Dog Scootering a journey

[Noobs]

It certaintly sounds more proactive than my current, "at MY speed, WALK." She takes off like a sprinter, often reaching the end of her leash before I have even gotten one foot off of the sidewalk.

Sometimes I get lazy and let Murphy get in front of me a little bit - that way I can read his body. But of course I'll let him get too far ahead and try to call him back like it's his fault he's going too fast for me. I try to use "close" for these times, per the original LLW (TM Mattie) thread.

[MPbandmom]

I took Sky and the scooter to a different park today. I learned that a universal trunk/hatch mount bike rack attached to a conversion van's back door even with 6 attachment points isn't a match for a very rough RR track crossing. The scooter ended up hanging sideways as I held my breath that it wouldn't fall off before I made it to the park, just another 4 RR tracks ahead. I crossed the second set of tracks at a very slow speed and did make it to the park where I discovered that basically 4 out of 6 attachment points had come loose. The only thing left attached were the top two. So, the scooter will ride inside of the van now.

Sky is getting more and more used to the idea of pulling the scooter. Today she got up to running speed several times. I'm not sure how fast she goes and I don't let her run for very long before I become nervous that she will suddenly dart over to some side to sniff something and I might run into her. She also seems to be beginning to grasp the concept of Gee and Haw. We also worked on leave it and on by today. I'm not sure that a passing sniff and collecting a head pet qualify as a good leave it or on by, but maybe it's a start.

Small furry animals are still a problem, as she will take off, usually at a 90 degree (perpindicular) angle to the direction we are headed.

All in all, I deem the project a success. She is able to take a walk at a pace more comfortable to her, while I am able to keep up with her by simply being pulled and rolling along behind. There is still exercise involved on my part, pushing/kicking (pedaling I think is the proper term, but coming from a bicycling background, I have a hard time applying that term to the foot action to move a kick scooter.) when she seems to need a little help going and walking up hills.I also think I am much more alert to what is going on around me and what she is doing while scootering. She will often take a cut to the side to mark or sniff so I have to be ready to stop on very short notice.

I still haven't tried Sirius. I think the exercise and getting some good endorphins pumping in her brain could be beneficial, but I still don't have a harness for her, and I am still a bit leery about hooking her up unless I am in a totally controlled environment where we won't see other people or dogs, which is about impossible to find around here.

[MPbandmom]

I took Sky out scootering again yesterday. At this rate, I don't have to worry about her getting super fit and lean and having even more energy to burn. I think it had been about 2 weeks since I had last taken her out with the scooter. We had days and days of thunder storms and then the temperature shot up into the 90's with heat indexes in the 100's. Not ideal temperatures for a dog that thinks 15 degrees is totally awsome. Yesterday cooled down to the low 80's with a nice breeze, so after I took Sirius over to the nice quiet park for a bit of a walk, I took Sky over for some running.

I don't really know how to explain the experience of riding a scooter with a dog pulling it. In some ways, it is somewhat exhilerating in a anxious sort of way. In other ways it is just plain fun and she seems to be such a natural at it. I have to watch out for sudden shifts in direction (Squirrel! ) or stops to sniff or potty. Therefore I have to always be ready to slam on the brakes. That is where the exhileration anxious aspects come into play. Other than that though, it is just so nice to be able to take her out where she can go at her speed, and I can just relax and go along for the ride.

I don't speak to her much other than the occasional Gee, or Haw, Slow, or Leave it/on by. When we first start out, I tell her okay let's go. She starts out at kind of a walk, and then a trot, then if we are going kind of downhill, so that there isn't much pull on the harness, she will start to run. She seems to kind of gain momentum with the running too. Then I will tell her to slow down, because I am afraid of her suddenly stopping or seeing something worth chasing and there being too much momentum going with me and the scooter and either dragging her or causing a wreck. If we are going uphill or she is getting tired and we are more on the level so there is more pull on the harness, she will turn and look at me and I will either push(pedal) the scooter, or just get off of it and walk along with her for a ways, until she starts to pick up speed again.

