the fun.
No pics or videos today, I'm out of batteries for my crappy camera for video and my good picture camera is just not safe yet as I get comfortable riding a dog sled again.
Hopefully tomorrow :)
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Friday, January 27, 2012
First day with the sled
How exciting it is to finally have a sled.
Still only have 2 harnesses and one of them is just too big for most of the dogs so some creative improvisation was used yet again.
Have been out through out the day with Elmo and Karma working on the oval and I must say, Steady Eddy Karma is definitely my gee and haw lead dog, unless Marv completely surprises me. She did not miss one command today while we were out. I think Elmo will be the pace setter but its too soon to tell just yet as my attempt at trying 2 dogs today was done unfairly for Karma sort of. Elmo was just running on his collar and up ahead of her but I have noticed that they work FAR better in groups.
First out today was Elmo, silly me for some reason figured since it is the end of January I should bundle up for our adventure. Was not necessary at all! I don't recall ever sweating like that once at the gym I tells ya. Before we even hit the big oval I was sledding in a hoodie and pj bottoms and my snow pants and coat were riding on the sled. Part of this reason was I spent the entire run up to that point pushing the sled and running behind Elmo as he was a bit freaked out by the whole thing at first.
After going around once like this something seemed to click in his head and he seemed to go "Oh... I just RUN" and off he went like Forrest Gump.
Ok maybe he wasn't quite like Forrest Gump but he was jogging... slowly. Speed doesn't matter to me right now, I am just hoping to get them good and familiar with the entire process and will focus on speed once all 4 are hooked up together.
After our second loop we went back out the trail and came back up to the house. I don't want to over do it for them and I wanted to end that little session on a good note. And that it was.
A while later I went and got Karma out, she did so well with the skis last week that I figured she would do just as well with the sled. I was right.
After a bit of confusion at the very beginning going by the horses she buckled down and got to work, with her I just sorta walked behind the sled for the two trips as she isn't overly motivated to run at all just yet, especially by herself. Around we went twice and back up to the house.
Now even though I probably should have just called it a day for them both and myself, I just couldn't. I have been waiting SO long to have a team going and a sled for them to pull I just had to head out for one more trip around :)
This time I took both Karma and Elmo, since Karma is the brains of the operation and Elmo is the pacesetting kinda guy for now I wanted to see how it would be with them together. However, only having one harness for these guys I attached Karma and Elmo on the coupler and head out.
WOW! That's the best way I can explain it.
I don't think we will be the briskly walking team after all. We may just have a bit of spunk to bring to the trails.
It felt so nice to be standing on the back of a dog sled again, sort of nostalgic really. Nothing quite like feeling happy as a kid again over something so simple.
Here's a little vid of the two dogs together to show you the surprise in speed
Now to bring the other 2 members of the team out and see how they do before the big date night here for Guys birthday. He's getting pretty old, he's creeping ever closer to the big 4-0 LOL.
Still only have 2 harnesses and one of them is just too big for most of the dogs so some creative improvisation was used yet again.
Have been out through out the day with Elmo and Karma working on the oval and I must say, Steady Eddy Karma is definitely my gee and haw lead dog, unless Marv completely surprises me. She did not miss one command today while we were out. I think Elmo will be the pace setter but its too soon to tell just yet as my attempt at trying 2 dogs today was done unfairly for Karma sort of. Elmo was just running on his collar and up ahead of her but I have noticed that they work FAR better in groups.
First out today was Elmo, silly me for some reason figured since it is the end of January I should bundle up for our adventure. Was not necessary at all! I don't recall ever sweating like that once at the gym I tells ya. Before we even hit the big oval I was sledding in a hoodie and pj bottoms and my snow pants and coat were riding on the sled. Part of this reason was I spent the entire run up to that point pushing the sled and running behind Elmo as he was a bit freaked out by the whole thing at first.
After going around once like this something seemed to click in his head and he seemed to go "Oh... I just RUN" and off he went like Forrest Gump.
Ok maybe he wasn't quite like Forrest Gump but he was jogging... slowly. Speed doesn't matter to me right now, I am just hoping to get them good and familiar with the entire process and will focus on speed once all 4 are hooked up together.
After our second loop we went back out the trail and came back up to the house. I don't want to over do it for them and I wanted to end that little session on a good note. And that it was.
A while later I went and got Karma out, she did so well with the skis last week that I figured she would do just as well with the sled. I was right.
After a bit of confusion at the very beginning going by the horses she buckled down and got to work, with her I just sorta walked behind the sled for the two trips as she isn't overly motivated to run at all just yet, especially by herself. Around we went twice and back up to the house.
Now even though I probably should have just called it a day for them both and myself, I just couldn't. I have been waiting SO long to have a team going and a sled for them to pull I just had to head out for one more trip around :)
This time I took both Karma and Elmo, since Karma is the brains of the operation and Elmo is the pacesetting kinda guy for now I wanted to see how it would be with them together. However, only having one harness for these guys I attached Karma and Elmo on the coupler and head out.
WOW! That's the best way I can explain it.
I don't think we will be the briskly walking team after all. We may just have a bit of spunk to bring to the trails.
It felt so nice to be standing on the back of a dog sled again, sort of nostalgic really. Nothing quite like feeling happy as a kid again over something so simple.
