Guess I'm diving in. My wife and I have been active in dogs for.. well, forever. I got my first husky back in 1976. We showed for a few years, bred a couple litters and raced competitively for awhile before settling in to a nice country lifestyle of training and recreational mushing. Moving to Georgia this year changed everything. We rehomed the sleddogs with sledding families in Maine and Quebec. We brought our herding dogs with us. We have a Belgian Sheepdog, Guinness, a Cardigan Corgi, Iris, and an ancient Smooth Collie, Dream. My name is Sam and my wife is, Brittan.
We stumbled onto clicker training via belgians.com. We are hoping to enter Rally and possibly agility or obdience. Time will tell. I sure wish I'd understood clicker training when I began running sleddogs. I'm convinced it would have saved me a great deal of pain and suffering.
Don't know how well I'll keep up on this blog, but here's a start.
Welcome!
Welcome to the wonderful world of clicker training! I'm with you, I wish I'd understood clicker training many years ago too. But at least our current dogs can benefit from our new knowledge, right?
I just thought I would send you a quick note to let you know that if you ever decide that you miss mushing, there are ways to do it in a snowless area with wheeled carts. I am into carting more than mushing/driving, but you can do it either way. I have a Husky/Malamute mix that I got from a rescue group, as well as an old (and wise) chow/golden retriever mix. They both pull a converted Radio Flyer wagon that my 2 year old daughter rides in. Now that I finally rigged something up where they can both pull as a team, I'm planning on converting a garden cart and using them to get groceries when the weather gets nice this spring. Fun!
In most carting, the dog supplies the brakes and steering, so you have to go at a walk/trot, but you can still ride in the wagon and drive them. To get more like mushing, you can get a cart that has its own brakes and steering, then you can go as fast as you want! Of course, there aren't many good trails in warm climates for that sort of thing, but bike paths or ATV trails might work well if your area has them. If nothing else, tooling around the neighborhood or country roads always draws smiles from the neighbors!