Wednesday 23 September 2009

Training season has started and the crazy world of dog sledging has awaken. ATVs with dog teams now appear from every corners of the trails. Between the moose hunters and those dog teams, one needs to be quite alert when walking through the forest!

And with the training, start the funny stories... ;-) It's the time when the dogs get used to the new staff. I think the staff gets as much training as the dogs during that time. This is also the time when the dogs are a little crazy and full of energy after a lazy summer and they are a little more difficult to handle.

My first training ride went a little wrong when the lead dog decided to drag the whole team in the ditch to lay in the water to cool down and would not respond to my commands. Hummm, not a good start...

Regarding my lovely puppy Indi, who is GROWING so fast, I am blessed to have such a great dog. He is responding very well to any training. I have even started some clicker training with him which might be a first for a future sled dog! His motivation for the food rewards makes it very easy and he seems to understand what we expect from him pretty quickly. He is very social with both humans and other dogs and his best friend at the moment is a female Malinois.

The only down side with Indi is that he wakes me up between 3 to 5 times every night, and not always to go to the toilets... He is pretty much house trained as he always wakes me up if he needs to go. However I've started telling him off when he wakes me up less than an hour after having been outside. Indeed, I've discovered that some "wake up calls" are more motivated by the tiny bits of sled dog food that he can sometimes find outside rather than "toilet calls". Anyway, I can't wait to be able to include him in my sled dog team when going on tours this winter. :-)