Who's touring with their dogs

[Muggydude]

With large breeds (like my GSD) really can’t do too much with them until at least 18 months when their joints and bones have set. Otherwise you’re asking for problems like hip and elbow dysplasia. Long endurance exercise (repeated pounding) on hard surfaces is the worst. Snow is cushioning at least.

I’m planning on doing some small 60-90 minute type touring stints with him this winter at 6-9 months old. Lots of stops for water, rest. He pretty much just flops down in the snow already when he’s tired so it’s easy to tell at least


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[volklpowdermaniac]

I think a lot of the advice here is very relevant, especially to do with dogs over exerting themselves.
But mostly they just have the greatest day of their life.
Now when I am getting gear ready Junior goes absolutely ape shit with excitement.

Be careful about national park rules/etc tho. Many cases dogs aren't allowed.
Bring poop bags, water bowl and snacks.
Keep a towel in the car for wet dog.
And certainly make sure not to bother other people in the backcountry.

I only take Junior on reasonably fair weather days, on non extreme terrain, and in low or at medium-low avalanche danger.

When I started bringing him I was worried about Junior going too hard and getting too cold and buried in the snow, but it seems he has almost no limits. Junior is only 1.5 years old and still has unlimited energy.
Started with increasingly longer trudges through deep snow fields, encouraging him to go anywhere he likes, as long as he is within eye sight of me.
Then a 30 minute easy tour.
Stepped up to 45mins first lap (slow breaking trail) with increasing amounts of repeat 15 min laps at a spot where I could easily carry him home if needed.
And by the end of last season he had been on multiple 2 hour single lap missions and on a 5 hour 7 lap day. At the end of a day he is asleep very quickly in my car, tho 15 minutes later he wants to know why we haven't started climbing the next mountain yet.

I am unsure about doing longer or long multi lap days. I think he might have the energy, but the fur on his belly builds up with snow when its real deep and I think it would accumulate badly. I plan to get/make him a waterproof (gortex) jacket that has chest/belly protection.

On the way up, Junior is sure to check every potential fox hole and rabbit hole, and smell every tree.
Every time we stop he loves to sit majestically and look off into the distance admiring the countryside.
He is very bad at route planning and zig-zags everywhere in a terribly inefficient ascent, and completely ignores the 15 degree most efficient touring angle rule. Tho he does know the general routes we climb now, which is quite funny. Now that he knows the routes a little, even after 2-3 hours in the cold, when he realizes we're on our way home the little smartass suddenly gets 'lost' and has important trees to sniff rather than keep up with me skiing the flat back to the car.
For a small-medium dog he has no problem with Japanese 30cm+ deep pow on the up. He is 5x faster than the fastest mountain climber. On the down he's a bit slower and gets a but buried sometimes so he follows my tracks most of the time.
Junior is impatient of people who take too long to transition, so prepare to bring your A game. He does get cold when waiting around, once while waiting for an especially slow friend I had to keep him warm inside my ski jacket.
He isn't very good at sharing and is often annoyed when he sees other people hiking 'my' mountain.
It took a few sessions, but he has learned to keep away from the pointy end of skis. I've never hit him, tho I think I came close enough by accident once that means he has worked it out.

He is the greatest companion you could hope for, unlimited stoke. However sometimes you do just want to blast some double black laps or are just tired of looking out for him and making sure you know where he is and that he is ok.

That is one cool AF, badass, awesome looking doggo! (Not that they all aren’t)

[plugboots]

So, adding it up, I guess I've skied w/ 9 of our own/family dogs, and about 3 friend's dogs. All were different, as you'd expect. Not sure if you can drastically change their ski behavior.
Probably the worst was Baetis, our black lab. He wanted to bite the tips of our skis. Why? Maybe he didn't like the sound the skis made? He did it less in powder.
The solution was to keep a ball in his mouth, or keep him occupied. If we did short laps, one person would wait at the bottom and throw the ball for him, and we'd alternate. If we were together, we'd throw the ball, he'd chase it, then we'd start skiing. It was actually better this way in powder, as he'd lose the ball, but be occupied by digging for it. He was a bad dog.
Kedar is by far the best. He loves it, likes to lead, stays out of the way, knows and often follows the skin track down, etc. I did not teach him this stuff. I've posted this before, but...

[3PinGrin]

Awesome vid plugboots!

