I have a 3-year-old female Bernese Mountain Dog who is very small for the breed (75 pounds). I’ve been thinking about teaching her to pull a small cart (no people in the cart) and I’m wondering if anybody has ever done this. Any tips for getting started? Good places to buy a harness?
Not cart training but a few years back I trained my 2 little Bichons to pull me on street skates while zooming down the sidewalk. It was a blast and the doggies loved it. As I recall the 2 most important lessons were GO and WHOAH!!! I just used regular harnesses and long, long leads.
I’ll bet you can google for harnesses for pulling and also instructions for teaching your dog. It’s so much fun and I hope you’re successful!
We taught our dogs to pull us on skateboards (we both downhill longboard) The first started kind of accidentally, he (PB looking mutt) has a very high competitive drive and couldn’t stand for the skateboard to “beat” him, which lead to him pulling. We got a real pulling harness and started teaching him some cues. When we got our other dog (plott hound) she would pull but definitely wasn’t as driven as he was. (which actually worked out really well, because he pulls super fast and I’m not comfortable going as fast as my DH is lol) We started her by having both dogs on a leash, the PB on a longer leash and the plott on a shorter leash so PB was always in front (he’s also the dom of the two, so she likes to follow him but won’t pass) and taught her the same cues of go and stop.
Since she’s more my dog I tend to use more horsey cues, they’re both taught “Let’s Go” as the starting cue and then I use clicks to tell her go faster and “Whoop” to slow down, along with pulling her in close to me. For her, a longer leash mean go faster, shorter leash means go slower. For the PB the tighter he’s brought in closer to you the faster he wants to go. DH can actually sit on the board and bring him in real close and tap him on the butt…they fly!
There are lots of pulling harnesses out there, we got the one that best fit and added a little of fleece and padding to it. Our dogs are thinner haired so we got ones that had a lot of padding to them. Your dog having more hair you might look for ones designed for actual sled dogs, they’ll probably fit better. I’d also look for one that has attachment points on either side, not just on top, to better distribute the load.
I’d think teaching her to pulling the cart itself with you walking beside her would be fairly simple. Get a well fitting harness and walk her in that a few times to get her used to it (we also have different collars for non puling walks/runs), then rig something small for her to pull, cart, log, whatever and take short pulls with lots of rewards when she goes forward (if she gets freaked out by something behind her, maybe try some long ropes dragging instead of an actual cart, just something so she gets used to the sensation of weight on the harness and something following her) and then just gradually increase your walks and weight behind her.
We trained a norwegian elkhound and a rottie to haul a cart for our dog club’s school and other demonstration programs.
That was long ago and best I remember, we used an adjustable horse halter and ropes and an old mexican handmade kid’s toy cart.
The dogs were obedience trained and that is how we “drove” them, with that kind of training for commands.
We had one poodle that we tried that with also.
She was not very bright and didn’t like it, seemed depressed when in traces, so we quit trying with her.
The other two came alive to strut their stuff, especially with kids laughing around them.
The dogs and school kids loved it, give it a try, it is lots of fun.
When I was twelve I taught my GSD/Wolfdog cross to pull a wagon. She loved children (probably because she was constantly attached to me 24/7) and we’d all take turns riding down the road in the wagon.
Good times.
I figured that breaking it down into small steps would be the way to go - introduce harness, have her get used to having something behind her (not attached to her), attach something light like a rope to have her drag, etc. She’s such a sweet dog (she passed her therapy dog testing before she turned 2) but she does have a bit of a stubborn streak.
When I was a kid we had a mixed-breed dog who wasn’t very big (maybe 30 pounds). He would pull me on my bicycle and we would go fast. The poor dog didn’t get enough exercise (we didn’t realize that at the time) so it probably felt great to run. After a snowstorm my sister and I hooked him up to our sled using belts and whatever else we could find and took him to the store to buy milk. What a tolerant dog.