Here's a little vid of the two dogs together to show you the surprise in speed
Now to bring the other 2 members of the team out and see how they do before the big date night here for Guys birthday. He's getting pretty old, he's creeping ever closer to the big 4-0 LOL.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
THE SLED HAS ARRIVED
We are finally starting to actually look like a sled team in the making now. Still no harnesses but that is quite alright... they should be here ANY day now :) It is the busy season for the person who is making them so I understand. BUT... we have a sled now. A real dog sled and it is MUCH nicer looking that I was expecting. It looks almost like the one I had when I was younger.
I don't think I will be able to sleep tonight to be honest, even with out harnesses we do have 2 weight pulling ones that I can hook dogs up to the sled with ( I will just have to get creative as I don't have a gang line yet either) to introduce them to that. They did so well with the skis the other day before all the rain that I'm certain the sled will be easy peasy for them.
We have lost a lot of our snow the day after we packed the trail with the skidoo but I am so happy that we did go out and pack that trail as now there is a few different routes we can take with the sled and the dogs wont veer off the trail for sure. The snowy parts has a bad crust on it and when we go outback on our walks every day the dogs don't bother getting off the trail now as seen here because they sink through and it is hard on their legs with the crust.
So the dogs are very familiar with the trail we will be training on as we have been walking around it in the same direction for the past few days. Have been doing some recall work out there, but they haul ass running the oval. Lets just hope we can get that same energy with the sled in tow *fingers crossed
Well, nothing overly witty or sarcastic to this blog post, just an anxious wanna be musher wanting to get out with her pack o non sled dog dogs and SLED
I don't think I will be able to sleep tonight to be honest, even with out harnesses we do have 2 weight pulling ones that I can hook dogs up to the sled with ( I will just have to get creative as I don't have a gang line yet either) to introduce them to that. They did so well with the skis the other day before all the rain that I'm certain the sled will be easy peasy for them.
We have lost a lot of our snow the day after we packed the trail with the skidoo but I am so happy that we did go out and pack that trail as now there is a few different routes we can take with the sled and the dogs wont veer off the trail for sure. The snowy parts has a bad crust on it and when we go outback on our walks every day the dogs don't bother getting off the trail now as seen here because they sink through and it is hard on their legs with the crust.
So the dogs are very familiar with the trail we will be training on as we have been walking around it in the same direction for the past few days. Have been doing some recall work out there, but they haul ass running the oval. Lets just hope we can get that same energy with the sled in tow *fingers crossed
Well, nothing overly witty or sarcastic to this blog post, just an anxious wanna be musher wanting to get out with her pack o non sled dog dogs and SLED
Monday, January 23, 2012
Skijoring before sledding
(Not published on the right day, this took place the day before publishing)
NOT as easy as it looks lol.
Today I busted out my 20 something year old cross country ski's thinking this may aid in getting my dogs out front. If I'm walking they tend to stay by me the whole time thanks to the obedience training they have behind them.
I must say this helped a LOT getting the point across to the dogs.
First trip out was on snowshoes with Rambo, breaking trails. I know, its cruel to make such a stumpy legged little guy work so hard plowing through snow that is deeper than he is tall but that's what he gets for having the attitude he has lately. If he has the energy to pick fights with the other dogs around here than clearly we have to drain more of it.
Its helping, now that his puppy pass has been revoked he is calming down well and being more respectful to everyone.
I have no pics of vids today to go along with this entry as I wanted to have all my focus on staying standing on the ski's... this didn't work well as I spent more time face planting into the snow regardless.
After we had the small training circle packed by snowshoe, Guy took my sled and packed the actual dog sled trail in the back field. I never made it out there to see how they turned out, we are just sticking with the training oval for the next little bit then once all the gear arrives we will try the actual trail to get them familiar with it.
So, for some reason I took insane Elmo out first... for those of you who may be stumbling across this blog entry from what ever google search brings you here, this is what Elmo looks like all the time.
So... you can see how this may not have been my brightest moment.
Harness him up, get him standing nice and still while I fasten my ski boots into the skis and start moving forward with a "Hike"
Well, he hiked all right, and I went flying ( I didn't have him attached to me, I was just holding the line this time) he jerked the line out of my hand and I face planted pretty good.
Pick myself up and try this again. This time I figured I would hook the line to me as clearly me holding the line doesn't allow for much aid for balance with flailing arms and poles.
This went well, for a couple minutes, we were off, gliding across the snow at great speeds, feeling the cool wind hitting my face with the snow being kicked up from his feet. It was a beautiful feeling until...
Something caught his attention and he took a hard gee out of nowhere. Clearly this caused me to wipe out quite well and get a face full of snow.
After several of said wipe outs Elmo's time training was up, it was time to take out steady and reliable Karma.
This trip out was an absolute dream, once she figured out that the skis behind her was supposed to be there she just buckled down and got to work. We slid across the newly packed trail like we had done this together a million times before. Once we got to the fork in the trail I stopped her to go back to the house. As much as she could have kept on pulling and I could have enjoyed a full trip around the property, she is not conditioned to that much just yet.
