How Many Huskies does it take to pull One Sled? FAN FRIDAY #90

What are you doing with that remote? What are you gonna do? Gonna change the channel? Then change it to Fan Friday! Hey Oakley! Is it time for Fan Friday? It's time for Fan Friday? It's Fan Friday! Since we showed you guys those three dog sledding videos this week, we thought we'd answer a couple questions that you guys had about dog sledding. One of the questions we got was, what are the different types of harnesses we use? Notice, we have frozen Shelby. Are you frozen Shelby? Good! Don't move! This is what is called a cross back racing harness. Hey! Moved! Dang her! Come here! Show me your harness! This is called a cross back racing harness. As you can see, it crosses over her back. This is where we hook it to the gang line on the sled. And as you watch, when I pull this tight... She's gonna pull backwards because she's not actually hooked up to the sled. This makes it so that when the dog is pulling the sled, it helps distribute the weight. You can see on the front here, it's nice and padded. It's very soft. Right Shelby? Very soft! But this type of harness is basically used for sledding. You can use it for skijoring. You can use it for bike joring, but there's also other types of harnesses that can be used for that. So, this is a cross back racing harness. We get these custom made at alpineoutfitters.net Look! Frozen Shelby again! Now, this harness is called an urban mushing harness. This is actually the adjustable one. You can buy them fitted or you can buy them adjustable. I got the adjustable one because I bought it before Shelby was full grown. Again, from Alpine Outfitters. This is the harness we use when biking. As you can see, it has three D-rings on it. So, you can actually hook anywhere when biking. When using the springer, we usually hook here. If actually bike joring, it's best of course to hook in the middle. You can also use these harnesses for cane across. Like if you have your dog hooked to your belt and you want to jog, you can use them for cane across. Or you can use them for skijoring, but the cross back racing harness works a bit better for skijoring. But those are the two types of harnesses that we use. The urban mushing harness and the cross back racing harness. Margaret wants to know, can one dog pull one human on a sled? You know, if you have a really strong dog, you could probably get away with that. But it's best to have at least two. Unless you're using the kick sled. The kick sled is specifically designed to be used with just one or two dogs because you can help kick it along. So, if you have a kick sled, you could get away with one dog. For a full size dog sled, two to three dogs is definitely best. They are really strong and they can pull a lot of weight, but you don't want to overwork your dogs and tire them out too fast. You also don't want to injure them by making them pull too much weight. Jessica wants to know, how many dogs are allowed to pull a sled when racing? That all depends on the type of race, whether it's a distance race or a sprint race. The types of races that we showed you are called sprint races. Basically, they're short races. Like the four dog teams run, I believe, four to five miles. The six dog teams run six to seven miles and then the eight dog team usually runs eight to ten miles. It's called a sprint race because it's just a short distance race. So, you usually see smaller teams doing that. Then in the longer distance races, you can see teams of 12, teams of 16. The biggest team Jamie and I have ever seen was a team of 24 in an unlimited sprint race. But it all just depends on the type of race. It doesn't really matter that much how many dogs pull a sled. Nancy had a similar question about how many dogs can pull a sled. She wanted to know if four dogs can pull a sled, then why would they have six dogs or even eight dogs? What determines each team's number of dogs? Again, it all has to do with distance. If it's sprint racing, it has to do with how far the distance is that they're running. That'll determine how many dogs they'll want to be pulling their sled. And like if it's an eight dog... If it's an eight mile race and it's supposed to be eight dogs, you can run seven or eight dogs. You don't have to run eight dogs. But if you're going to run six dogs, then you have to go down to the six dog class. Ann wants to know if there is a certain age that sled dogs retire. Not necessarily. Some dogs will run and run and run. There were some dogs this weekend, I believe that were 11 and 12 years old that were still running. And then some dogs... I have a friend of mine who has a seven year old who's already retiring her dog because the dog just doesn't want to run anymore. So you really have to know your dogs and know them really well. That'll help you determine when