Skijour

One Saturday afternoon recently I was just sitting around when the phone rang, “Hey, I figured it was my turn to ask. Do you want to go do something outside today? It’s nice and sunny!” Karis said.

Often, on Saturday afternoons Thunder and I go for a walk, end up at Karis’s yurt, and then drag her out for a walk with us. This time, it was Karis convincing me that I should get outside.

“Ok,” I said. “Should we go skiing or snowshoeing or walking?”

After some discussion of the pros and cons we decided that Karis would go skiing and I would go skijouring.

Skijouring involves putting a harness on the dog and a belt on a skier and then attaching the skier and the harnessed dog to each other with a rope. The idea is that the dog pulls the skier over the snow.

Or at least, the dog should pull the skier gliding over the snow.  As Thunder and I set out, with Karis shortly behind us, he ran from the left side of the trail to the right side of the trail and then back again, sniffing as he went.  Certainly, he was not focused on pulling me forward.  Nevertheless, on we went, stopping ocassionally to let Thunder do his business.

After about ten minutes we got up to a nice narrow tree-lined trail.  Karis and I switched spots so that she was now leading. As we set off again, Thunder suddenly became more focused. Maybe he knew we were following Karis or maybe with a narrower trail there was less room to wander, but whatever the reason may was I quickly found myself being pulled behind Thunder as he trotted along the trail.

“Yay!” I exclaimed to Karis, “He’s actually pulling! We’re skijouring for real now!”