Odin and I recently completed the course of instruction. I've been skiing for nearly 50 years now so I'm not so bad at it. I saw a news segment about skijoring picking up in Vermont and it looked like something fun I could do with my dog in winter so I found a place nearby that teaches a course and Odin picked it up fast. We've been having a blast with it ever since! I was wondering if some of the other folks from northern climates like Canada, Norway, Sweden, etc. had tried this? If you haven't and you have a large dog or dogs, do it! I saw that the Scandinavians use reindeer for this too.
I've tried it, and it's quite fun, but you should know the dog you're using well..
Haven't tried with Reindeers (yet), but I've seen people using it, and you can get a mean speed behind one of those, so it's not recommended for first time skiers.. :lol:
One thing that's even more fun is to try it behind a snowmobile..
You can reach speeds up to 50-60km/h behind one of those.. :twisted:
Redleg, I'd be more afraid of breaking my neck behind a snowmobile than the reindeer. :lol:
Odin is the brightest German Shepard I've ever had and I've had nine of my own in my lifetime and bred over 90 now. He picks things up usually only after having been instructed a couple times. The course instructor told me that in one day he was the equal of any of the dogs he had in their regular touring program and was quite amazed at his progress. Even asked me "you sure he's not part Husky?" 8)
We're having a great time with it. I live way out in the boonies with endless mountain meadows and farm fields to cross that have already had snowmobile paths made on them. Neighbors here aren't the fence building kind and we all travel over the same routes snowmobiles and skiers alike. You can get an idea of the topography from the picture of my home I included in the "Post a picture of yourself" thread in General Chit Chat. It's a bright sunny day now and we just had about a foot of new powdery snow. So we're off for more fun!
