(Re)Enter the Scooter

So despite my new-found… not love, exactly… of canicross, the sad fact is that I just can’t run fast enough to really give these dogs the kind of workout they get from pulling the scooter. So in the last week or so I’ve been busting it out here and there for some runs.

I think I’ve said this before, but I honestly can’t remember exactly what prompted me to get the scooter in the first place. I think what happened was that I knew I needed to find something to bridge the gap between walking in harness and eventual skijoring but that I was afraid to bikejor. But I don’t remember the sequence of events between that thought and opening a large scooter-containing box in my backyard and assembling it.

Why I was afraid to bikejor but not scooter, I can’t explain. I actually tried bikejoring just a few times with Maisy last summer after I got the scooter, and I felt really out of control (not to mention that based on HER reaction she apparently feared and loathed the bicycle). I feel far more stable on the scooter, which probably seems ridiculous to people who feel far more stable on a bike and find the idea of getting on the scooter scary and loathsome. I just find it so much easier to balance on the scooter, and I’m closer to the ground and there’s really nothing to get tangled up in if I want to hop off quickly. All I can think about with the bike is getting tangled up in all the hardware between my legs.

Anyway, I forgot today was President’s Day and we went scootering at the state park where there were a lot of families enjoying the day off school taking nature hikes with and without dogs. Distractions are the double-edged sword of my mush baby existence… life is much easier without them, but they are essential training tools for the day when we will hopefully be doing skijor fun runs around other teams. So I tried to look at all of the distractions today as a gift rather than a nuisance. All the excitement of other dogs existing in the same park where he was really put a quarter in Squash, resulting in the very rare sight of him outpacing Maisy (never have I seen so much slack in her line or harness!!)

It doesn’t come across well in pictures, but he is SCARY fast when he really puts his mind to it. Scary fast for a scooter, anyway. I can only imagine how terrifying it would be on a bike.

After the scootering comes the payoff…

And don’t weep for Pip… this is what he got to do today…

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The Reluctant Runner… or, When All Else Fails, Canicross Some More

Since my last post, the condition of the state park trails has gradually improved…

Not too bad… just a few patches of raggedly ice left here and there. I could probably break out the scooter again at this point, except… I kind of don’t want to.

First of all, there’s Pip. I think acclimating Pip to the scooter is a project best suited to warmer weather when long stretches of time spent doing a lot of mental gymnastics but very little actual physical activity outdoors is more tolerable. And he’s just so darn happy to come along with everyone else and gets so much more exercise when he does. Plus, there has been a bit of tension here and there between he and Squash and it’s very handy to have a pleasant activity that they can bond over. Such as staring longingly at deer.

Small tangent… This was actually quite a humorous moment. I don’t think you can actually see any of the deer in the photo, but have you ever seen a cheesy horror movie where someone suddenly realizes they are surrounded on all sides by something? That’s what this was like, only with deer. The dogs were trucking along, they alerted to something, I stopped them so I could look around and see what they were looking around for, and there were deer everywhere.  Ahead, alongside, and behind us on both sides of the trail. For the record, leaning waaaaaaayyyy back in your skijor belt is a fairly good substitute for brakes.

Anyway… second, there’s me. I get waaaay more exercise from canicross than scootering, and now that we’ve been going semi-regularly I’m finding myself loathe to give it up. Which is odd, because as I’ve mentioned before I actually dislike running quite a bit. Before I spent much time doing it I assumed canicross was just running, with dogs. But it really is its own unique thing, far more enjoyable.

Third, I hate teaching loose-leash walking/heeling SO much, and I’m terrible at it. I’m not consistent enough, nor in all honesty to I care enough, to probably ever teach dogs to truly master walking politely on a leash for every day walks. In this respect it’s like canicross has known me all my life, and instead of rolling its eyes and shaking its head at me, it’s patting me on the back and whispering “it’s ok, they’re SUPPOSED to pull!!”

Fourth, although I’ve mainly been using it as a way to exercise all three dogs at once, I think it will also be a good tool for taking them out one by one and working on verbal commands.