I feel like she is doing what she wants to do and she seems very happy with the arrangement. It is as if this is what she was meant to do. No longer, do I feel like I am holding her back, forcing her to walk at pokey old woman speed. Although I do try to end the scootering sessions with some pokey old woman speed walking as a cool down from all the running and trotting. At first she doesn't seem to realize that she is no longer attached to the scooter, but she seems to settle in to polite walking fairly quickly.

After the knuckle biting experience of using the walkey dog and my bicycle, this is also a much more pleasant experience. She can go over to the right of me and trot along sniffing the ground, and I have no trouble staying upright and on the trail and feeling well balanced and stable the whole time. She can to over to the left of me and it is the same thing. The only time things get a little hairy is when she spots a squirrel and takes off at a run perpindicular to the direction we have been traveling.

I don't think we are ready for group riding yet as she tends towards the excitable side, and I kind of anticipate scootering with an excited dog in the lead as being similar to the squirrel experience.

[MPbandmom]

Today I have ordered a pulling harness for Sirius. I am still not certain that I will ever hook her up to the scooter, but I was looking at various options like the walkeze harness and decided that rather than buy a walkeeze and an urban trails harness, I would just buy the urban trails harness.

The basic designs seem quite similar and I am currently using Sky's urban trails harness for walking as well as pulling. I also read today that the urban trails harness was originally designed for a person in a wheelchair. It was designed so that the dog could pull the wheelchair when out and about, and the man could hold the dog close to him when shopping indoors. It has a "v" shape to the front to prevent choking/wheezing/neck damage. It is also thoroughly padded and includes reflective striping.

Unlike carting or weight pulling, Sky really doesn't put a lot of pull into pulling the scooter. If she meets with much resistance she will stop. (This is probably a holdover from my teaching her not to pull while walking using the statue method.) I'm perfectly okay with that though. I'm not out to build up a muscle dog. I'm out to have fun and make outings more enjoyable for my energetic, wants to go faster than old lady walking speed, dog.

Here is the urban trails harness. http://site.digglerstore.com/products/dog-harness.html

[MPbandmom]

Yesterday we had a glorious drop in temperature. My husband laughed at me for wearing a long sleeve shirt when I went out with the dogs because the temp was in the 70's, but the breeze was chilly.

I took Sky out for another scootering trip. She runs and pulls more when something is in front of her that she wants to get to in a hurry, like people (especially children.) I am feeling more comfortable with speed. I have read recently that 16 mph is about the top safe speed for my type of scooter. I don't have a speedometer, so I don't really know how fast we are going, but I think we are still pretty far away from going that fast. We might be up to about 10 mph though.

For the first time, I was encouraging her to run rather than just trot in the down hill stretch of the loop. The scooter was coasting a little faster than she was trotting, so I had to keep using the brakes to prevent the tugline from becoming too slack and wrapping around the wheel and also to keep from overtaking Sky.

We went around the 1/4 mile loop 4 times plus took a trip down another section of the trail. Sky's presence was bothering a child who was trying to ride her bicycle around the loop, so I thought we would leave the area for a little while for the girl's sake.

After I got back home from Sky's outing, I took Sirius out to the park located a block behind my house. We had a pretty good outing with me being able to maintain sufficient distance between her and potential triggers. I noticed with some dismay though that the fencing is going up for the new off leash dog park. It is basically located much closer to the entrance of the park and our usual route through the park than will likely work with our continuing to use this park for some of our outings. I will have to wait to see whether dogs arrive at the park more by foot or by car. Because we are so close to this park, it is likely to increase dog foot traffic past the house and it looks like the timing will be before our October dumpster clean up days when I hope to get the remaining wood out of my back yard in order to be able to enclose a larger area in the back for the dogs and hopefully greatly reduce the time they spend in the front.

