French Clinic

The Midwest Skijor Club and Three Rivers Parks hosted the Annual French Skijor Clinic on Saturday, November 19, 2005. The Clinic starts with the Skijor 101 powerpoint presentation along with a Q and A session. After the indoor presentation we moved outside with our dogs for a hands on learning experience.
The first lesson was a gee-haw course to teach dogs and their owners to turn right and left. A command training lead was incorporated during this lesson to aid in directionalizing the dog properly and also to accustom the pet to harness resistance during pull training. Also included in this session was hike, easy and whoa.
The second lesson was the line out course. This teaches the dog to hold the line tightly while waiting for his skier to be ready for takeoff.
The next course was an agility area. We used low jumps for fun and also cones in command training. This was a popular lesson although it looked as though the humans received a better workout going over the jumps than the dogs did.
Having covered the basic commands we moved to the trail area for a run. This allowed the dog and his/her person to actually utilize their newfound skills in a real life canicross run. Some of the dogs took a bit of cajoling to get going but all soon realized that this was FUN! From boxer to shepherd, weimrinner to curly coated retriever they all were able to master the basics of running fast while pulling in harness.

Next we moved on to free time, which included one on one with trained skijorers. There were also carts, scooters and bikes available for those wishing to try something other than running on foot. We also had drags available which many people hooked to the dogs harness in order to let the dog get a realistic feel for pulling.

Overall this was a successful clinic, with the dogs enjoying the outdoors, running and socializing while learning new skills. Contact our events coordinator if you would like to be included in our next skijor clinic.