So… I’m not really sure why this post reads like I’m trying to convince someone that canicross is a good alternative to the scooter or something more than the consolation prize to skijoring. So here’s a picture of some turkeys that live in the state park where we canicross:

 

Edit:  So yesterday afternoon, after I wrote the above post, we got a bit shy of an inch of snow. Not enough to ski on, mind you, but enough to cover up the icy spots and make scootering AND canicross relatively risky except to those who may have memorized where all the icy spots are. Which… yea, no, I can barely remember what I had for dinner last night. *headdesk*

Posted in Canicross, Dog Talk | 1 Comment

Squash! I’M FLYING… or, When All Else Fails, Canicross.

I think I’ve made my displeasure at the lack of snow this winter quite clear. I’m not going to belabor it any more than is necessary to let off enough steam to prevent my head from pressurizing to the point of explosion. Mentioning it about once a day should suffice.

If we can’t have snow, I would at least like to have not-snow. And last week it looked like I might get that wish at least – we had a string of 40 degree days that melted most of what little remaining snow was still lying around. Given that, I was hoping to bust out the scooter today. In fact, I was just about to load it into the car when it suddenly occurred to me that I should probably check out the trails first to make sure they were actually clear. Thank goodness for last minute inspirations, because although my definition of fun has recently expanded to include being pulled around on a wheeled device by two fast dogs, I’m not generally in favor of dying in a horrible icy scooter accident and here’s what the trails looked like:

Now, that’s not standing water. It’s ice. Lots and lots of ice.

Don’t you  love how the trail itself is the only thing with any substantial ice or snow left on it in this landscape? Me too, if by “don’t you love” you actually mean “aren’t you filled with blind rage at the sight of”.

So anyway, I’m not really a natural runner. I’m short and short-waisted, my legs are stumpy, my default body shape brings to mind a nice baking potato, and I’m currently out of shape even for said potato. Now back in the day I did run. I even did a few 5K races. But I was young and it was a forced affair that ended by mutual agreement (that is, both my knees agreed) after a few years. Even at my youthful best, most people could probably walk nearly as fast as I can run and in any case that was years and years ago. But when nature behaves badly and you still have three dogs (and yourself) to exercise, sometimes you just have to make do. Enter canicross.

Canicross is like skijoring without the skis, scootering without the scooter, sledding without the sled, bikejoring without the bike… well, you get it. It’s just hooking up the towline to your own self and running behind the dogs. Often when I am canicrossing it is actually my intention to walk behind the dogs, but since in their minds they are apparently still pulling a scooter  (albeit a human-shaped scooter with legs instead of wheels) that slow pace simply does not fly. And I usually end up running. Especially now, when the dogs have been woefully underexercised due to a combination of the weather and Squash’s (recently lifted) exercise restrictions.

The weird thing is this: I hate running. If I got up off this couch right now and tried to go for a run, it would simply not happen. I don’t think I would make it three blocks before crying UNCLE!. But this morning I packed those dogs up and we played canicross for almost 45 minutes, with me starting out by desperately trying to stick to walking but soon discovering that resistance against three eager dogs is indeed futile. Pretty soon I was jogging, and ended up jogging most of the way, and I loved it.

Part of why this happens is that in canicross the dogs are still actually pulling you even though you are not on a scooter, sled, skis, or bike; at the point when both of your feet are off the ground, they are pulling you forward through the air and your stride is longer than it would be naturally. In a way you are ACTUALLY FLYING. At least that’s how I like to think about it, because if I think about it as getting jerked around by my skijor belt it sounds way less cool and quite frankly kind of dumb.

The other part of why this happens, I think, is that there is so much to pay attention to rather than how tired I am and how much I actually hate jogging. Since today almost every step might have lead to an icy doom, I had to pay attention to where my feet were going as well as paying attention to the dogs and what they were doing, giving commands, preventing or correcting tangles, keeping an eye out for wildlife, and so on. And Pip came along today so there was the potential for 1/3 more tangling than usual, giving me even more to pay attention to.

(Oh wait, not EVERY step might have lead to an icy doom. Some of them could have led to a muddy, sliding doom – and although they didn’t, they did lead to muddy harnesses, dogs, shoes, sweat pants, and back seat.)