When I got back with Sirius, Sky was rested from her scooter outing and ready to play a nice long session of fetch. It all seemed like great fun yesterday, but now today I am absolutely exhausted and have been basically worthless for entertaining the dogs. I guess I need to find a happy medium activity level that I can sustain on a daily basis. It was also much warmer today, and I don't seem to handle the heat as well as I did when I was younger. So it may be a combination of hotter and I over did it yesterday.

I am thinking a little more in terms of trying Sirius out with the scooter when her harness comes in. I don't really anticipate her running on her own, and certaintly I don't anticipate her actively pulling on her own. They say to train each dog separately before putting them together, so I anticipate her training basically being a matter of taking her for a walk with the scooter as a leash. I do anticipate that she will run when paired with Sky as long as Sky is running. She is capable of running as fast as Sky, she just doesn't tend to be a runner like Sky is.

[MPbandmom]

The weather finally cooled down a bit and I took Sky out for a short scooter outing last night. We made two loops around the Rec Center because I heard people putting off fireworks during my first trip around which meant there would be no taking Sirius out.

This morning I woke up and decided that today was the day. I put Sirius' harness on her, took the scooter outside, and then put Sirius' leash on her and collected my training treats. I put Sirius on leash intitally because we would be walking along the sidewalk beside the road to get to the park where the Rec Center is. I had her leash in one hand and pushed the scooter with the other. At first she was skittish of the scooter, but within 2 or 3 houses she had settled down and accepted it's presence. It took me a little while to find the best arrangement of scooter and dog. At one point I accidently bumped her hind leg with the front tire of the scooter. Fortunately this only upset her for a very brief moment and then she was back to being fine with the scooter.

Having Sirius on the leash and walking with the scooter is a bit challenging because I use an 8' double ended leash on her with one end on her harness and the other end on her collar which essentially gives her 4' less the distance from her back to my hand to roam. This put her very close to the scooter, because the scooter naturally had to be very close to me. There were resulting space conflicts when she decided something on the scooter side needed to be sniffed. On the way back home, I decided to leave her on the tug line. That was a mistake. A noisy car went by and she took off at it, fortunately the tug line was too short for her to reach the car, but it allowed her to get much closer to it than I am comfortable with. So, no tugline with her anywhere close to traffic.

Our walk was delightfully uneventful over to the park in spite of there being a yard sale on one corner and the sellers having the sidewalk strewn with childrens' rolling toys I commented about the sidewalk being blocked on my way to the park, and it was still blocked on my way back. Fortunately on both occasions, there wasn't any other street traffic and I was able to get around the potentially hazzardous sidewalk blockage and people at the yard sale (another potentially problematic situation with Sirius) by walking out into the street. (As traffic and Sirius are not a good mix, I really wasn't very happy with this situation.)

Once at the park, I hooked Sirius up to the scooter and we continued walking. She did a lot of stopping and sniffing. She was also in a perky mood and was doing a little trotting with me. When we got to the section of the trail that slopes downward, I stepped onto the scooter and she trotted along in front seemingly quite content. I stepped on and off of the scooter depending on the slope of the sidewalk, sometimes pushing with my feet. I mainly wanted to test her reaction to the various noises made by the scooter and by me as I rode, pushed, or walked with the scooter. For the most part, she just basically trotted in front of the scooter while I coasted downhill with the brakes on to keep from running into her. (She doesn't trot as quickly as Sky.) There were a few times though, that she did actually pull the scooter for a short distance. All in all, I feel like she got more of a work out and like Sky was able to go more at her pace than when I take them for a walk on leash. Obviously I will only be able to take her out in closely monitored and managed settings, but this does look to have potential for her.

This of course brings up the thought of putting the two together to pull the scooter. I have been told that each dog should be trained separately, much like teaching leash manners. So far, I only have a single dog tugline, so running the two together won't even be an option until I purchase the two dog tugline. There is also the matter that I currently can't manage the two dogs together leash walking if they decide to take off after a small furry. They will chase small furrys just as quickly on the tugline as they will on leash, so the thought of the two of them hooked together to the scooter and seeing a small furry to chase, so far, is sufficient for me to not yet be ready to order that two dog tugline.

