Many jobs for my new dog

Countrymouse
Look up Pulk on the web; you will find ones with shafts specifically made for dogs.
I raced sled dogs for a lot of years. We would harness the pups at a pretty early age but would not really start muscling them up until they were about a year. A single dog can get distracted pretty easily so I would work on obedience as well. Lots of recourses on the web about training dogs to pull; my experience is if a dog is going to be a good puller it is already evident. If the dog does not want to pull find him another job.

Just my input
Billy

Him being a happy dog that you are able to communicate with is a big big plus. The dogs I raced with wanted to pull from when they first are put in harness. At about 6 months old we would put them in harness, hook them in line, with some experienced dogs to maintain continuity, and off we would go down the trail keeping them from running to fast and scaring themselves. The term “born to run” really applied. Having said that I had a real hard time calming these race dogs down so I could use the team for work like hauling fire wood. The guys with freight teams had dogs that I would never use for racing, they were very calm, almost board.

If I was in your shoes I would work on the dog following me pulling something so he could stay with me and get praised for it, gradually working up to larger and larger loads. The way I train dogs is always setting them up to succeed. In your case I would be nervous about increasing the weight of the load unless I was 99.9999% positive he would succeed. With dogs I have found that building on small successes is a slow but dependable way to shape their behavior. For the racing dogs letting them run was a good positive reinforcement, I am not sure what your dog will see as a reward, maybe just following behind you?

For fun here is a video of a very good friends dog teem he raced up in Canada this weekend. Notice the dogs tails wagging before the start and how quiet it is after he is underway. As I said the dogs are running because it is what they want to, you don’t hear him shouting at the dogs to go all you hear is the dirt hitting the camera. Notice the dogs tugs are tight all the way, even after running flat out for 8 or 9 minutes (at a little less than 30mph) and they still use a 4wheeler to bring them back to the truck because they would still pull than little rig wherever they wanted to go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp6ml1UvWc4&feature=player_detailpage

Billy

She did great with the lawn sweeper. We had to use a very short tug as she works best behind me and the handle of the lawn sweeper is not that long (used a wheelbarrow handle). She got over the noise of the machine in about half a minute, and really pulled hard part of the time. She’s not had a ton of training, so pulling hard half the time I think is pretty good. We did have to put her up and finish without her when the sheep came around the corner and she was too tempted to go play with them. I’m willing to try it again though.

A puppy harness and a light drag like a twig or soda bottle can start teaching the basics without putting too much weight on them. My Great Danes that I trained to pull couldn’t take serious weight until two years old, but they could drag bike tires and such very early. Husky/German Shepard should be ready at 6 months. If you want to do heavy work and need to be very sure, get an x-ray to test if the growth plates are closed.

I’ve never heard of using a round pen with dogs, they really like traveling places and ground drive well on trails early. (Besides being so much easier to handle, the extra security of the round pen fence is not as necessary.)