This is a timely bump for me. My dad raised and trained German Shorthairs as hunting dogs when I was a kid, but the first dog of my own after graduating high school in 83 was my last "lab/rotte/chow/who know's what else mix" that passed last December at the age of 14. She loved getting out in the winter and was completely oblivious to the cold, but mostly took her on nordic days. She did surf powder over her head a couple of times though. She loved being outdoors but was a momma's girl and often stayed home when I went on longer ski forays. This is just a few weeks before she finally went down, liver and kidney were both failing at this point but she still loved to tour the neighborhood and was patiently waiting for a treat from the neighbor.


These days I'm a bachelor and pretty much a hermit, but have a new outdoor companion that is almost always by my side. He's a pit mix with short hair but has done several snow trips with me now, including two bc skiing excursions. He is super high energy and solid muscle. Musher's Secret has been great, he doesn't even lick at it. I have been surprised how well he has weathered the cold given his short coat. We haven't been out when it's super cold but a couple days in the lower 20's when he was out for around 3 hours, and he is constantly active. I haven't gotten too enthused about more bc skiing yet, and have been laid up sick for several days now, but looking forward to getting him out more. How effective are the coats for giving him a little added warmth once it's colder? Is there anything I can rub on his belly, nose, etc. to give him a little extra frostbite protection besides vaseline? I figure the Musher's Secret is helping with his toes/paws but didn't want it on his face necessarily. He doesn't have much belly fur, but his harness protects it a little.

[s_curran]

We adopted a pup this year, pretty sure shes a pointer / lab (or collie) mix, probably pit too. She's about 5 months old. Still working up to longer things, but from we can see, she clearly wants to go longer than we let her, but trying to keep the activity to less than 40min per trip at the moment, per suggestions, not sure the accuracy of this. Usually its just hikes through or woods, and we've started to get her accustomed to one of us being on an MTB, which she loves.

I cleared a quick, 300 vert or so, low angle ski trail on our property to get her going, we'll wait to do real tours with her until next year.

Do folks leave leashes on there dogs in the beginning? We have a simple nylon one without a loop that we have her drag, just in case, but we barely use it anymore.

She's now much bigger, but you get the idea:

[plugboots]

I’ve never left the leash on because I’m afraid of it catching on something.

[I've seen black diamonds!]

I think if I expected to need a leash I'd do more training before I took the dog out . That said, I always kept one in the pack with Sadie because getting a face full of quills three times did nothing to diminish her great love of porcupines.

[snowaddict91]

I’ve never left the leash on because I’m afraid of it catching on something.

Same. I pretty much always carry one for each dog though.

I haven't skied much with my dogs, mostly due to living somewhere without a lot of good dog friendly touring for the last while, but hope to be doing more in the future. Lots of good advice in here.

And +whatever on starting small and knowing your dog. If I'm biking or skiing in a new or unfamiliar area I usually leave the dogs at home the first time to avoid getting over their heads. Unfortunately I gave Rosie heat stroke once mountain biking when we were both young and dumb. Luckily she is still around.

[evasive_MT]

My little guy crossed the bridge in May. He absolutely loved the snow. He would run with a little extra pep with the softer surface.

Most of the touring I did with him was Nordic- he absolutely loved Stemple. He would porpoise along the side of the trail for a mile or so before settling in and trotting behind the skis. I never needed to train him to ski or mountain bike- I think he had just enough cow dog that he was happiest running sweep. I did hike Showdown with him once, and Mount Ascension a couple times.

He was fairly tolerant of the cold. I put a doggy coat on him for the last couple winters he went XC skiing with me. His paws were good to about low single digits.

Mount A


Showdown

[garyfromterrace]

Some fantastic advice and pics. Thanks. I think we are on the right path with Maisie and will heed a bunch of the advice given. Damn, you guys have (and had) some pretty amazing mutts! I'm so stoked to be starting this journey with our hound.

[grinch]

If i were a dawg i think id want some rexspecs. The mirrored ones of course so i can stealthly check out all the bitches yo

https://instagram.com/rexspecsk9?igshid=29y1h8b6rftd

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[ntblanks]

My boy Andy is a solid partner.

Attachment 351035

this is a magazine cover

[ntblanks]

doggie whiteroom.

this is a fantastic thread. so much love and good advice. getting all the feels right now and missing my boy.

[sf]

Repost from at few years ago. My buddys two huskies enjoying cold smoke



My current dog loves hiking, but has too much fur (or gets to cold without it), a bit too short legs, and doesn't manage his energy well on longer trips in the winter. Next dog will absolutely be a trail / touring-appropriate breed.