[MPbandmom]

Today I decided to get adventurous. This past weekend I walked the two dogs together for the first time in quite some time. It wasn't a disaster, but Sky was super excited and kept pulling more than usual. At least until we were on the way back home at which point she walked very nicely. To walk both dogs together, I put Sirius on my Alpha pac, which is a hands free backpack like device and held Sky's leash. The goal eventually is to have Sky on a long line while keeping Sirius close for management purposes.

Since Sky was something of a pain, the thought that it would be nice to have her attached to the scooter came to mind. I thought it out and came up with two possible configurations to take the two dogs together while scootering. The first configuration was Sirius on the alpha pac and Sky hooked up to the scooter. I hoped that I could keep Sirius relatively close and that she would run enough to keep up, but not enough to pull. The second configuration added a two dog coupler to the tugline to attach both dogs to the scooter in the event that Sirius did actually pull.

We didn't make it out of the driveway in the alpha pac configuration. Sirius almost immediately took off at a run (not exactly like her at all) and just about pulled me off of the scooter, that I really hadn't even gotten on to yet. So we went with the leash coupler configuration.

A big concern that I have in running the two together is that Sky would out run Sirius and essentially pull Sirius out of her harness. Fortunately this didn't happen, but the harness was pulled forward and kind of into her armpits a lot more often than I would like to have seen. What I didn't anticipate was Sky getting fed up with having Sirius attached to her and trying to back out of her harness and get on with things her way. She had her head and one leg out of the harness before I managed to grab her and stuff her back into her harness. And stuff is pretty appropriate terminology because she wasn't helping in the process at all and neither was Sirius.

Sky stopped to sniff and pee and poo, but when Sirius tried to stop, she would barely get to squat and Sky would be dragging her off to get going again. I got Sky to wait a little a time or two, but she was generally being very impatient with the two dog set up.

On a positive note, there were times when things went very well. They both listened very well to commands and there were times when they ran together side by side. However, the good times did not comprise enough of the trip to make me feel that running the two of them together will be a good working arrangement. So, scootering is a one dog at a time activity, probably much more so for Sky than for Sirius.

I will stick to leashes for the two of them together, and as that is still in the preliminary trial phase, that may end up being a no go too if Sky doesn't settle down and walk more calmly when the two of them are together.

[wvvdiup1]

I don't know how I missed this thread!

MPBandmom, I'm curious of which scooter did you get? I know that with my dog, Karma, I would prefer the three-wheeled one you sit on, as I know Karma will pull me in different directions on the other scooter!

[MPbandmom]

I got the Diggler Dirt Dawg. Sky can pretty much go in any direction she wants to in relation to the scooter (except perpindicular) and it doesn't have a ngative impact on steering or handling of the scooter. She can go off sniffing in the bushes beside the trail and I can stay scootering along on the trail with no problem.

[Erica]

Wow, sounds like tons of fun! I'd love to read more about this...maybe I'll try to get one for Opal...she's pretty active!

[MPbandmom]

I took Sky out for another scooter run tonight. She is getting pretty good at Gee and Haw, kind of good at Slow (if she wants to) Brakes are very handy and we are also putting a lot of work into leave it and on by.

If we see another dog I have to stop and dismount and hold onto her harness. This is an area that she has gone down hill in due to my now knowing to ask first before letting her charge out at another dog and usually by the time I ask if the other dog is friendly, they have locked eyes and greeting is impossible. Sky has also been paying too much attention to Sirius charging the fence and barking at passing dogs.

Today she did a lovely leave it/on by for a lady walking on the trail. She didn't do as well with a young man who was having bicycle trouble and standing beside the trail. We ended up passing him twice because of dog avoidance issues, and both times, Sky stopped by for a sniff and a hello before then resuming on the trail.