Once we turned and she was given her "hike" off we went back towards the house. She had a much quicker pace this time and I helped a lot by pushing with my skis, especially at the small little hill as you come out of the bush trail to the open horse field. We safely made it back to the house where I unhooked everything and let her run it out like the fool she can be when she is pleased with herself.
Tibby came out next, this was a hard trip for me, Tibby has a bit of issues working alone with out canine company. I am also a bit concerned with a few things with Tibby and didn't want her to do any pulling just yet so we just went around the horse field with me doing all the work but keeping the line tight in my hands. She is a real trooper and wants to do so well but right now, I just don't want her to be putting much force into anything. She was steady through the journey and the sound of the skis behind her was no concern to her at all.
At this point my legs were killing me so Marv got off quite easy today and just went out on a walk with me with him up ahead doing some command training. He is doing ok with his gee and haw and was spending far less time bouncing like a kangaroo today.
I am off for 10 consecutive days now so am looking forward to many adventures in that time period.
Not tomorrow though as they are calling for rain and mild temps.
Perfect timing too, I have finally found a dog sled and am picking it up on Thursday, and this should be the week my harnesses arrive. (fingers crossed)
NOT as easy as it looks lol.
Today I busted out my 20 something year old cross country ski's thinking this may aid in getting my dogs out front. If I'm walking they tend to stay by me the whole time thanks to the obedience training they have behind them.
I must say this helped a LOT getting the point across to the dogs.
First trip out was on snowshoes with Rambo, breaking trails. I know, its cruel to make such a stumpy legged little guy work so hard plowing through snow that is deeper than he is tall but that's what he gets for having the attitude he has lately. If he has the energy to pick fights with the other dogs around here than clearly we have to drain more of it.
Its helping, now that his puppy pass has been revoked he is calming down well and being more respectful to everyone.
I have no pics of vids today to go along with this entry as I wanted to have all my focus on staying standing on the ski's... this didn't work well as I spent more time face planting into the snow regardless.
After we had the small training circle packed by snowshoe, Guy took my sled and packed the actual dog sled trail in the back field. I never made it out there to see how they turned out, we are just sticking with the training oval for the next little bit then once all the gear arrives we will try the actual trail to get them familiar with it.
So, for some reason I took insane Elmo out first... for those of you who may be stumbling across this blog entry from what ever google search brings you here, this is what Elmo looks like all the time.
So... you can see how this may not have been my brightest moment.
Harness him up, get him standing nice and still while I fasten my ski boots into the skis and start moving forward with a "Hike"
Well, he hiked all right, and I went flying ( I didn't have him attached to me, I was just holding the line this time) he jerked the line out of my hand and I face planted pretty good.
Pick myself up and try this again. This time I figured I would hook the line to me as clearly me holding the line doesn't allow for much aid for balance with flailing arms and poles.
This went well, for a couple minutes, we were off, gliding across the snow at great speeds, feeling the cool wind hitting my face with the snow being kicked up from his feet. It was a beautiful feeling until...
Something caught his attention and he took a hard gee out of nowhere. Clearly this caused me to wipe out quite well and get a face full of snow.
After several of said wipe outs Elmo's time training was up, it was time to take out steady and reliable Karma.
This trip out was an absolute dream, once she figured out that the skis behind her was supposed to be there she just buckled down and got to work. We slid across the newly packed trail like we had done this together a million times before. Once we got to the fork in the trail I stopped her to go back to the house. As much as she could have kept on pulling and I could have enjoyed a full trip around the property, she is not conditioned to that much just yet.
Once we turned and she was given her "hike" off we went back towards the house. She had a much quicker pace this time and I helped a lot by pushing with my skis, especially at the small little hill as you come out of the bush trail to the open horse field. We safely made it back to the house where I unhooked everything and let her run it out like the fool she can be when she is pleased with herself.
Tibby came out next, this was a hard trip for me, Tibby has a bit of issues working alone with out canine company. I am also a bit concerned with a few things with Tibby and didn't want her to do any pulling just yet so we just went around the horse field with me doing all the work but keeping the line tight in my hands. She is a real trooper and wants to do so well but right now, I just don't want her to be putting much force into anything. She was steady through the journey and the sound of the skis behind her was no concern to her at all.
At this point my legs were killing me so Marv got off quite easy today and just went out on a walk with me with him up ahead doing some command training. He is doing ok with his gee and haw and was spending far less time bouncing like a kangaroo today.
I am off for 10 consecutive days now so am looking forward to many adventures in that time period.
Not tomorrow though as they are calling for rain and mild temps.
Perfect timing too, I have finally found a dog sled and am picking it up on Thursday, and this should be the week my harnesses arrive. (fingers crossed)
Thursday, January 19, 2012
No big adventures today
Today was a very brief day with the TM's.
I had a full day of stuff to do today and was yet another snow day so ended up doing not a whole lot at home.
Between shovelling and spending some time at the barn for farrier stuff with my horses I have boarded out there wasn't a whole lot of time to do much with the dogs but we did get out for our daily walk. Nothing in the field today, I want to keep that nice crisp clean canvas ( again, we were hit with another snow storm ) for tomorrow morning when we will have no distractions.
Not a whole lot to say as I have more snow to shovel still but need to wait for Guy to get back to bust out the plow.