Edit: somehow forgot my question:
In the winter / snow he freaks out when we start on the decent. He won't follow, he won't come when called on - even when someone is staying up top with him. This is in mellow terrain, with manageable snow depth. Won't come even when treats are offered. Last time my GF had to ski with him in her arms....

Any suggestions? Except from leaving him at home - which is what we'll do pr now. He follows commands in all other situations

[garyfromterrace]

So I ramped up little 3mo old Maisie's uphill to around 700' and horizontal 3km (a little under 2mi). We take our time with several stops on the way up and down. She's not panting at all, she loves it. On the down she's staying away from the skis.

We've ramped up to this with lots of daily walks and every third day or so (lately) a bit of a ski day. I think today was day 6 at the ski area.

Question for you guys: I don't think we're overdoing it and we're ensuring lots of rest days with just light shorter walks and some dog play dates after she has a bigger day. What do you former and current ski dog owners think?

She's a catahoula/white shephard/border collie cross.



With her auntie Sitka and her mom.



Skiing with mom.

[Bobcat Sig]

I've toured a bit with our older dog. he's now about 13 or 14, though even when I did, it was very mellow terrain on firm-ish conditions. I've heard too many stories of dogs sliced up by ski edges, lost, buried, or worse - causing or caught in a slide.

I also took him mountain biking a few times, but as I'm now learning, that was really hard on his joints. He's on two different pain meds to manage some bad arthritis. I can't help but think that I did some harm to him with some of those mountain bike rides.

We now have a GSD-mix pup that's about 5 months old. We're pretty regimented about his training. I have yet to have him along on bike rides and he hasn't experienced snow. I'm waffling on training him for even mellow tours. I don't really have a crew around here as I used to and most of the zones around here are much busier.




And the new pup:

[::: :::]

cute pup!

[californiagrown]

What do you former and current ski dog owners think?
.

Im not an expert. Remember that the way back down is much harder on the dog from an exertion standpoint, as well as long term joint standpoint. The way up, the human is the slow one and the dog is the one pushing the pace, plus uphill is easy on their joints. The downhill is where pounding on the joints takes place, and where the human sets the pace. So, just try to be cognizant of that.

Otherwise, sounds like its going great. Pups recover super quick, so walks and hikes where the dog sets the pace are perfect low impact "recovery" days. Playdates can be, but just like humans playing sports, dogs get competitive and are more likely to push too hard playing so thats a more high intensity activity for them (depending on how your dog plays and who they play with).

that said, you are probably pretty in touch with your pup at this point and can pick up on the subtle cues when she is jacked and ready to go, vs when she is a little slower and dragging ass. Pay attention. Its a dog. They don't need (or want) to be babied, just set expectations for the day with the dog in mind, not just your own goals.

One other thing I do is that when i go out with my dog i bring kibble/treats. When i eat a snack or a meal, Olly eats a snack. helps keep him fueled up, and also helps bonding because The Pack always eats together.

[plugboots]

Gary, it sounds like you're doing everything fine. Have fun.
As for:

He won't follow, he won't come when called on - even when someone is staying up top with him.

If he won't come for his favorite treats, I'm not sure what to try. Have you tried trail runs/bike rides, skate ski? Our dogs have kinda treated all these things the same, really. Once they figure out the device isn't something to be afraid of they get fired up when they see me getting ready.

[sf]

If he won't come for his favorite treats, I'm not sure what to try. Have you tried trail runs/bike rides, skate ski? Our dogs have kinda treated all these things the same, really. Once they figure out the device isn't something to be afraid of they get fired up when they see me getting ready.

Yeah, it's puzzling. He loves the up, has no problems with skis or other equipment. Overall pretty confident, loves trail runs, never been on a bike ride.
He's closing in on 9 years, so I won't bother with making this a big project. Probably could have fixed it by skiing a few meters, calling him, treats, repeat, but it's just not worth it for a dog his age.

[banzai]

My 8 month old pup, enjoying her first tour (the resort was closed). 6.5km lap with 600m elevation/denivelation, took it like a champ.

[I've seen black diamonds!]

The skiing sucked but we had fun.

[Any]

keep pics coming plz, I can't get back to Japan so wont be able to ski with Junior this season

[chaka]

years ago, I was skinning up with our pup Nacho behind, a ridgeback/pit/lab rescue mutt. I kept feeling dragged/slowed down, thought at first I was picking up ice on the skins, or snow on the topsheets. I look back, and Nacho has his two front paws on my tails, matching my skiing rhythm and taking a bit of a free ride. I swore he was smiling. I loved that crafty dog.

[BlAikenstein]

This bish is rowdy