Sunday, May 1, 2011

Dog sledding sans snow

Me thinks I'm avoiding house work today....  well... I can think of many other things I could be doing today rather than that stupid chore, but since no one else is going to be doing it for me.... sigh....

But first I thought I should share what the furry kids and I do when it isn't winter, yet still cool enough in the mornings to run.

Unlucky us in that we do not live on a great piece of property that heads out onto a trail system.
Unlucky us in that we do not live in a town or city that has great biking/ walking trails either.

However lucky me that we do live down the road from the ability to head out beside the railway tracks where a sweet man made trail has been made.. it's not very long.. but it gives you the feeling of being in the wild... I am going to explore this trail a little more and see if it connects to the coolie and the animal trail that I know is down there.. then it will be perfect.

So for now we do lots of road running as well as trail running.. a good combination of the two.

Today was our first bike run of the season (sad as we should have been doing this ages ago).
Running a dog with a bike is kind of like going down a hill on a bike with no brakes and keeping your eyes closed.
Wait!... let me re-phrase that.... Running a SLED dog PULLING a bike is like going down hill with your eyes closed.
And if you like adrenaline then you will love it... however.... if you don't, then let me give you Hubba Bubba to exercise with the bike...

Penny was harnessed as she danced excitedly around me.. girls first after all.
Although she chose to run on the sidewalk, sniffing her usual spots, run she did... Penny listened to the commands and took the turns perfectly leading us to the trail as though she has done it a million times before... a couple little sniffs here and there and one pee break... but she ran the entire trail pulling me up the two hills we met along the way.
My pretty girl could have gone way further and even though she was excited to be running back into the yard she did sit by the gate in hopes she was going to go again.

Rocky was second out as I thought I'd get the Sibes run first before the heat of the day arrived.  He ran like the wind right out of the gate, not stopping for anything.  His listening is terrific and he too pulled me to where we needed to go as though this was our usual morning run.  However he was not as quick along the trail.  Way too many new smells bombarded his nose.
He had to stop regularly to make sure he marked along the way and on our way back he found what looked like a deer bone.
Rocky held his tail up in his perfect curl the entire time... skipping along and smiling as well.  He too was excited to be flying up the drive home but was also found by the gate for his next hopeful run.

Hubba is a different story all together.  He has never run with a bike before.  And I'm not sure what is up with him, but it is almost as though his small brain has it engraved that since he's left the W's he doesn't really have to do this running business.
He was confused... kept running around to both sides which led me to having to untangle the line from me.  So I stopped re configured how the line was attached so it would swivel more with his confused like run.
For a little bit of time he stuck by my side and sort of trotted along with a very worried look on his face.
Half way down the road he sort of got into the hang of it and started running ahead, turned 'haw' on command and led me straight to the trail head. 
Yet as soon as we got on the trail he sat down, but not before turning a couple of times and tangling his legs in the line... not once but twice.
I tried to walk him along the trail.... but I think the bike had him freaked out.
So I just turned around and brought him home rather than make it an event we both hated. I really do want to get him doing this run eventually, we'll just have to take it in small steps.

When we hit the road home, he realized where he was heading and flew like the wind... but decided to run down the middle of the road which gave the old man in the van coming towards us a heart attack or at the very least got his adrenaline pumping as well. 
Oh Hubba.. why oh why will you not run like that going out?  You love to run.... so why not just do it?

I think I may have to double up Hubba with Penny next time.... but first I have to find my helmet!

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