But, the best on by/leave it of all was the neighborhood black cat. This cat obviously belongs to someone because it has tags. It is not uncommon for it to walk down our driveway, or cross the street back and forth from various points visible to the dogs. They go absolutely bonkers everytime they see this cat.

We were on our way out of the park when there standing in the middle of the parking lot was THE CAT. At first I stopped Sky and made her wait hoping the cat would go away and certain that she would take off in its' direction given even an infitisimal chance. But the cat wasn't moving and I still needed to get Sirius out for a walk. So, I told Sky to Walk along with a bunch of leave its and on byes. And amazingly, she did. If there had been a hole in the ground in front of her she would have fallen into it because she didn't seem to be paying attention to where she was going in the least, but we made it out of the park without her stepping foot off of the sidewalk we were on.

Now if we could just get her to do that when the animals are running.

For people who are interested in learning more about scootering. There is a Yahoo group that can be found through DogScooter.com. There is a person on there who has recently started scootering with her 2 dogs and she has videotaped every run they have gone on. You also might be able to find them just by doing a search on Youtube for Firenza dog scootering. They are up to about their 14th run and the dogs have gone from not really knowing gee and haw to flying down the trail and obeying commands nicely.

They go faster than I think I am interested in going. I think I'll stick with one dog power.

[MPbandmom]

I think I'm getting addicted. They say it happens. It's like a bug, once you get it in your sytem, it grows and you need higher quality equipment, more dogs, a new car to transport it all.........

Okay I haven't gotten all that bad yet, but I did find myself spending a lot of time at work today thinking about the possibility of a mature, seasoned husky that would show Sky the ropes and keep her from taking off after small furries. Sky already knows the ropes fairly well, but that uncertainty of her seeing something that just HAS to be chased, makes rides a little nervewracking at times. Of course with two dogs, I would probably need the disc brake model instead of the v brakes that are on the one that I got.

Now I realize I already have 2 dogs that are quite a handful and totally unsuited to run as a team. I also realize that I am not in a financial position to add another dog to my family. So I won't be adopting another dog.......yet.

Just a few months ago, I was certain that even though I have always thought huskies are stunningly beautiful, now that I have a high energy demanding husky lab mix, I would never want a true husky for myself. Now here I am, having gotten hooked on this scootering thing, thinking, maybe huskies aren't so bad after all. One just needs the right activity for them to participate in.

Of course there is still the problem of I work during the day and all parks around here close at dark, and in the winter (which is a husky's ideal time of year but not exactly my ideal time of the year ), all of the parks would be closed before I got home from work, so when and where would I run them during the week? And of course I would still have to do things with my dear sweet little Sirius.

So many things to work out. It's a good thing I'm broke.

[MPbandmom]

After taking Sky out along our local rail trail and finding myself so apprehensive of going it alone that before I arrived at my destination I had a cramp in my leg from being so tense while driving, I decided to ask on the Yahoo dog scootering group, just how does one find locals to scooter with. I had read many of their suggestions like find a local breed group, but the only local breed group I found is currently inactive.

I have now learned that the term "local" needs to be expanded further than what one would normally consider local, at least for my area of the country. I have learned that some people have found others to scooter with simply by going out scootering in places where dogs are commonly found. Other people see dog scootering in action and become interested in doing it with their dogs.

I have learned that a breed group in the state to my north is hosting a dog scootering clinic along a canal towpath. The towpath is just on the opposite side of the river that forms the boundry between states, so it looks to be about an hour drive maximum. I have learned that two dogs are considered ideal for dog scootering. In the particular group that I found, (well, found me) they shuffle dogs around to create matched teams. (I had mentioned how Sky and Sirius don't work particularly well together at pulling a scooter, because their energy levels and drive are very different.) They will pair an inexperienced dog with an experienced dog and the inexperienced dog's understanding of scootering skyrockets. If two people have one dog each, they will team the two dogs together, and one of the people will ride a bicycle while the other person scooters.

