3 Bad Bikjoring Bullies

We officially adopted Jackson (the little brindle/blue bull with cropped ears you see in a lot of our photos). And, because I plan on doing a lot of sledding/skijoring this winter, I need to get him up to speed!

Off to the trails we go!

Oh yeah!

There’s about 3/4 of a mile of a deep sand shoulder on our road, that intersects with a snowmobile trail right next to our house! How’s that for convenient?

Bella was out with Mandy and a clients Hyper pup. But with the addition of Jackson….. I still had a 3 dog crew!

This clip was at about 1.5 miles of the pull. As you can see, Jax is not running on his neckline, which is letting him squirt around a bit. As new as he is to this, the neck line pulling him forward can set off his opposition reflex, and make him put on the brakes. So I let him get comfortable.

Once he got going good (about a 2/3rds of the way today), I stop and attach his neck line to get him acclimated. As you can see the front dogs don’t have a neckline on. But, that’s because they’re pretty experienced, and don’t stray much. I only run them on a neck line when we’re going to be in a distracting environment, and I need the “group” movement to encourage each individual to stay with the flow. They’re fine with the neckline, so it wasn’t important to add it, like with Jax. As you can see in this clip, he’s on the neckline and doing just fine!

Of course, they’re noticeably slower in the second clip. That’s because A- they’re tired, it is about 3 miles in. And, B- That is the sandy beach of a shoulder. And they’re pulling about 250 lbs between me and the mountain bike! So you’d be slowing down too!

Welcome home little buddy. You’re the fourth bad bully!

I’ll keep posting his progress. I’m REALLY looking forward to running a kicksled with a 4 dog bully crew, on a packed snowmobile trail!!!!

That….. Will be an adventure.