My Life with Dogs

Today I went skijoring with Shelby for the first time ever.  For those who don’t know what Skijoring is – it is cross country skiing with your dog pulling you – kind of like dog sledding, but you are the sled!

Since Shelby is such an active dog, and I love him that way – I decided that our next adventure would be skijoring.  For those who know me, you know that I have been cross country skiing for many years.  I have taken many trips with the Nordic Fox Ski Club (www.nordicfox.org) including trips to Yellowstone National Park, Quebec, Glacier National Park, Northern Michigan, Minnesota and many more.  To include Shelby in a sport that I love was just too good to pass up!

Shelby in his skijoring harness after a day's ski

I had been reading up on skijoring, and decided to purchase skijoring equipment.  After much research, I decided to go with Aker Ski (www.akers-ski.com) where I had purchase much skiing equipment in the past.  So, I purchased the harness, the towline and the belt, along with the book “Ski Spot Run” by Matt Haakenstad and John Thompson.   After refitting Shelby with a new harness (the first was too small) we were ready to go.

I started out first getting Shelby comfortable with his harness.  Before the snows came, we did a little “canicross” which is jogging with your dog.  I used a belt, a shorter towline and the new harness.  We jogged along the Fox River Trail, and I could tell that Shelby was starting to get used to the harness.  You hook the dog up to the harness so that the connection is on his rear – you obviously don’t want this around his neck.  Since Shelby was used to pulling me around already, pulling on the harness was an easy transition.

Fast forward to today – snow on the ground, temps in the 20’s, so I decided to give it a go.  I took Shelby to Herrick Lake in Warrenville IL, a place where our ski club often goes, and a place that I was familiar with – it had nice wide trails and was basically flat!  I put him in the harness before we left, so once we got there and I got my boots on, we were ready to go.   I knew Shelby would want to sniff around – according to the literature, you are supposed to “drop” your dog before getting to your ski location – this means letting him do his business!   Well, we tried that, but I knew that during our day’s ski, he would still hit a few trees.

Shelby was a little afraid of the skis and poles at first, but he soon got used to them when he saw that we were outside and ready to run!   Things started off well – he did make a few tree stops, but I went slow and tried to get him out in front of me.  There are standard skijoring command, “gee” for right and “haw” for left, but I had taught Shelby the words “right” and “left” in the past, and we was pretty good at those, so we went with those! 

Our first foray on the trail went really well!  Though he didn’t pull me much, he stayed ahead of me, and I could feel him pulling a bit – especially when he met another dog on the trail….then he definitely pulled me, and I just went into a snowplow and let him go!   I did fall down once – when he went into the field to smell something I assume must have smelled wonderful….we got tangled and I fell.  He came over to me all excited – “What’s going on, Mom?  Why are you on the ground?”   We got untangled, and kept on, no worse for wear!

We met several skiers and dogs on the trail, and Shelby for the most part was good – he did go visit, but came back when I called.    Everyone seemed to get a kick out of seeing us on the trail, belt, towline and harness!

For being the first time for both of us, I thought it was a great start!   I am hoping to go again this week, while I am off work and while there are not too many folks on the trails!    Oh by the way, Shelby was pooped!