We love dogs. Especially ones that are...
High energy
If you get a little anxious about taking your dog for a walk, and find yourself worrying that your dog is going to tear up your house if youre not around, this is what our training program is made for.
Looking for some cool friends
Good friends make life awesome. This doubles for dogs, that usually spend most of their time with people who cant speak their language and cant run as fast as they can. We like to give dogs a pretty cool type of space to, well, just be a dog...alongside other dogs...and learn together with those other dogs how to work together as a team. This is what our training program is for.
Working dog breeds
Most of the dogs on our team are husky's or husky crosses, whose breed line is a working, pulling breed, but this definitely doesn't mean that other dogs cant come out. Lots of time, the energy that dogs have is because they are having a tough time finding a life doing the work that they were bred for doing. Though we have definitely learned over the years that ANY type of dog can pull on a line if they really want to. This is where our training program comes in handy.
Two kinds of training
Rookie training
This is for the newcomers to the sport, and depending on your goals can be fine tuned to happen for the dog or the dog AND owner who wants to learn to sled with their dogs themselves in a one on one session.
For the dog
These 1hr sessions cover the basics that need to be assessed or learned before your dog can head out on a line.
For the dogs, we do a maximum of 4 sessions/dog for this kind of training. Any more than that needed, and very likely your dog isn't meant to do dogsledding.
This is also mandatory before a dog joins any of the runs on our teams
For the Owner
If you are serious, like super serious about joining the sport, these are the sessions for you. These sessions cover the basics that need to be assessed, learned, and driven into habit before you head out with them on your own.
Just like driving a car, its good to have a solid foundational knowledge before you head out. Not only does this protect others from being hurt, but it also protects the sport itself through allowing knowledge to be shared.
runs
After a successful 1-4 sessions of rookie training, your dog will likely be ready to hit the trails. At the beginning of the season, in the fall, we usually start with 4km runs. By the end of the season, teams will usually cover up to 40km in a single run - depending on their own capabilities.
Adventure runs
This is the gem of our work, where we head out on COUNTLESS number of trail systems that we have travelled through over the years during our work.
Expect for dogs to be out on the trails from anywhere between 1hr - 8hrs (including some travel time). These runs are weather dependent, and run typically on flexible hours. Honestly, most of the time, we're heading out to explore the trails and as a team, we travel and go as far as the energy and fitness of the team allows.
Touring team runs
If you're dog has completed enough km's on the trails with us during these kinds of runs (minimum 400km total over the fall training season to be exact), in December of every year, we invite the best of our best onto our touring teams.
The touring teams is where your pup becomes really popular giving rides and on tours. For every run that we run as a tour with your pup, your fee is dropped and your dog still gets all the benefits of the adventure runs.
Things that we cover for runs
Running
This is sort of the reason youre likely here, so the nitty gritty of it is that each session, or run, can last anywhere between 1hr-8hrs, with nearly each and every run heading to a different location.
As far as a dogwalking gig, Its a pretty kickass bang for your buck
Treats on the trails
We take enormous amount of care to ensure that no matter what the size or breed of dog, theyre getting the appropriate nutrition on the trails to be performing like a stellar athlete.
We provide all the treats on the trail, which include raw moose meat, beef trimmings, or super high octane dog kibble (tokamak brand)
Health checks
Aside from the health checks that you provide for your dogs anyways, before and after each run, we go over all the limbs, paws, joint, tummy's, etc. to make sure that each dog is in good physical condition.
That being said, sometimes, injuries DO and CAN occur, like they would for any athlete. In the case of injury, we do our very best to prevent any further injury by working with the owner during the recovery process.
Constant updates about your buddy
The coolest thing is that you will usually get running updates while we are out on the trails (unless its too cold to have the phone out) about where we are and the adventures we are getting into. As well as just feedback about your pup and their behaviour.
Diet and nutrition advice
Once your dog starts coming out with us, it'll be important, for their health, to get the right nutrition at home. We know every family is different, so we try to work with you best we can to make sure that even though were all from different families, you can rest easy knowing that your doggy is getting the right stuff for the work that theyre doing.