it's time to retire them. Some dogs will run and run and run forever and some quit a little bit earlier than others. Amanda says, I live in Georgia and there's no snow for sledding exercise for my dog. Do you know of a good non-snow wheeled scooter that I can hook her to to get more exercise? Preferably something three or four wheeled, not two. If you don't want two wheels and you don't want a scooter, you want more of a cart than a scooter. A lot of carts are a little bit heavy for just one dog. You may be better off doing a bike or a scooter. But there's a place if you google Arctic Carts. Arctic Carts. They make some really nice carts, but they're very expensive. And again, they're kind of heavy for just one dog. I would definitely look more into the scooters, like the Paw Trekker scooters or things like that, or even just into bike joring instead of a cart. What are you doing Shelby? You're being silly. Silly girl. Alyssa wants to know, how is Jamie's toe? Actually, it looked a lot better even by the second day. Could have been because he fell through the ice. If you guys don't know what happened to Jamie's toe, then you're not subscribed to our vlog channel, which is youtube.com slash WithoutTheSnowDogs. There's a little button over here that says vlogs. It'll subscribe you to that channel. Just go check it out. There was some video footage of Jamie breaking his toe and Jamie falling through the ice, which we thought was kind of funny. Jessica says, help! I have a Siberian Husky. He will be two in March. When we leave the house, we have to pack everything. Take everything out of the living room, put the TV in the couch, take everything out of the kitchen that he can get to. We set up a camera when we left and he jumps on the counters and licks everything. Please, how do I keep him from getting on them? Here, I'll show you. With one of these. This is called a crate. This will keep your dog in a safe secure area when you're not home. It will stop the dog from chewing up your couches, chewing up your rugs, jumping on your counters, destroying things and possibly choking on things that they're destroying while you're not home. This is the safest thing you can have for your dog to keep them out of trouble while you're not home. We got a lot of mail again today. We got a letter from Carson with a drawing on the envelope and Carson wants us to send a picture of the dogs to him for his birthday. It's in the mail. I put it in the mail today. We got a letter and a drawing from Addison. Thank you Addison! We got a really cool Christmas card from Susie and Hope. What a pretty dog! And then again this week, we got a lot of cards from you guys for the loss of Shiloh. I'm not going to read every card on camera but I have read all of them and I am writing everybody back but I'm going to show you guys the cards and let you know who they're from. This card came from Canada. It came from Lynn and her doggies. This card also came from Canada and it made me smile. It was such a cute card and this card came from Karen. This card came from Sherry in Oklahoma. This card came from Bill, Rosie and Buddy from Illinois, I believe. And we got a beautiful letter from James in England and I did write you back James. This card came from Maura and Miko from New York. This card came from Ellen and Myra in North Carolina. This letter and drawing came from Danielle in Montana. This card came from Maria and Copper in Florida. This card came from Sarah in Mississippi, I believe. This card came from Cory and Sota in Illinois. This card was actually mailed to us by our vet's office. It was mailed to us by Schweitzer Veterinary from all of the staff which I thought was very nice of them. This card and this beautiful necklace was given to us by our friend Rebecca. This letter was mailed to us by Kristen in Florida. This card was mailed to us by Diana and her pets from North Carolina. This card was mailed to us by Sherry in Maryland. Thank you guys again for sending the cards and the letters and all of the beautiful things. Pretty much everybody wrote something nice and sweet in each card and I am writing all of you back. I have read all of the cards. Like I said, it's hard to read them on camera and I am taking the time to write everybody back that sends me a card. Thank you so much! That's all we have for Fan Friday today you guys. Thanks for watching. Thanks for subscribing and check out the last three videos. They were all sled dog racing videos from the Indian River sprint sled races that we went to this past weekend. They're definitely pretty cool. I like the six dog and the four dog ones the best. But you have to go check them out. We're going to be snow dancing around here because there's supposed to be races here in two weeks. We need some snow. Thanks for watching you guys. We'll see you when we see ya!