Sampson has been happily wearing a back pack for months now when we go on hikes.
It’s a Ruffwear Palisades pack. We love this pack. The packs are removable and what’s left is a decent, comfy, well-fitting harness.
W’e’ve known for a while that Sampson is a good candidate for doing draft work. We don’t have the proper harness yet, but for his first pulling, the back pack harness was sufficient.
We just had a wicked storm and the wind was blowing very hard for over 24 hours. There were a lot of trees down along the trail in our woods. THat won’t do since soon we’ll be skiing back there and until then this is where we walk the dog.
Here’s one spot where there were over 6 trees down. Many of them came up by their roots. That’s what you’re seeing with the arrows on the right – root beds.The ones on the left are across the trail. As usual, it was a friggin poplar that came down but took a nice spruce and another tree along with it.
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About 20 feet up the trail were two more big trees across the trail.
Rich needed to bring his chainsaw and other tools back there. Finally he has a little assistance!
Sampson didn’t mind it a bit. He barely seemed to notice. He’s a natural!
On the way back, I was the brake-man, using an extra bungee cord to be sure the sled didn’t slide right into our baby’s behind.
Just a caveat about the sled, rope, harness setup. This is far from optimal. The rope was rubbing against his sides a bit but it was a short walk in the woods today.
The proper drafting harness protects the dog much more and the weight attaches behind him. Here’s an example: http://alpineoutfitters.net/Secure/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=18. We actually have a harness that says it’s X-L and it is much too small so we have to get another.
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That is exactly what our boy needed, a job! He looks wonderful and I am so proud of all of you! Thank you so much for giving him the chance he deserved!
Cute person, Doing good work. Onward and upwarsd, Sampson.
I tried to teach my Labs to pull a sled, but they would rather sit on the sled and let me pull. Sampson looks like a natural.
Where is this bit of trail you are taking care of?
Sampson seems to be very intelligent animal. Nice that those two are doing such a good job.
Years ago, in Minnesota, I had a huge male Samoyed. He used to love to pull little kids behind him on sleds, tubes, and "flying saucers".
But he never really got into the idea of stuff strapped on top of him. He’d roll on the ground and try to get rid of it.
Which made PERFECT sense to me.