 

Anyway, when we were done, I was tired and sweaty and spent. I had clearly exercised. But it didn’t feel like it while I was exercising, which is really pretty wonderful when I think about it.  And although I wasn’t really looking for another reason to prove to myself that I have good reason to be in love with mushing sports of all kinds, I think I found one today buried in the ice and mud.

I think we’ll go again tomorrow.

 

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Limbo

Here we are, waiting for snow, when it decides to be 40F for the entire upcoming week. The only good thing I have to say about this is that (since Squash’s exercise restrictions have been lifted) all the trails might be de-iced by the end of the week and we might be able to break out the scooter again.

I’m trying to be all zen and philosophical and tell myself that I should be grateful that I’m being given another year of dryland training on a device with brakes before I get behind these dogs on skis. But yea… that’s mostly not working and I am mostly just sorely, sorely disappointed by this winter. Sigh.

 

Posted in Not Mushing | 1 Comment

Basic Training

I can be kind of absent-minded. So although when I was planning yesterday’s post talking about getting back to basics I had really intended to shoot some short videos for visual aids, as usual I hadn’t checked the camera battery and it died about ten steps out the door. But this morning (note: this morning, not yesterday when I got back from my walk – told you I was absent-minded!) I remembered to throw the battery in the charger when I was out running some errands so I could do it on today’s walk. Don’t worry, none of these are more than 20 seconds or so long.

These are in chronological order, and what I like is that I, at least, can see a progression in their responses even on this one walk. For instance, in the first video they get a verbal marker (yes!) at even a glance in the right direction, before they have actually started moving in the right direction.

That will change later, they’ll start moving without waiting for me to mark the glance. And this, while technically correct, is a pretty lackadaisical whoa ‘n’ go:

While this, later in the walk, is pretty sharp on Maisy’s part. I like that she looks back while holding her position.

Here’s a nice line out… Again, I especially like how Squash looks back for direction without moving (always a challenge when The Boy gets bored of waiting). When they are walked individually, neither one of them lines out worth a hoot:

Here’s another “mark for glancing in the right direction” moment. And yes, that’s in the middle of the block – I’m trying very hard to not be predictable so they really learn to listen to commands rather than acting out of habit.

Here’s a decent Haw from Squashie… I thought this would be easy, because the way that intersection is set up going left is really the most intuitive thing to do. Unfortunately for me there was someone walking down the sidewalk to our right and my social butterfly, Maisy, was distracted.

This is much later in the walk, with a Gee and Haw strung together.  This was towards the end and Squash was losing interest in everything but being silly for a few minutes, which is why I’m mainly talking to Maisy here:

And here’s a lovely double Gee and Haw strung together. We are almost home at this point. Funny, we never got more than 4 blocks away from the house and we were out for maybe 45 minutes. The neighbors must think I’m a bit slow-witted.

And finally… the last turn on the way home… Squash makes me laugh.

 

A bit of final discussion… I actually took about 25-30 short videos. Basically I shot video at every single intersection, and while watching them all to find the ones that were most illustrative of what I was trying to demonstrate wasn’t the funnest thing I’ve done in my life, it was extremely informative in helping me realize some important things about how I’m communicating with my dogs. It really helped me see how they are affected by things like my tone of voice, how confidently I give the commands, how quickly I verbally mark success, the distance to the intersection when I give the command (I need to give the Gee/Haw commands a bit further away than I have been, I think). Maybe most importantly, I noticed more than one occasion when I totally missed that initial glance from one or both dogs in the correct direction, failed to mark it, and they ended up milling around in confusion as a result. (In fact, if you re-watch the second to the last video, the Double Gee Haw, I miss a glance from poor Maisy). So this will hopefully make me a better trainer moving forward and I highly recommend taping walks and runs to any other mush babies out there reading this.

Posted in Dog Talk, Training | Leave a comment

The Winter that Wasn’t: Back to Basics

So this wasn’t how I imagined my winter of 2011-2012 would be. I was pretty damn sure I’d be on skis by now, if not behind a dog yet at least by myself getting my ski legs back under me. When we didn’t have a white Christmas I thought ok I’m not thrilled by this but it’s only December, plenty of time for snow. When we didn’t have a white New Year’s I though ok well since Squash is restricted from vigorous exercise for awhile anyway, NOW when it snows it will be easier to start skijoring with just Maisy.

