Top 10 Tips for Training your Recreational Dog Sledding Team

Top 10 Tips for Training your Recreational Dog Team By Carole Comeau

1. Decide on your goals for the season BEFORE starting to train. Keep them simple, fun, and realistic. Consider the ages of your dogs, number of dogs, experience level etc.

2. When to start training and how many days a week to train will be a function of the goals you set. (Long multi-day trips require more miles/days per week than doing weekly “fun runs” or short events.)

3. If you have only one or two dogs,consider skijoring or hooking up with another musher with a limited number of dogs an training together.

4. If you have more than one leader,be sure to rotate them during cart training and early sled training to see who runs best next to whom and under what conditions (wind, rain, deep puddles, open water, breaking trail etc.)

5. Be sure to carry a dog first aid kit,musher first aid kit,and sled/cart repair kit in your truck and take them with you on all runs...training runs too.

6. Be flexible. Remember that dogs and mushers under stress or injured means that you will need to adjust your goals to fit the new circumstances. (This is supposed to be fun so don’t let “goal-driven” behavior get in the way of sound judgement.)

7. Most dogs will try to please you if they are feeling well and understand what you are asking them to do. If your dogs don’t follow your commands, get help from a fellow musher who has successful strategies for getting dogs to follow commands. Consider asking them for advice or if you could watch them train their dogs sometime.

8. Attend CDMA meetings as often as you can to get to know fellow mushers, learn from the education programs, and network to see who might want to train or run when you do. Support is always useful, especially when things are not going well.

9. Make a “MasterList” for what to take on your mushing/dog training outings. Check off items as you pack them and remember to add or subtract items from the list as you revise and fine-tune it. Along these lines, a “Training Log” is also useful for keeping track of who has run how many miles, lead, is injured etc.

10. If you plan to take a multi-day recreational trip with your dogs, do an overnight trip close to home a couple of weeks or more before your planned outing. Dogs and mushers burn more calories when out in the cold 24/7. Make the trip fun for you and your dogs. Stop early, stake the dogs out securely, and be sure to provide coats or some form of bedding. Remember: cooker, fuel matches, food for you and dogs, pans to melt snow for water, and snacks to keep spirits high. Stay well hydrated and, most of all...have FUN! Relax and enjoy the adventure. Yes, you’ll forget something, and all will not go as planned but that’s why this trip is close to home and only overnight.

From:chugiakdogmushers.com