Reese and Nug sled Craven

 

 

 

What a great day to get out and do some sledding.  The temperatures hovered around 0 degrees and there was a bit of a wind.  We started from the Craven Big Valley Jamboree grounds and travelled a little over 3 miles on the creek, stopped for some lunch and the dogs played a few snow games.  This was a 1 sec clip that was slowed down twice and then sped up again.  It was a whole lot of fun.

Team Nugget & Reese

We again took advantage of some brilliant winter weather and ventured out to do some sledding.  This video was the most controlled part of our run which came right at the end, after we had gone for at least a mile.

There was turning on 1 runner at high speeds, clipping of snow banks as we went. There was passing of the other dog teams , of which I had 0 control. Just smiled and waved to my fellow sledders. There were screeching halts to check pee mail.  There was much running by me when 2 brown dogs took off,  if the lead teams flinched.

As in this video when we coasted Nugget did the lions share of the pulling.  But when we went up hill, turned or passed the other sleds Reese kicked in.  Crap Reese who accelerates on a turn.  Oh yes my arms are about 6 inches longer now.

 

Kicksledding

With the temperatures above 0, it was a perfect day for kicksledding. With a little help from Yo driving the quad,  Reese and Torque figured out it was fun to race each other.

Kicking a little snow!

After a real cold snap of -33 the day before, we were treated to a day time high temperature of +3C the day the Grey Cup was played in Regina.  Since the game didn’t start until around supper time. I thought it a perfect opportunity to get out with the kicksled. I headed out to  Lianne’s  place where her  yard  had just been freshly cleared.  The yard and the approaching lane provided a pretty good surface for our maiden run. 

One of my 1^st concerns was  how to hitch the sled bridal to the sled.  I had seen a few pictures of kicksleds that had rings welded to the top part of the runners.  My thought was to try using a couple of  rings that are attached to Velcro that were made to hold water buckets in soft sided crates with metal tubing.  So we fastened them securely, then attached the bridal and ganglines.  Reese was going to be the 1^st to give it a try, I doubted that Nugget being smaller would be able to pull the sled and I on her own. 

Reese did great at being harnessed as she is used of standing still for drafting.  Once hitched , Lianne stood a short distance away with a target and some treats and she fairly effortlessly pulled.  We did this several times and lengthened the distances we had her pull.  Lianne and I took turns riding the sled .   

 

Reese seemed to be doing well, so I brought Nugget out and hitched her up.  Again not to many problems with hitching and getting them to stand with the “line out”.  On the cue of “hike” they took off, but very quickly Reese started to hang back letting Nugget do most of the pulling.  We had the idea of unhooking Nugget from the sled, but leaving her attached to Reese by the neckline.  Reese was still attached to the sled.  This was even worse, at one point Nugget was actually dragging Reese who in turn was dragging the sled. 

What I learned is that Nugget can definitely  pull on her own.  Also after  talking to Erin, she told me that probably Reese just needs to gain confidence on her own before adding the Nugg.  So next  outing, I will do some one dog pulling with Reese.  Erin also said that using a quad that will stay just ahead of them can also be useful in getting the dog to move out.

We also hitched Torque, Em and Sonny up.  Using the target to get  them going, and  a person calling, worked fairly well for our 1^st time out.  Torque took me for a ride while Lianne called, and HOLY CRAP…all I can say is weeeeeeeeeeee!

 More Winter fun to come for sure.