A lot of thought went into the dogs feed plan today, since they are working quite hard lately I want to ensure they are getting enough in their diet. Being that everyone here is raw fed, I have been thinking of changes they may require to their diet plan. Going to have to ask some real dog sled folk how they do things and compare to what these guys are getting as is.
Its not like they are going from couch potatoes to working dogs, I have always asked a lot of my dogs compared to many pet only dogs out there so the new training isn't exactly a big shock to their systems other than using muscles that they have not really used before.
Going to do some indoor brain work tonight, we are supposed to have obedience classes tonight for Elmo and Tibby, but yet again, looks like I may be missing that class. Depends on what Guy tells me the roads are like when he gets home.
Stay tuned, there should be a better entry tomorrow.
I had a full day of stuff to do today and was yet another snow day so ended up doing not a whole lot at home.
Between shovelling and spending some time at the barn for farrier stuff with my horses I have boarded out there wasn't a whole lot of time to do much with the dogs but we did get out for our daily walk. Nothing in the field today, I want to keep that nice crisp clean canvas ( again, we were hit with another snow storm ) for tomorrow morning when we will have no distractions.
Not a whole lot to say as I have more snow to shovel still but need to wait for Guy to get back to bust out the plow.
A lot of thought went into the dogs feed plan today, since they are working quite hard lately I want to ensure they are getting enough in their diet. Being that everyone here is raw fed, I have been thinking of changes they may require to their diet plan. Going to have to ask some real dog sled folk how they do things and compare to what these guys are getting as is.
Its not like they are going from couch potatoes to working dogs, I have always asked a lot of my dogs compared to many pet only dogs out there so the new training isn't exactly a big shock to their systems other than using muscles that they have not really used before.
Going to do some indoor brain work tonight, we are supposed to have obedience classes tonight for Elmo and Tibby, but yet again, looks like I may be missing that class. Depends on what Guy tells me the roads are like when he gets home.
Stay tuned, there should be a better entry tomorrow.
Training on a blank canvas
I have no internet right now, it has been out for the whole afternoon and night, one of the small inconveniences of living in the country, I might add, so I have decided to get today’s training adventures written out while its still fresh using Word and will copy and paste it to the blog when I gain access to the interwebs.
Since we were hit with an amazing blizzard last night and our field was a nice crisp clean canvas for training I figured today would be a perfect day to keep building the dogs pulling abilities. So I busted out the official 5 gallon training pail and hitched the dogs up one at a time. Since last training adventure was an epic fail trying to get 4 nontraditional sledding dogs to sled at the same time with NONE of us having a real clue what we are doing, this time around I thought to myself, let’s just try them one at a time to work on this being out front business.
First to train was Karma, she got quite excited today about the harness which was so nice to see. She is always so enthusiastic to do something with me. Very much a non Tibetan Mastiff quality but she is my super amazing girl. I have said it a thousand times and I will say it a thousand more but that girl just cannot be topped in my eyes when it comes to Tibetan Mastiffs.
She did great with her 5 gallon pail pull, even got a nice little video of it as seen here
I just adore her little glance back at me with the tail wag at the end as if to say “I’m doing really good aren’t I?”
As you can see it is not a heavy pail for her to pull [anymore] I have a second 5 gallon pail that I may add but am not sure yet. I’m quite pleased with how she is giving pulling her all as it is and since it isn’t strength I need as much as stamina and speed I think just the one for now is enough.
Karma went around the field twice with her pail and was getting a bit tired towards the end so I unhooked her and let her drag her line and walked her out to keep those fresh new pulling muscles from getting stiff. I have noticed that this pulling work lately has seemed to really help build her chest, rear and back muscles which is VERY exciting for this year’s show season, she will be one buff girl in the ring, I will be pleased with my ripped TM’s rocking the ring instead of those borderline ‘fat’ looking dogs I see that have a hell of a time getting down and back without getting winded that the judges seem to like… and I’m not referring to TM’s here, as I do not actually show against anyone other than my guys since these are not the most popular dogs in Canada.
Next out was Marv, he thinks he is some wild beast now that he is allowed to pull. He wastes more energy and time bouncing and lunging against his harness for no apparent reason, he’ll figure it out soon enough that doing so just makes his job harder. For Marv to pull one pail is the equivalent of Karma pulling an icecream container around so he gets hitched up to 2 professional grade 5 gallon Rona pails ( Hey Rona, you can pay for this endorsement if you like… just sayin, cause we all know I could use some extra fundage for my hobby)
So anyway, Marv spent a good few minutes burning his energy bouncing and lunging against his harness sending his pails flying almost up to him which became a game of run away from the flying pails… then discovers that I am wearing some interesting devices on my feet… humans call these snow shoes, and they are quite beneficial to aid in maneuvering through deep new snow, to Marv, they are brakes.
Since he is not comfortable at all working in front of me I am just walking beside him so he can pull and when he gets going to the point he passes me I give him a “hike” command followed by “good hike” HOWEVER! He has discovered if he steps on my snow shoes ( aka brakes) I will fall on my face and he then can pounce on me stealing my toque/mitt or whatever he so chooses. He has also discovered that I am not able to easily pop up and get after him for stealing whatever he has stolen from me as I have to get my foot through the hole and get myself re organized prior to being able to move in any way. After we played this game for a good 20 minutes he finally agreed to get to work. Here is a video of him actually pulling up ahead of me somewhat.
