This is Kodi's mum. Apologies for the lack of blogging lately, things have been pretty busy! I wanted to say though that Kodi and I do read everyone's blogs and keep up with them even if we do not comment! We love reading about all of your adventures, they brighten our day!
I thought that today I'd put up a blog giving a bit of information on the different equipment and things that Kodi & I use while scootering. Just in case anyone is interested in getting started in scootering themselves.
Scooter
I use a scooter with Kodi, because it is lightweight and easy for her pull on her own.
Our own scooter is just a very basic one that I got for starting out, I've had it for a year now and it's still holding up.
This photo of Kodi & myself gives you an idea of what it looks like. It has 16 inch wheels and has no brushbow.
You can get more expensive models of scooter that have a brushbow and bigger wheels. They are purpose built for the sport of dog scootering. One example is the popular pawtrekker model.
The brushbow is the part that comes out over the wheel, you attach the gangline to this. The presence of a brushbow means that it is less likely for the gangline to get tangled in the wheel. It is perfectly ok to use a scooter that does not have one of these but it just means you have to be extra careful that the gangline does not wrap around the wheel.
Scooters are generally used for one to two dogs. If you have more than two dogs you could invest in a three wheeled rig.
Rigs look like this:
They are obviously more bulky to transport but are steadier and safer on the trails if you are running a team of dogs.
Gangline
The gangline is what connects the dog to the scooter. It attaches to your dogs harness and to the brushbow. Because we do not have a brushbow, we just wrap it around the neck of the scooter.
We use a single dog gangline like this one:
Harness
Kodi wears a Nordkyn Shoulder harness. These harnesses are versatile and can be used for running (canicross) as well as scootering. The shoulder harness allows a center of the back point of attachment. Can also be used as a walking harness as there is a D-ring attachment point on the neck. I use this with Kodi because it clips around her stomach meaning that she cannot back out of it. They are lovely and padded too so they are comfortable for the dog. This is what they look like:
Another popular choice of harness is the x-back harness:
- Another very important piece of equipment to invest in is a helmet for yourself. Dog scootering is a great fun sport but is also high risk so it's best to protect yourself. It only takes a split second to fall off the scooter so be safe! Elbow and knee pads are also a good investment when starting off.
Helmet Cam
The other main thing that Kodi and I now take out on the trails is our helmet cam.
The one we use is called action cam and it looks like this:
It is a very basic helmet cam but good for starting off. It takes two batteries and an SD card. You simply press to record and press again to stop. We've been finding it easy to use and the picture and sound quality is good. Definitely a good inexpensive one to get you started. You can get them on various websites and on e-bay. This e-bay listing gives more information on the spec of the camera etc: helmet cam
So that's pretty much all the equipment we use while out on the trails! I hope that you find it informative and if you have any questions at all just ask and i'll answer them in our next post!
Happy Mushing!
Lisa (Kodi's Mum)
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