Moya Pulls the Kicksled

Teaching a dog to pull a sled is not an easy thing.

Sled dogs start training while they're still puppies, dragging pieces of snow machine track, and then training trikes, and all sorts of steps in the process until they become contributing members of a dog team.

We, however, have no earthly idea what we're doing. And a dog that couldn't care less if she puts you in a tree, as long as she gets to run. So it's a wonder, yet again, that everyone survived and had a blast while working on more of Moya's training. She did well pulling the plastic toy sled several days ago, and today she got to pull the nice kicksled. She still gets easily distracted and therefore needs to wear not only her pulling harness but also her EasyWalk harness, with someone running alongside her to keep her focused and on the road.

You might have already seen my earlier post about the moose in the yard. Well, it's still out there, just this time it's across the street in our neighbor's yard. Here, the whole gang is in the photo, with James guiding the kicksled and Jim running with Moya. Rosie the neighbor's corgi is joining in the fun and the moose has decided he'd better leave the area. Intrepid Rosie was ready to take on the moose alone, and Moya would have been happy to help her, but the moose couldn't be bothered to "play" with the dogs, thank goodness. You'll probably want to enlarge this photo by clicking on it. 

Jim's steering the kicksled while James runs Moya up our street.

And coming back down the street. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Crazy Dog Face of Joy. She's not tired one bit. Delighted, but not tired. As our vet describes her: "Built for speed, that one."

Moya says "This is EASY. Why does there need to be eight of us to pull a sled?"

So pretty. She has frozen whiskers but they didn't show up in the picture. In case you're wondering, it was 14 degrees at the time.

 Jim takes a turn keeping Moya in the road while James has a ride. Being pulled on a sled by your own dog... awesome.

I'm taking a turn on the sled seat while James steers Moya. This is what it looks like from the passenger's viewpoint. Gosh, it was fun!

Time to call it a day and go inside to warm up.

Good dog, Moya Moo. Good dog.