Shortly after this video was shot he decided to start the slam on the brakes game again for a bit. He was causing me to burn more of my energy with me getting up and retrieving whatever he had stolen from me I decided to just lose the “brakes” making my trek through the field a bit more of a head ache since now I was sinking in the drifts and trying to keep my pace so Marv could pass me. Needless to say it was a bit of a hard session with the monster today but some amazing cardio I must say.
Lastly Miss Tibby went out, she of course did spectacular, she pulled her single pail with ease, working up front of me and almost doing her gee and haw correctly. By the time it was time for her turn I was exhausted and my camera batteries had died so there is no video of her. Next session I will be sure to get her out there first.
Everyone is sleeping soundly now, and I am about to. What a work out that was today, I’m quite excited to get some of my gear to start training driving to the horses as well. I’m not a big fan of riding horses, why not get them driving !
Due to my work schedule, the dogs will get a break from training tomorrow. I have to run into pick up my first shipment of Sasha’s blend for Ol Kita girl in the morning and then off to work after morning chores are done. We will have a nice brisk run in the field late at night when I return home but no actual work.
There is the exception of little Rambo, the 9 month old Corgi, with an attitude that just could get him in a lot of trouble around here with the other dogs. He is on a strict NILIF plan for the next while to get some of his attitude under control and put in his place around here. He had a good run with the brindles first trip out in the field today to break the trail, tired dogs are good dogs so he was on leash as he has lost his leash free privileges for a little bit and he worked his little sheep butt off plowing through the snow ;o) His puppy pass extension has been denied, no more falling for that cute face… but can’t you agree it’s going to be a bit hard :o)
Since we were hit with an amazing blizzard last night and our field was a nice crisp clean canvas for training I figured today would be a perfect day to keep building the dogs pulling abilities. So I busted out the official 5 gallon training pail and hitched the dogs up one at a time. Since last training adventure was an epic fail trying to get 4 nontraditional sledding dogs to sled at the same time with NONE of us having a real clue what we are doing, this time around I thought to myself, let’s just try them one at a time to work on this being out front business.
First to train was Karma, she got quite excited today about the harness which was so nice to see. She is always so enthusiastic to do something with me. Very much a non Tibetan Mastiff quality but she is my super amazing girl. I have said it a thousand times and I will say it a thousand more but that girl just cannot be topped in my eyes when it comes to Tibetan Mastiffs.
She did great with her 5 gallon pail pull, even got a nice little video of it as seen here
I just adore her little glance back at me with the tail wag at the end as if to say “I’m doing really good aren’t I?”
As you can see it is not a heavy pail for her to pull [anymore] I have a second 5 gallon pail that I may add but am not sure yet. I’m quite pleased with how she is giving pulling her all as it is and since it isn’t strength I need as much as stamina and speed I think just the one for now is enough.
Karma went around the field twice with her pail and was getting a bit tired towards the end so I unhooked her and let her drag her line and walked her out to keep those fresh new pulling muscles from getting stiff. I have noticed that this pulling work lately has seemed to really help build her chest, rear and back muscles which is VERY exciting for this year’s show season, she will be one buff girl in the ring, I will be pleased with my ripped TM’s rocking the ring instead of those borderline ‘fat’ looking dogs I see that have a hell of a time getting down and back without getting winded that the judges seem to like… and I’m not referring to TM’s here, as I do not actually show against anyone other than my guys since these are not the most popular dogs in Canada.
Next out was Marv, he thinks he is some wild beast now that he is allowed to pull. He wastes more energy and time bouncing and lunging against his harness for no apparent reason, he’ll figure it out soon enough that doing so just makes his job harder. For Marv to pull one pail is the equivalent of Karma pulling an icecream container around so he gets hitched up to 2 professional grade 5 gallon Rona pails ( Hey Rona, you can pay for this endorsement if you like… just sayin, cause we all know I could use some extra fundage for my hobby)
So anyway, Marv spent a good few minutes burning his energy bouncing and lunging against his harness sending his pails flying almost up to him which became a game of run away from the flying pails… then discovers that I am wearing some interesting devices on my feet… humans call these snow shoes, and they are quite beneficial to aid in maneuvering through deep new snow, to Marv, they are brakes.
Since he is not comfortable at all working in front of me I am just walking beside him so he can pull and when he gets going to the point he passes me I give him a “hike” command followed by “good hike” HOWEVER! He has discovered if he steps on my snow shoes ( aka brakes) I will fall on my face and he then can pounce on me stealing my toque/mitt or whatever he so chooses. He has also discovered that I am not able to easily pop up and get after him for stealing whatever he has stolen from me as I have to get my foot through the hole and get myself re organized prior to being able to move in any way. After we played this game for a good 20 minutes he finally agreed to get to work. Here is a video of him actually pulling up ahead of me somewhat.
