Cani Cross with Loki Orange Volume I

                                                         

                                                                How It All Began 

I started my personal running adventures in 2011 after running my first marathon and wondering how much further I could go. This led me to the wonderful world of trail and ultra marathon running, and to date I have run 50Ks to 100 mile trail races in many of our beautiful states. 

But this post is not as much about running as it is about the partnership I have between running and Loki Orange. So let's start at the beginning then which leads me explain one reason I love running. I love the friendships it creates through the mutual bond of the sport, and I enjoy the companionship of those that I run with. As I progressed from road runner to trail runner and shorter distance races became longer distances, I started to spend more and more time running alone due to a lack of folks that do this kind of thing, and also because the few who did had schedules that did not jive with my own. I needed a solution to this and immediately thought of a dog. I'd grown up with dogs and love them, but until recently had lived in an apartment without adequate room for one.

 I started my lengthy search for a dog with the endurance capabilities and temperament to handle distance running.  I was thinking of a Border Collie, and while looking over information on herding dog breeds I came across a picture of a Belgian Tervuren

and it was love at first sight. Now, I am normally a huge advocator of adopting unwanted pups, but given that I had two major requirements for this dog to fulfill (built for endurance and will work well with my current residents, cats) I decided to look for a reputable Tervuren breeder. Without wanting to make this blog too lengthy I will not go into too much detail in regards into how Loki Orange (Orange is his registered middle name due to the orange identification collar the breeder used to tell the pups apart) and I became inseparable after he entered my life 5 years ago. I will mention that I waited for over 2 years before I started running with him to make sure his growth plates and bones had developed enough to support a high impact sport like running, which I think is vital for anyone wanting to get into this sport with their pup.

I started running trails with Loki, and never having run with a dog before I wasn't sure what equipment to use to do this. I had a harness for him so the pressure of the leash was equally distributed as we moved, but other than the harness I just held his leash in my hand which caused a lot of pulling on one side and made me uncomfortable. I started researching what others did, and in doing so found there was a definition for the sport of running with your dog called "cani cross". The sport is pretty huge in Europe, but not as well known in the US. To "cani cross" correctly, the runner has a special harness which is attached to a bungee leash leading to the dog's harness. The runner then trains the dog with commands similar to mushing a dog sled and is pulled by the dog to gain more

speed during a run or race. I decided to check Amazon for running gear and found a cheap ($20) belt and bungee leash that would attach to Loki's harness. It was not a nice cani cross system, but it works great, and maybe someday we will upgrade to something designed a bit better as we get better at it.

During the great search for cani cross information, I also found a few races available a few hours away in WI put on by race directer Brian Thomas of XC Thrillogy. I really wanted to try this out, even if it was a couple hours away. I found one of the cani cross races Brian offered the week of my

birthday in March called "The Hills Are Alive", so I figured that was a good excuse to sign up! I was pretty nervous going into the event since I hadn't been training for speed and I wasn't sure how Loki was going to react to the other dogs in a race setting. It turned out great though, and other than a bit of motivation issues towards the last mile (5K course) because we didn't have any other dogs we could see in front or in back of us, we managed to secure the first place female (me, not Loki ;)) spot! (PC credit on left ShadowDog/XC Thrillogy). I love running with my pup, but now I was hooked on competing with him! This is the only cani cross event we've participated in since there are not many offered in the US, but I'm really looking forward to making it to some of Brian's other cani cross races and improving what we are able to do together at a timed race.

Stay tuned for Cani Cross with Loki Orange Volume II....