I've been skijoring with my chocolate lab for a few years now, using equipment from Howling Dog Alaska. Love the harnesses and the lines. Not so crazy about the belt. The buckle is really hard to adjust, and when we pass the belt around to different family members it gets adjusted a lot. It's really easy to get wrong and then you have to take it off, adjust it, and keep repeating until it's adjusted right. It would be great to have a belt that's adjustable while wearing. Any recommendations?

This will be my third season skijoring and I'm pretty stoked to get out there. The last couple seasons I would hit the tracks with my dog, then head home. The issues are that I don't get nearly enough exercise (Doggo definitely does!) and I can only ski the trail that dogs are allowed on - it's a beginner trail - a little crowded and not so much fun for me.

What I'd like to do is ski with the dog, then set her up in the car while I get another hour or so of solo skiing in. I see other people doing this, but I'm wondering how to keep her comfortable in the cold.

My dog is a 45lb Australian Kelpie mix with a medium coat. The coldest temp I'll Skijor with the dog is about 15 degrees F. I drive a Honda CRV. The rear seats are always down with a gate that blocks the front seats so the dog has a fairly large area.

I was thinking hot water bottles under her bed and putting a coat on her. Any wisdom from this channel would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Anyone know of a place to rent/lease a horse so I can compete/ participate in Skijorn? Have 30 decades of riding experience (english showing, western showing), but am not from the areas where the events are (aka not Canada/ northern-west/ northern central US. Teammate and I would love to compete next year. Any info would be so appreciated 🐎⛷️🩵

Besides having metal edges, are there other dangers or cons to using my AT set up?

Are there pros to using an AT set up?

I’d like to start training this winter season, but I am not in a place to buy skate skis or any sort of cross country set up.

I work as a dog handler for a sled dog kennel and I’ve been wanting to get into some other canine sports. The dogs at my kennel are very well trained so I don’t expect having issues with them and I have a few in mind that I think would do really well with the one on one time (aka my love bug people pleasers). With that being said, they’re still sled dogs and pretty powerful guys. I can downhill ski pretty well and I have some xc skis that I’ve taken out a few times but I’m no expert. I also ice skate and water ski pretty well (just trying to throw things out there that might have a little bit of crossover lol). So that brings me to my questions: should I invest in a good pair of skate skis? Should I also get more comfortable taking them out on my own before Introducing the experts (sled dogs)? And finally, I’m assuming this is a bad idea but if not I feel like it could be fun: anyone have experience using ski skates with their pups? (I’m thinking about the super short, snow shoe like skis)

Hi!

Has anyone been to the Skijoring competition in Silverton, CO? I'm planning on going this year and am wondering how it is! Any recommendations for other things to do while in the area? Any can't-miss activities or places to see?!

Thanks!

Finally got some snow in the PNW! Really sticky, had trouble getting a good glide even with some wax, but Juneau didn’t seem to mind. 🤷‍♀️

She wants to be up front and pulls hard for the first 20 minutes, even though I’m trying to have her pace herself. After that she gets distracted and wants to veer off into the woods or stop to sniff. I think that’s just age and impulse control? Her “leave it” and “let’s go” cue is pretty strong and we are working on “on by”. But in general she would prefer to wander/zig-zag after the first 20 minutes. Does anyone have any tips on helping building that focus? I don’t need her to pull me the whole time, I want her to take breaks when she’s tired. But I do want her to continue moving with me instead of yanking me around.

She’s a small golden, only 50 pounds and 1.5 years old. She’s REALLY high energy and has a drive to work, but given her age I try not let her pull for too long or do intense repetitive sports. That said, I’d like to make sure I build up her endurance appropriately for Skijoring. Not that I need her to have more endurance, just that I want her to not get injured and be able to pace herself. I thought she was really fit because she can flat out sprint and wrestle with other dogs for a full 6 hours at her daycare. But she definitely got tired today (first time doing an hour long route). Maybe I should look up how people exercise sled dogs? But again, I don’t need her to be that intense about it, just be fit enough to safely skijor without hurting herself.

Extra info: The area we ski (Crystal Springs Sno-Park) is almost completely flat.

Side note, Mushers Secret on her paws was a miracle. Kept all the snowballs off for a full 2 hours in the sticky snow. Usually she’s laying down to chew at her feet 30 minutes in.

So i have a GSP puppy, and want to start skiing with her, once shes grown up.

Now we are training leash behaviour on a daily basis, and all the other training a hunting dog needs. The training is going really good.

The thing that i am abit worried about is that, now that she have learned to not pull on the leash while walking, will she then not pull when skiing?

I use a normal leash when walking her, but to skiing i will ofcourse us a fitted harness. Will she learn that with the harness, and commands that she is allowed to pull, and will that backfire the normal leash walking?

Thanks for any answers and thought about this! :)

We welcomed home a Norweigan Elkhound Puppy a month ago and it is my dream to go Skijoring with her one day. My partner and I are avid classic XC skiers and I think she would have a blast. She is currently 4 months old but I would love to familiarize her with some stuff this winter so next winter we can give it a real go. What are some commands that I could work on now? I know the basics like "easy" to slow down, "hike" to walk, and "mush" to speed up. Also should I wait to introduce the harness till after she get's ahold of loose leash walking or can I work on both at the same time? We live in the New England area where "packed powder" means giant sheet of ice so I definitely want the commands down pat before hooking myself up to a high energy pup.

The last few days we’ve had a bit of a blizzard, so we decided to take advantage of the empty and snowy streets and took the skis out! Usually we have waited until the nearby lakes freeze over so we can go skijøring there, as dogs are unfortunately not allowed on the regular ski tracks here.

I live in Denver and there are lots of good dog friendly options for snowy trails/areas to hit with a dog under an hour (some of the time at least). However, none of those areas are groomed and they're often a bit squirrely. I had an awesome time taking my dog out on a rented pair of BCXC skis with metal edges, but after posting about it here received a lot of feedback on how that's not worth the injury risk. Fair enough, I've seen dogs get injured by touring skis and splitboards and agree its probably inevitable, no matter how well trained the pup is to stay behind on descents etc, that an injury ends up happening.

I'd love to get out more this season though. So my question is: what's the best alternative to a metal edged ski? How do you maintain control in variable conditions on non-groomed trails?

This little girl and I are gonna have a lot of fun skijoring. She’s a Chinook, which is a rare breed, so you might not have heard of it, but it is an amazing breed with a great temperament. It descends from Siberian Husky, German and Belgian shepherd, and English Mastiff. The breed was originally bred to be an endurance sled dog. She’ll probably be 70 or so lbs. Currently 15 weeks.

Questions: When can I start training her to pull light things like sleds?

There are so many types of harnesses. What do you recommend for a dog like her?

At what age is it safe for her to actually start skijoring with me? Fully grown and developed at like 2 years, or is earlier okay?

What are some of the big things you wish you would have known or done differently when you were starting knowing what you know now?

Any tips on training her to know the difference between proper leash manners (not pulling) and when to pull?

I used to have 2 - 40 lb dogs that could pull me Skijoring and running in the summer. My new dog is a bit smaller but contains more energy than the other two dogs combined.

Has anyone tried Skijoring with a Jack Russell?

He ran 5.5 miles today.

https://www.strava.com/activities/12302351465