Shortly after this video was shot he decided to start the slam on the brakes game again for a bit. He was causing me to burn more of my energy with me getting up and retrieving whatever he had stolen from me I decided to just lose the “brakes” making my trek through the field a bit more of a head ache since now I was sinking in the drifts and trying to keep my pace so Marv could pass me. Needless to say it was a bit of a hard session with the monster today but some amazing cardio I must say.
Lastly Miss Tibby went out, she of course did spectacular, she pulled her single pail with ease, working up front of me and almost doing her gee and haw correctly. By the time it was time for her turn I was exhausted and my camera batteries had died so there is no video of her. Next session I will be sure to get her out there first.
Everyone is sleeping soundly now, and I am about to. What a work out that was today, I’m quite excited to get some of my gear to start training driving to the horses as well. I’m not a big fan of riding horses, why not get them driving !
Due to my work schedule, the dogs will get a break from training tomorrow. I have to run into pick up my first shipment of Sasha’s blend for Ol Kita girl in the morning and then off to work after morning chores are done. We will have a nice brisk run in the field late at night when I return home but no actual work.
There is the exception of little Rambo, the 9 month old Corgi, with an attitude that just could get him in a lot of trouble around here with the other dogs. He is on a strict NILIF plan for the next while to get some of his attitude under control and put in his place around here. He had a good run with the brindles first trip out in the field today to break the trail, tired dogs are good dogs so he was on leash as he has lost his leash free privileges for a little bit and he worked his little sheep butt off plowing through the snow ;o) His puppy pass extension has been denied, no more falling for that cute face… but can’t you agree it’s going to be a bit hard :o)
Friday, January 13, 2012
Jumbled mess of standing still
Day 2 of actual real training for this dog sledding plan of mine.
I woke up to a blizzard and a whole bunch of fresh new snow and got to thinking... "Self, you can really do some good gee and haw work out there today by packing a trail for the dogs to follow in the field" But... I didn't want to do one dog at a time, oh no, lets hook everyone up by their collars and pretend that we are a real team. Its time to figure out who is best where anyway. Those were my famous last words of the sane part of my day
I don't have any lines or harnesses yet so I took our long line used for recall training around here and put a bunch of knots and clips and made it look professional, and if I may, super awesome! (insert pat on back here)
Now there is a brutal north wind today and still a blizzard going on, but that is no excuse to not head out and have some fun right? I just bundled up extra warm and since I couldn't find Elmo's scarf for his ears ( those bully like dogs have NO fur to protect them from winters wrath) I had to improvise.
This was our first improvisation.
Clearly it did not work well, he would just shake and off came the camo hood. So then we tried a bandanna tied around his his head like his scarf but that didn't work either. So we just went out for a brief amount of time for his sake. Its not only his ears that freeze fast, his feet are nekkid, his tail is nekkid, everything is nekkid poor guy.
So, out we go, into the TM's pen and attaching collars and lines and getting everything looking good. And boy did it ever... until we tried to move forward.
We started off with Elmo and Tibby out front and Marv and Karma behind. That was going to be the way I saw the ideal team.
Nope, I was wrong,
Elmo knows his commands well but is far too much of a clown and scatterbrained with no focus what so ever. He got kicked back in the line and then we tried Marv up front with Tibby... this worked for a few minutes. Nothing worthy of blogging about though.
All in all my plan of walking the dogs on a line through a course I had pre packed down failed miserably.
First we hit the oval trail. This way I could work on "gee" only ( or so my plan was) because I read somewhere that they would rather follow a trail than plow through the snow. Who ever said or wrote that clearly was not working with a bully breed. Like I said, Elmo has NO foucs. He heard "gee" and did a 90 degree bolt.... but he took a haw instead.
This is when the line up changed. Tibby and Marv up front got us through the oval trail both in Gee and Haw directions.
So instead of calling it a day there and being satisfied I decided, hey I laid the trail for the figure 8.
Off we go, everything went smoothly! Tibby and Marv responded well to the commands and we were just a briskly walking through the trail. Second time around, Tibby decides,"Eff this, I'm doing something else" and takes us off to the oval again. Now everything became a giant mess, I had lines under bellies, Elmo walking backwards, Tibby trying initiate play with Elmo and Karma standing still among the rukus.
After a few minutes of getting everyone back in order I decide to pull serious Karma from the back and put her up with Marv. I also made an executive decision to back up the bus a bit for them and just walk them down the road so they could understand the "New" formation I want them to walk in, meaning ahead of me and in pairs pre decided upon by me.
This went WELL.
We made up to hill 5 ( a local name of the hill by the house) and turned wonderfully. Marv did a few nice "On by" s when he thought maybe he should go pee on that snow bank over there. I was pleased.
Until... I hit the field again on the way back.
It became nothing more than a jumbled mess and everyone figured it was play time and tangled up again.
We worked on getting back to the house in a line, with some control and ended for this part of the day.
Plans are to head back out with Karma and Marv alone on the line... I want to focus on them learning to stay up front before trying to add in the rest again.
Here are a few pics of the beginning of the first attempt today.
