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First
your going to have to purchase a pair of inline skates |
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your
next step is going to require a little patience, you need to
learn how to skate before trying it behind dogs. |
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Luckily
I am experienced enough to go out and skate with our sams. |
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First
things first if your going to try this out wear your
protective gear (as you can see I (Ken) am not that smart. I
do wear wrist and hand protectors, but find the elbow pads
and knee pads uncomfortable and in my defense I have been
skating since I was 3 years old. |
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The
best set up you can use is a regular dog sledding harness
for each of the dogs. I do not recommend doing this when you
are in the learning phase. Problem with harnesses is that
you attach the gang-line or leash in this case to the rear
of the dog. By doing this you do not have control of
the dogs head. I found running with a regular collar
(not a choker) was the best way to learn how to handle the
dogs and how to maneuver on my skates. |
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I've
been doing this a long time now and always use the sledding
harnesses with the dogs. Once you graduate to a
harness you will notice a distinct difference in the pulling
style, power and speed generated by the dogs. A person
on inline skates generates practically zero resistance so
the dogs can run at top speed. |
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I
use a short leash that goes between the dogs and has clasps
on each end with a clasp in the middle for me to connect a 6
foot leash to. The leash that goes between the dogs connects
to the loop on the rear of the dog harnesses or to the dog
collar (if you are not using a harness). See the photos at
the bottom of this page. |
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You
really need to be confident on your inline skates,
especially with your brakes, if you can't stop yourself what
makes you think you can stop a couple of fired up samoyeds. |
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There
are 2 ways of braking and I use a combination of both. |
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One
is to use the brakes that come with the skates these are
usually a rubber pad attached to one of the skates, you stop
by raising the toe of the skate and dragging the rubber pad
against the ground, it makes a lot of noise, but does do a
good job. The other method is to turn one of the
skates sideways and drag it behind you, dragging the rubber
wheels perpendicular to the direction you are traveling.
This method is a little more difficult but does work well
once you learn how to do it. One problem with this
method is that it wears the wheels down faster and the
rubber pads for brakes are cheaper than replacing and entire
set of wheels. |
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Only
inline skate in areas where you know the traffic is light. |
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The
residential streets where I live and the urban trail system
have very light traffic so this is where I go inline
skating. |
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Never
go downhill, if you are not comfortable on your ability to
control your speed when your with the dogs, trust me you
will pass the dogs on a down hill run, as inline skates are
incredibly fast, and take little effort to reach high speeds
when going downhill. |
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Only
travel on areas where you know the sidewalks, paths or roads
are clear of rocks and debris, if you don't, you're going to
land on your face, (this is where the protective gear comes
in real handy) |
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Regularly
check your roller blades for damage make sure all the wheels
are in proper working order and are not over worn. You
should rotate your wheels on a regular basis to the maximize
the amount of wear you will get out of a set of wheels.
If they are worn out get new wheels, and bearings. |
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I
have gone through 3 pairs of inline skates doing this and is
on his fourth pair, after all of this I decided that
buying cheap inline skates just isn't the best plan.
The cheaper skates have softer wheels and they wear out more
rapidly. They also have a plastic chassis where the
wheels connect to the blades. I just purchased a set of K2
roller blades with an aluminum chassis and a little bit
harder wheels. I think these will out last the
previous 3 pairs (now in the local landfill). If you
want to try this you may want to buy cheap blades the first
time, but when they wear out and you plan to continue doing
this, spend the money for a good quality inline skate with
an aluminum chassis. |
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Now
go out there and have some fun, but be careful safety is
first. |
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And
don't forget your plastic bags to clean up after the pups.
Kodiak is famous for doing his job on some guys driveway
while the owners are watching. I know its a little
embarrassing but do it anyway you will gain the respect of
your neighbors and they will appreciate you all the more for
being a responsible sammy owner. |
