First step was to get a suitable harness, since none of the harnesses I owned were appropriate for pulling weight. I found a really great harness designed for pulling sleighs at Akko Sports (check them out!).
Next step was to get Unit use to wearing the harness. This was pretty easy to do, in fact, every step was very easy with Unit as she's one of those dogs who will do ANYTHING for her owner!
I had her wear the harness around the house a couple of days. Next I took her for a walk. She has trouble walking in front of me, so it's clear she's never going to pull ME, or at least, not without a lot of work!
She quickly got use to the harness and the ganglines flopping about her behind. The next step was to add a bit of resistance and put something other than me on the end of the ganglines! A friend had suggested trying a jump pole. I have plenty of those, but mine are abnormally long so I went with a shorter pvc weave pole instead. This worked great. She figured out quite quickly that something was dragging behind her but other than a bit of curiosity she didn't seem to have any problems with it.
She seemed ready for the next step; the sleigh. We did a few trips around the yard and one down the road and back. She did fantastic!! She is a very fast learner and is willing to move past any hesitations because she trusts me. This is such an important component of dog training; if your dog doesn't trust you, why would they want to work for you?!
Tonight I will be adding weight, and hopefully if that goes well she'll be pulling Merrik around by Saturday! I will update to let you know how she does!
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