I am planning on attending the clinic. Originally I was only going to take Sky, but after giving things further thought, I may take both dogs. Sirius would do better being with Sky than being left home alone for several hours. If someone else assists in handling Sky or they put her with an experienced dog, that would leave Sirius with me, or to also be put with another more experienced dog. I know from walking experience when someone has helped me out by walking Sky, that Sirius will pull like crazy on the leash to keep up with Sky. This should translate well into pulling for scootering.

I am also considering attending a mushing race in the upper part of the neighboring state in December. (Me, cold weather wimp, you see how addicting this can be?) I do know that I won't be attending if the roads are snowy or icy. My vehicles and snow simply don't agree and I am to an age where I don't see any sense in driving in icky conditions unless I absolutely have to do so, like for work.

I am so looking forward to the clinic and getting out on a trail with other dog scooterers.

[ClareMarsh]

I have learned that a breed group in the state to my north is hosting a dog scootering clinic along a canal towpath .

Just told a friend who fell into our local canal one Christmas eve after waaaay too many this and he says you're braver than he is

Having read this thread it sounds a fab thing to do, although I might have to get another 9 Chihuahuas at least for them to be able to pull me

Love the developing story though, will be interested to hear about your dogs learning from the old hands

[MPbandmom]

Yesterday I attended a dog scootering clinic. We were shown foundational skills that should be done with dogs prior to hooking them up to a scooter. There was teaching "line out" This is to teach the dogs that when they are standing still they need to keep the tugline taught and stay facing forward so that things don't get tangled up. Their method for doing this was to put a prong collar or choke chain on a dog along with a harness and double ended lead. The idea is to have the dog walk while one keeps tension on the portion of the lead attached to the harness. The portion of the lead attached to the collar is supposed to be slack. When you stop, the dog is supposed to remain standing in position as he was just walking. If he moved to stand sideways, he was forcibly returned to position using the choke chain/prong collar and then praised and patted. The word no was never used as that would be a correction and this training was said to be positive, so no verbal corrections were allowed. (I'm not sure how they don't see dragging a dog around by a choke chain to put it back into position as not being an aversive correction.) I didn't offer my dogs up for a turn at this training. I'm sure there would be a way to adapt clicker training to replace the dragging a dog into position with a choke chain or prong collar. I have also heard/read that line out can be taught using a stationary object to attach the harness to in imitation of the scooter or sled and teach the dogs to line out from that.

Another foundational exercise is to have the dog drag some item attached to the harness behind them. This can be a stick, or log, or bicycle tire. Something to provide drag so they get used to pulling, and used to strange noises from behind them. I can see the value in this for a dog that is going to be pulling a sled, but I don't see a good correlation between draging a stick or log and pulling a scooter that rolls nicely, smoothly, and fairly quietly. It is a good idea to get the dog used to the presence of the scooter behind them and it's noises. I did this by starting out essentialy using the scooter and tugline as a leash and just took the dog for a walk. The wheels hum a little more at dog trot and run speed, but it is a gradual increase and doesn't seem to have bothered either of my two.

After the introduction to the foundational exercises, people were given a chance to try out scooters and to try out hooking their dogs up to scooters to see if they would pull them. Some dogs weren't interested in the least in pulling the scooter, and some people found riding the scooter to be the challenging aspect of dog scootering. For someone who is thinking about getting into dog scootering, a clinic like this would be a good thing to attend because one would get to try out things without making any financial investment in equipment only to find out that either you or your dog just isn't meant to scooter.

We had a pot luck dinner and then headed out to the trail for a group scooter run. This is where I learned that my dogs will follow another dog(s) beautifully, but can't deal with encountering another dog head on. One of the other pairs of dogs didn't deal well with being overtaken by another team of dogs. One of the dogs lunged and snapped at one of the overtaking dogs.

I think we are back to some foundational training in the form of dog reactivity training and being able to pass other dogs/be overtaken by other dogs. I think I'm also going to work on some truly positive line out training.