And now it’s January 12th. And while we’ve had a dusting of snow here and there, we’ve also had ridiculously warm weather followed by a cold snap that has turned my scootering trails that did have any snow on them into glare ice and the trails that didn’t into frozen sandpaper. We can’t scooter. We can’t ski or skijor. It’s even really too icy for canicross and Squash can’t run anyway.

So.

There lie my best laid plans in their icy, sandpapery ruins. RIP. I’ll miss you, but since you were mere incorporeal wisps of thought existing only in my  head, I’ve got to leave you behind. You see, you don’t need daily mental and physical exercise. Dogs and people do. So while you were hanging around with nothing better to do than simply not come to fruition, the rest of us had to figure out something else to do with ourselves during the winter that wasn’t.

Since the dogs are getting leash walked anyway (which is not on the restricted list for Squashies), I decided to use the winter that wasn’t as an opportunity to further polish our verbal commands. I’m taking them out mostly singly for now, and it’s interesting to see the differences between which cues they’re better or worse at, how they compare to when we started last summer, and how they compare when walking vs. in front of the scooter. For example, Squash has a MUCH better On By while walking, and Maisy is the opposite. Both of them are sharper and more consistent with all commands when they are together than out singly. Neither one of them Lines Out very well alone. Squash has an amazing Easy, Maisy has a better Whoa. It’s becoming clear why they are turning into a good team, they really compliment each other.

Most importantly, I’m realizing there is a LOT more habit and familiarity with walking and scootering routes involved in their Gees and Haws than I suspected. So I have really started focusing on them. Primarily, I’m spending a lot of time taking turns in unexpected directions at familiar intersections on our walks. I’ve gotten some dirty looks and some confused looks, and more than a few silly bouncing Squash moments (which means, in Squash-ese, “I don’t know but LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!!!!”)… but things are coming along nicely.

So.

I guess I wouldn’t have realized just how tarnished our Gees and Haws were if it weren’t for the winter that wasn’t. And I guess it’s better to have that realization walking around the neighborhood than on a pair of skis. So there’s that.

But I still want some damn snow.

Posted in Training | 1 Comment

A Brief Intermission

Ok, this is not strictly about mushing, but the dogs are cracking me up today.

With Squash on restricted activity, you might ask… what does the team do with their time?

 

First, they bop heads.

 

 

Then, they make ridiculous faces. (Maisy is so cracking me up here. For those of you who are worried, the dogs are playing a game of “bitey face” which is a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.)

 

 

Then, they play dueling raspberries.

 

 

 

Then, they lay down to discuss how THEY WISH WE WOULD GET SOME DAMN SNOW BECAUSE WE WANT TO GO SKIJORING. (Ok, I might have been projecting a wee bit there.)

 

 

No scootering this weekend due to scheduling conflicts, but Maisy and I should get back out there tomorrow. It will be interesting to see if she still misses big little brother. 🙂

 

Posted in Dog Talk | 2 Comments

Their Better Halves

Sometimes I start to write blog posts in my head about events that haven’t actually happened yet. I’ll have a running commentary in my head along the lines of “when this happens, I’ll say this about it”. When, not if.

For example, I was going to entitle today’s post “And Then There Was (Temporarily) One” and start it out like this: “Calm down, nobody died. Squash was neutered and had another minor elective procedure at the end of last week and is on exercise restriction for the time being (and I’m also pleased to say that his hips look good). So when the weather turned out to be warm enough today to start melting what very little snow we had gotten on New Year’s Eve and I unexpectedly found myself with the afternoon off,  I decided to use this time to take Maisy out by herself and just let her fly unimpeded. I’ve been meaning to do it for awhile, but (a) I always feel guilty at even the mere thought of leaving Squash behind and (b) it’s hard to pass up any opportunity to exercise more than one dog at a time.”

See, I had good reason to think that unimpeded, she would fly. When Maisy and I very first started scootering, I spent a lot of time with her just going up and down the alley behind my house (Squash was too young at that point to be pulling), and then a few times slowly around the block. God only knows what the neighbors thought. But the very first time that Maisy and I ventured into the rest of the wide world, this is what happened:

I mean, the girl has some chops, with or without big little brother.

