Skip to main content

Dog Sledding with a Passenger


Dog sledding with a passenger or two can be a fun experience as long as it is done safely and you take the proper precautions. If you intend on transporting passengers in your dog sled you need to make sure that you have a sled big enough and sturdy enough to hold the extra weight. Most wooden basket sleds can hold a hundred pounds or so but if you through a 180lbs. adult on top of that you will be seriously over capacity. It may be tempting to leave extra baggage behind and just take a passenger with you but most of the items you carry with you on a daily basis are there for a reason. If you start leaving extra parts and supplies behind so that you can accommodate the extra weight of a passenger you could be asking for trouble.
If you are going to start transporting passengers you also need to make sure that your dogs are up to the challenging of pulling even more weight. Before you start allowing passengers to ride along it would be a good idea to condition your sled team for a few weeks so that they can get used to pulling the added weight. If you buy a bigger and heavier sled to accommodate one or more passengers and add in all of the extra emergency supplies you have to bring along for those passengers you may decide that you need to add two extra dogs to your team to do the job effectively. Asking your team to go from pulling 300lbs. to 500-600lbs. can be a bit much, especially if you have a small dog team to begin with. When transporting passengers you should also make sure that they know all of the safety rules they need to follow as well as what they should do in certain situations.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dog Sledding Equipment

Dog sledding has a history of thousand years. It was started when the Inuit made their first sled known as “komatik”. The equipment needed for dog sledding has evolved since then. The sled, gang-line everything has been improved a great deal, but the overall structure remains pretty much the same. The main equipments needed for dog sledding incorporates the following: SLED: The main part of dog sledding equipment is the sled. Dog sledding was possible with the invention of sled. The first sled was made by the Inuit. It was made from various kinds of wood like birch or ash. A sled has to be strong and flexible as well as water proof. So, a lot of care should be taken in making a sled. Inuit also used another type of sled called basket sled. It was made from mid-range floating basket. These two kinds of sled are still common today. But modern sled builders are experimenting with other materials like fiberglass, aluminums etc. DOG HARNESS: Dog harness is the straps used to hold the sled ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Costs of Dog Sledding

Dog sledding, like most activities comes with plenty of different hidden costs but these tend to be much less than the upfront costs that is immediately discernable. The most expensive investment a dog sled team owner has is the team itself. Dog sled teams can be as small as four to six dogs or as large as sixteen dogs. While some sled dogs from semi-legitimate breeders can cost only a few hundred dollars as pups, most of the pure bred sled dogs can be worth thousands of dollars. If you decide to buy trained dogs the expense can quickly get out of hand, requiring an initial investment of as much as $200,000 for a small team of dogs. In addition to buying the dogs you also have to take care of them on a daily basis and as you can imagine feeding a team of large sled dogs every day isn’t going to be cheap. Of course along with a sled team you will also have to purchase a sled yourself, unless you have the skills to make one by hand. A very basic wooden basket sled will probably cost ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Dangers of Dog Sledding

Lost in the mystique and romanticism surrounding dog sledding is the danger that comes with it. Dog sledding is one of the most dangerous activities out there, not because sledding itself is actually dangerous, but because the environment that dog sledding requires can be harsh and unforgiving. If you get stranded while dog sledding, even if you are only a few miles from civilization, things can quickly get out of control if you are unprepared. Getting stranded is a sled driver’s worst nightmare because in many cases there isn’t much you can do except to wait until help arrives, if help arrives. A dog sled team can get stranded for many different reasons and not all of them are easy to prepare for. If a gang line or a harness breaks those can generally be repaired or replaced easy enough but if you get hurt or the sled gets damaged you may not have many options. Another danger of dog sledding is the wilderness itself. Wild animals can pose a significant threat to your sled team, es...
Post a Comment
Read more