 |
| The Huskies Running Team |
He continues to be very well behaved and also challenge
authority of humans and boy huskies with great enthusiasm and tenacity.
 |
| Playing with the big boy huskies |
He has a huge appetite, so much catching up to do I guess! His body is responding well and getting stronger
every day. His body is also well coated
with fur now, although the fur is not yet shiny and plush like a “normal” and
well-nourished husky puppy.
He runs every day on collar and loose lead. I run short distances with him at a very slow
speed, but as he gets stronger he wants to run further and faster….
 |
| Teasing Krofti... |
He runs in the morning with Krofti and in the evening I run
him solo, just him and I and a chance to bond.
He does respond very well, but does not know left from right and doesn’t
quite understand that he shouldn’t stop dead in the path of a running
human. He also has not yet learned not
to cut in front of the running human!
Work to do there, but he is learning and I am very impressed with his
determination when running down hills….
This week I decided to run him in harness with Kez. Kez is exceptionally well-behaved with a
brilliant work ethos, therefore it was best to run Spike with him rather than
Kroi. Kez also has a variety of paces
and will run at the speed of the slowest person/ dog, with no pulling or
resistance. He has been trained to
always run in front of me, but only pull on command, therefore his default mode
is not to pull.
Little Spike happily allowed me to put on his harness and
bounced around as soon as we went out the door.
Jumping on Kez and trying to bite his ears. Kez completely ignored him and gently trotted
up the track. Spike soon stopped trying
to jump on Kez and bounded along beside him with much enthusiasm! He bounds as Kez trots, but I have noticed
that his trotting ability is improving as his muscles and strength develop.
 |
| Look at him go!! |
We were soon running along at a nice steady pace and I asked
Kez to speed up to see if Spike would respond.
Bless him, he tried so hard but he just couldn’t keep up. As soon as Kez realised this he slowed down
and refused to go faster. Any time Spike
slowed down, Kez responded by slowing down and waiting for him to catch
up. We stopped frequently to make the
run fun for Spike, although I think Kez found this bit rather frustrating. When Kez is wearing a harness his work ethic
kicks in. This is why 99% of the time I
run our Huskies on collars and leads - it allows them more freedom and time to have
fun and I get to run naturally. The
difference is amazing – even Kroi does not pull when running with a collar and
lead.
On our return journey Spike decided that running full speed
downhill was a good idea, which was awesome to watch. His enthusiasm was definitely infectious.
 |
| Running and fun makes a sleepy puppy.. |
After such a good trial during the week I decided that he
could participate in my run on Sunday along Basingstoke Canal path. 31 miles in total, I was going to run it all,
the huskies run little parts of it before the temperatures became too hot. I will write about this adventure in a
separate blog, but I am pleased to say that the little guy most definitely enjoyed
his part in the Huskies Running team event!
(photos thanks to tz runs and me)