As an aside, that’s an embarrassingly excessive amount of jibber jabber, my worst mush baby habit that I am trying hard to shed. GEEGEEGEEGEEGEE isn’t really the ideal way to tell your dog to go right… this is much better:

But today to my very great surprise, she wasn’t that into it. She didn’t want to line out. She didn’t really want to move. She just stood around sniffing the ground in her “I’m a wee bit stressed and can’t verbalize my feelings because I’m just a dog” way rather than her “I’m part hound and there’s actually something interesting here to sniff” way. When I got off the scooter and walked it, she walked along ahead of it, but she just wasn’t into it.

I got off and checked her feet, and her back, her joints, and her harness. I swapped out a the D-Clip attaching the line to her harness with a smaller clip, in case it was heavy enough to bug her or banging on her butt. I checked the rest of  the  equipment and walked around on the ground to see if  was too rough/icy/cold/wet/anything. I walked her around a bit for a potty break. All seemed well. So I walked, then jogged, then kicked the scooter for awhile (which was actually fairly good exercise for me) while she tentatively went from a creep to a walk to a trot and finally to her normal run, and we did eventually fly:

And… can I just say… Holy cow, her thighs.

Anyway, I checked her over again before she got back in the car to go home and I couldn’t find anything wrong. And she’s playing bitey-face with Squash right now, so I don’t think there IS anything wrong – physically. What I think, which is actually beautiful to contemplate, is that she actually missed her big little brother being there.

I gush a lot about how awesome she is at this stuff, how she keeps Squash on track, keeps him moving, loves to pull, glad to have a natural leader, blah blah blah. But today for the first time I truly, fully realized an appreciation for what he brings to the table – maybe he’s young and distractible and needs a little big sister to keep his mind on the job sometimes, but he’s not just a big goofball. He obviously adds energy and exuberance and confidence to the equation that she depends on to be at her absolute best… and he deserves some credit for it.

Somehow along the way, something beautiful happened. I don’t think they’re just two dogs that happen to run together anymore, they’re really a team who count on each other and feel each other’s absence. The thought almost brings me to tears. And makes me think that there’s hope that someday we’ll all grow out of being mush babies together.

Posted in Dog Talk, Gush Puppies, Maisy, Squash | 6 Comments

The Healing Power of Mush

So yesterday was one of those annoying days.

First of all, my work schedule is temporarily not itself. I am working mornings I am used to having off and having mornings off I am used to working. And I assure you, to a not-morning person such as myself, the difference between working Tuesday morning (abnormal) and Tuesday afternoon (normal) is significant.

Second of all, a whole bunch of people in my life chose this very same Tuesday, a day on which I cannot stress enough that I was already up at an unnatural hour, to do a lot of small minorly annoying things that all together added up to me being fairly irritated. I don’t like being irritated. It irritates me, creating a horrible negative feedback loop of irritability and irritation. I suspect this makes me as unpleasant to be around as it makes being around other people unpleasant for me.

Third of all, I was at work longer than anticipated, throwing off my afternoon dog plans. I’d planned to go scootering with Maisy and Squash and then take Pip to the dog park. By the time I got home, there was no way to do both before dark, and the state parks and dog park are both on substantial acreage in the woods without any lighting. Quite reasonably, I think, I don’t find stumbling around in the woods after dark fun in any way. It irritates me, and we all know where THAT leads.

But I decided to go ahead and go scootering with Maisy and Squash even though a tiny piece of my brain tried to tell me that this might not be a good idea in my current state of mind.  I ignored that naysayer and listened to the part that was telling me the fresh air would probably do me good.

Although I always go to one of two local state parks to scooter, I don’t always take the exact same route through the trails. I have my favorites, but I like to mix it up a bit to keep the dogs from getting too familiar with any particular route. I don’t want them on automatic doggie pilot – “we always turn left here” or “here’s where we turn around”. I want them to listen to what I tell them to do instead of what their muscle memory and habits tell them to do.

Anyway, on this particular Tuesday the route I started out on was one we hadn’t run in a while. And The Boy – my wonderful, terrible Boy – started out by adding another heaping serving of annoying to my plate. He was immediately more interested in who had peed where, when, and making sure that everyone would know where and when HE had peed. After something like 4 or 5 false starts, I was about ready to admit I should have listened to the naysayer.