It looks good, but looks are deceiving LOL
I woke up to a blizzard and a whole bunch of fresh new snow and got to thinking... "Self, you can really do some good gee and haw work out there today by packing a trail for the dogs to follow in the field" But... I didn't want to do one dog at a time, oh no, lets hook everyone up by their collars and pretend that we are a real team. Its time to figure out who is best where anyway. Those were my famous last words of the sane part of my day
I don't have any lines or harnesses yet so I took our long line used for recall training around here and put a bunch of knots and clips and made it look professional, and if I may, super awesome! (insert pat on back here)
Now there is a brutal north wind today and still a blizzard going on, but that is no excuse to not head out and have some fun right? I just bundled up extra warm and since I couldn't find Elmo's scarf for his ears ( those bully like dogs have NO fur to protect them from winters wrath) I had to improvise.
This was our first improvisation.
Clearly it did not work well, he would just shake and off came the camo hood. So then we tried a bandanna tied around his his head like his scarf but that didn't work either. So we just went out for a brief amount of time for his sake. Its not only his ears that freeze fast, his feet are nekkid, his tail is nekkid, everything is nekkid poor guy.
So, out we go, into the TM's pen and attaching collars and lines and getting everything looking good. And boy did it ever... until we tried to move forward.
We started off with Elmo and Tibby out front and Marv and Karma behind. That was going to be the way I saw the ideal team.
Nope, I was wrong,
Elmo knows his commands well but is far too much of a clown and scatterbrained with no focus what so ever. He got kicked back in the line and then we tried Marv up front with Tibby... this worked for a few minutes. Nothing worthy of blogging about though.
All in all my plan of walking the dogs on a line through a course I had pre packed down failed miserably.
First we hit the oval trail. This way I could work on "gee" only ( or so my plan was) because I read somewhere that they would rather follow a trail than plow through the snow. Who ever said or wrote that clearly was not working with a bully breed. Like I said, Elmo has NO foucs. He heard "gee" and did a 90 degree bolt.... but he took a haw instead.
This is when the line up changed. Tibby and Marv up front got us through the oval trail both in Gee and Haw directions.
So instead of calling it a day there and being satisfied I decided, hey I laid the trail for the figure 8.
Off we go, everything went smoothly! Tibby and Marv responded well to the commands and we were just a briskly walking through the trail. Second time around, Tibby decides,"Eff this, I'm doing something else" and takes us off to the oval again. Now everything became a giant mess, I had lines under bellies, Elmo walking backwards, Tibby trying initiate play with Elmo and Karma standing still among the rukus.
After a few minutes of getting everyone back in order I decide to pull serious Karma from the back and put her up with Marv. I also made an executive decision to back up the bus a bit for them and just walk them down the road so they could understand the "New" formation I want them to walk in, meaning ahead of me and in pairs pre decided upon by me.
This went WELL.
We made up to hill 5 ( a local name of the hill by the house) and turned wonderfully. Marv did a few nice "On by" s when he thought maybe he should go pee on that snow bank over there. I was pleased.
Until... I hit the field again on the way back.
It became nothing more than a jumbled mess and everyone figured it was play time and tangled up again.
We worked on getting back to the house in a line, with some control and ended for this part of the day.
Plans are to head back out with Karma and Marv alone on the line... I want to focus on them learning to stay up front before trying to add in the rest again.
Here are a few pics of the beginning of the first attempt today.
It looks good, but looks are deceiving LOL
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Have dogs, will sled.......???? HA
Well, here it is a blog for my newest brainstorm, which really isn't that new considering.
As many of you know, I have an abundance of dogs, 6 to be exact, and I do so many random things with them. Well thanks to Skiplyn kenels for putting on a dog sledding fun day in the winter of 2010 I believe, and me taking 2 dogs to it, I have been kinda re bitten by the sledding bug.
"Re bitten" you ask?
Well yes, I once upon a time had a great little dog named Petty (because she liked to be petted of course) whom I had trained to pull with a little old sled my dad had got from one of his dog sledding friends, Petty and I did the news paper route via dog sled. Thats right... we were stylin'
Here's a picture, really one of the only pictures I can find of her, its faded and a bit discoloured and yes, cut to fit in a small heart shaped frame <3 She was my first dog, and what a great dog she was, it still baffles me that someone didn't want her anymore and dropped her off.
Fast forward several years, and dogs later, and here I am with 3 Tibetan Mastiffs and an American Bulldog cross trying to make a sled team. I have heard several interesting teams and don't doubt that one day we will be sledding around or "briskly walking" like you have never seen.
However...
It should be an interesting journey to get there.
Tibby and Elmo have each been to the dog sled fun days and dry land training days so they sort of have a bit of a background in the sport, today I figured since Elmo has a weight pulling harness, I would take him on a little walk to keep him out in front of me. He did ok, nothing to write home about but with out any pressure on the harness he wasn't doing anything other than a walk. So I found our trusty sled training aid... a 5 gallon bucket and hitched him up to it.
That fixed the boring walk ;) He stayed up front and pulled until it hit the softer snow and the bucket dug in. To encourage him pulling we did it weight pulling style. He really excelled with that but that's not our goal right now, we will be getting a bit more serious with weight pulling this spring/summer and I figure the 2 can tie in together pretty well since this sled team won't likely ever be racing.
My thoughts on it, encourage pulling against that harness no matter how hard it gets. I could be way out to left field on that one but hey... my dogs right.
After Elmo I decided to put the harness on Karma, she is my 4 year old trusty yet serious Tibetan Mastiff.