But I took a deep breath, counted to ten… and then something terrible and wonderful happened. I finally, FINALLY got him moving, and then after only about twenty yards further on we spooked a couple of deer grazing right next to the trail. And to my complete and utter amazement, The Boy Who had Ignored Numerous Consecutive On-Bys in Order to Pee (and his sister The Hound) went right on by those deer. Saw them, heard me shout ON BY, and kept right on running. And continued to run nearly flawlessly for the next twenty-five minutes listening to almost every Gee, Haw, Easy, Whoa, and On-By. Almost, only almost, but still… I mean, I’m used to that from Maisy. Pulling is All for Maisy. But like many teenagers, Squash is not always completely seriously dedicated to his work.

But on today of all days, the Unnatural Tuesday, the three of us clicked in some kind of crazy Zen mushing mind meld and flew through the woods together. And the wind washed over me and wiped away all the petty annoyances of the day. And although we got home just after dark and we couldn’t go to the dog park I took Pip for a walk anyway because I was feeling jolly.

Tomorrow’s Thursday, and for the time being I have Thursday mornings off. I’m thinking we’ll go scootering again, so we can keep that wonderful positive feedback loop going and going. I’m thinking it will probably repel all the petty annoyances of the day.

 

Posted in Gush Puppies, Health, Scootering | Leave a comment

Merry ChrisMush!

Through an uninteresting series of events, I found myself more or less alone today, Christmas Day. No, don’t weep for me: I spent a very enjoyable Christmas Eve surrounded by family, and that “more and less” is an important modifier. Because really, the fact of the matter is that spending a holiday with some of my best pals (i.e. dogs) doing something we all enjoy (i.e. scootering) isn’t a bad way to celebrate the day. Although I really want to get on my skis, although we have been forced to endure a brown Christmas as the frosting on the cake of a brown, stupidly warm December, we grabbed those brown lemons by the horns and made some brown Christmas lemonade.

I think the dogs enjoy it maybe even more than I do. The dogs LOVE it. It’s funny, when we meet people on the trails, if we stop to chat (which many people want to do) almost everyone comments about how happy they look. I think people who think that these sports are cruel need to spend a day on scooter, sled, or skis and see these dogs go. This is the face of a dog who has just spent the last 15 minutes whining in agonizing anticipation at the back window like a kid waiting to open those Christmas present while she watched me load the scooter and gear into the car and has now parked herself at the back gate. Clearly, she is miserable at the thought of heading out:

I wasn’t 100% sure that the state park would be open today, but it was (and there were kind of a lot of people there). I had rigged up my GorillaPod on my bike helmet’s visor, which I thought was very clever until I put it on and realized that I couldn’t really safely take pictures with it up there. So I decided to revisit an idea I’d had earlier this summer: Video recording a whole run from start to finish. Partially because I was curious about how long our runs really were (watches, along with umbrellas and sunglasses, make up the Trifecta of items that I constantly lose or break so I never quite know what time it is or how long something takes) and partially because I wanted to see the good, the bad, and the ugly. When I first tried it, though, the ratio of bad and ugly to good was a bit too disheartening and I gave up before we were even out of the parking lot. But not today. Today I was committed. Because today was Christmas, a time of new beginnings… and also because my GorillaPod was already on my head and I didn’t feel like fiddling around with it. So off we went to capture whatever we were going to capture.

I warn you, it’s fairly long, and I’ll be surprised if you make it through the whole thing. The whole reason I didn’t make this post until Christmas Day was almost over is because it took hours to upload, so I understand completely. But I’m putting it here anyway as a testament to how far we’ve come and how far we have to go. A testament to successfully going On By TWO squirrels, especially sweet since our last encounter with a darting squirrel left me with misaligned handlebars after the dogs ran the scooter into a tree after I abandoned ship in fear of my life. A testament to Gee and Haw, and Whoa and Wait and Easy. A testament to me getting better (baby steps!) at cutting out the jibber jabber, to untangling tangled lines, to better starts, and even a testament to off-camera poop. Enjoy, if you dare. And if you have a lot of time to kill.

Posted in Scootering | 2 Comments