Well, after focusing SO much of our one on one time with obedience work or tracking she was quite baffled by what I was asking her to do.
She walked beside me pulling her bucket at a stellar heel... however, that is not what I wanted. I wasn't sure how to get her to work away from me especially up front.
After a little head scratch it hit me... her daughter Miss Tibby has NO desire to work beside me and is all about being out in front, plus she completely kicked ass as a dog sledder last year and this fall for dryland training fun days.
Back to the house we go, 5 gallon pail in tow and out comes Tibby. I grab a coupler and attach them together by the collars.
SUCCESS!
As planned it worked, Tibby was off like a rocket with her mom in tow.
This is when Karma had an "aha" moment and really got going with her professional grade 5 gallon pail behind her, then she hit the soft snow and in dug the pail. :o)
Tibby was relentless and kept pulling her forward, but she had nothing behind her to pull other than her mother so it was easy for her to so.
Karma quickly figured to push into her harness and really put her back into it and the digging pail started to give. Well Karma, now completely pleased with herself starts really pulling but decides to start biting Tibby in the back ( not hard but grabbing her) for what ever reason, but I can only translate it to "Thanks for the help B*&^@"
We did a nice "haw" and went back towards the house.
Over all I was quite pleased with Karma's first time in a harness when she had to actually pull.
I am completely excited to start getting them more into this, and of course getting them to work ahead of me.
Stay tuned to tomorrows adventures in training when I have no real idea what I should be doing.
However, I think as an adult I spend far too much time doubting myself, if I could do it as a kid I'm sure I can do it again. I just have to channel my inner child to figure it out
As many of you know, I have an abundance of dogs, 6 to be exact, and I do so many random things with them. Well thanks to Skiplyn kenels for putting on a dog sledding fun day in the winter of 2010 I believe, and me taking 2 dogs to it, I have been kinda re bitten by the sledding bug.
"Re bitten" you ask?
Well yes, I once upon a time had a great little dog named Petty (because she liked to be petted of course) whom I had trained to pull with a little old sled my dad had got from one of his dog sledding friends, Petty and I did the news paper route via dog sled. Thats right... we were stylin'
Here's a picture, really one of the only pictures I can find of her, its faded and a bit discoloured and yes, cut to fit in a small heart shaped frame <3 She was my first dog, and what a great dog she was, it still baffles me that someone didn't want her anymore and dropped her off.
Fast forward several years, and dogs later, and here I am with 3 Tibetan Mastiffs and an American Bulldog cross trying to make a sled team. I have heard several interesting teams and don't doubt that one day we will be sledding around or "briskly walking" like you have never seen.
However...
It should be an interesting journey to get there.
Tibby and Elmo have each been to the dog sled fun days and dry land training days so they sort of have a bit of a background in the sport, today I figured since Elmo has a weight pulling harness, I would take him on a little walk to keep him out in front of me. He did ok, nothing to write home about but with out any pressure on the harness he wasn't doing anything other than a walk. So I found our trusty sled training aid... a 5 gallon bucket and hitched him up to it.
That fixed the boring walk ;) He stayed up front and pulled until it hit the softer snow and the bucket dug in. To encourage him pulling we did it weight pulling style. He really excelled with that but that's not our goal right now, we will be getting a bit more serious with weight pulling this spring/summer and I figure the 2 can tie in together pretty well since this sled team won't likely ever be racing.
My thoughts on it, encourage pulling against that harness no matter how hard it gets. I could be way out to left field on that one but hey... my dogs right.
After Elmo I decided to put the harness on Karma, she is my 4 year old trusty yet serious Tibetan Mastiff.
Well, after focusing SO much of our one on one time with obedience work or tracking she was quite baffled by what I was asking her to do.
She walked beside me pulling her bucket at a stellar heel... however, that is not what I wanted. I wasn't sure how to get her to work away from me especially up front.
After a little head scratch it hit me... her daughter Miss Tibby has NO desire to work beside me and is all about being out in front, plus she completely kicked ass as a dog sledder last year and this fall for dryland training fun days.
Back to the house we go, 5 gallon pail in tow and out comes Tibby. I grab a coupler and attach them together by the collars.
SUCCESS!
As planned it worked, Tibby was off like a rocket with her mom in tow.
This is when Karma had an "aha" moment and really got going with her professional grade 5 gallon pail behind her, then she hit the soft snow and in dug the pail. :o)
Tibby was relentless and kept pulling her forward, but she had nothing behind her to pull other than her mother so it was easy for her to so.
Karma quickly figured to push into her harness and really put her back into it and the digging pail started to give. Well Karma, now completely pleased with herself starts really pulling but decides to start biting Tibby in the back ( not hard but grabbing her) for what ever reason, but I can only translate it to "Thanks for the help B*&^@"
We did a nice "haw" and went back towards the house.
Over all I was quite pleased with Karma's first time in a harness when she had to actually pull.
I am completely excited to start getting them more into this, and of course getting them to work ahead of me.
Stay tuned to tomorrows adventures in training when I have no real idea what I should be doing.
However, I think as an adult I spend far too much time doubting myself, if I could do it as a kid I'm sure I can do it again. I just have to channel my inner child to figure it out
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