My husky collie cross Tegan was the motivation for me to start
I was not someone who wanted to run, let alone someone who wanted to run with their dog, and if you feel the same, then you should know that this need not stop you from taking part. I am not a natural runner, and I didn’t particularly like running, in fact I used to do everything I could to avoid cross-country running at school and only took part in other running activities when I had to.
You might be someone who already enjoys running, and if you are, then you’re already halfway there; all you need to do is add your dog to the equation.
But if, like me, you’ve never enjoyed the prospect of slogging away one foot in front of the other, then this blog will explain what motivated me to start canicrossing when I wasn’t keen at all!
A rescue dog who was more complicated than I realised
Tegan was the first dog to live with me outside my family home. I’d had dogs since I was 6 years old, but the responsibility for their care was always shared within the household. When I bought my first home, it wasn’t long before I went looking for a dog of my own, finding the house very quiet without a canine companion to care for.
I’ve always had rescue dogs because, as a family, there was always someone around to keep an eye on the dog, and we didn’t leave them alone for long periods of time, so it felt natural to me to visit a few local dog rescues and see what dogs they had who needed homes.
I did the one thing people always tell you not to do when getting a dog, and I completely fell in love with Tegan because she was a stunning-looking dog. I had no idea of her background, other than that she was collected from a Welsh pound on day 7 (the last day before the unspeakable happens to unwanted healthy dogs in Welsh pounds) and had been a stray who wasn’t claimed.
At this point (and it may be too late for you already) I will say I wish I’d done my research and would advise anyone getting a dog to thoroughly investigate all the dog breeds you’re looking at, whether it be a mix from a rescue, or a pedigree from a reputable breeder, it would save a lot of people a lot of stress and possibly heartache from choosing an unsuitable dog for their lifestyle.
However, as I mentioned, I had not done my research and decided Tegan, a Siberian husky crossed with a border collie was the right dog for me. I had time to take her out. I spent a lot of time outdoors, and I was willing to do anything to make my new housemate happy – as it turns out, that led me down a completely different path from the one I wanted to be on with my new dog!
When I got Tegan home, I very quickly realised that because she was abandoned as a stray, she got attached to me and did not want me to leave. I did have to go to work Monday to Friday, and whilst I only worked 15 minutes away and could go back regularly to check on her, she started to destroy my house almost the instant I left her, Tegan suffered with quite severe separation anxiety.
If you’ve ever had to deal with separation anxiety, then you will have sympathy for my situation. I’d come home and literally everything not nailed down would be destroyed, and even things that were nailed down were fair game. I had never had a dog with separation anxiety before, and I was heartbroken. Tegan would claw at me when I left her, holding onto me to stop me from going out the door. I really questioned whether I was the right home for her in those first few weeks.
Activities we tried before we found canicross
After a couple of weeks of really struggling with her and doubting my own ability to deal with her behaviour and make her happy, I decided I needed to put my efforts into finding a solution for us. All I wanted was for her to trust that I would come back and not get stressed.
This isn’t a blog about separation anxiety so I won’t go into all the things I tried to help her settle in the first couple of months, but one of the things I had read about was to find something to do together that would build our bond and develop our relationship, so that she would begin to see that I was a keeper and wasn’t going to let her down like her previous owner.
So the search for the bond-building activity began. We tried dog training classes. Tegan was an adult when I got her, she was around a year old, and so it took a while to find a class that would accept an older doggy student, and we started to go on a weekday evening.
The problem was that Tegan was also dog reactive, now again, this blog isn’t about reactive dogs, but I do talk a fair bit about reactive dogs because I’ve had a few of them now.
For now, let’s just say she was ‘difficult’ and ‘disruptive’ in the dog training classes, culminating in us being asked not to come to the Christmas Puppy Party and ultimately leading me to leave the class. I was sad for both of us, she wasn’t getting any better at home, and we weren’t getting that connection that I was hoping for with her. I truly disliked her at times, and whilst that’s hard to admit even now, it was true. I had wanted to give a dog needing a home a great life, and as far as I could see, I was doing tha,t and she still wasn’t happy. With her continually destroying the home I was working so hard to create, it was hard not to feel resentful at times.
We tried agility; someone had suggested this as another fun activity we could do together. We were in a group situation again, and with a trainer who didn’t really understand her need for space around other dogs, so guess what? We got asked to leave the agility classes.
We tried flyball, the dogs have individual runs, and lots of people had said it would be good for her to burn off her excess energy. It was for a while, and whilst it wasn’t really helping with her reactivity, we could wrangle her around the start of runs so she wasn’t in contact with other dogs, and she did enjoy it. Tegan was good at it too; she was super bright, so she picked up new activities quickly, and we were entered as part of the local team in a competition.
It was a complete disaster on the day, and Tegan leapt over the dividing barrier to see the other dogs in the next lane, which is a complete no with flybal,l and so you may have guessed where this is going… yes, we got asked to leave the flyball classes.
We finally found our sport in canicross
Now you may be wondering what all this has to do with canicross and running with dogs, but you need a bit of background as to how someone like me got into a sport and fell in love with it when I hated running. I also think some of this might resonate with you and give you hope that you can have a normal life with your dog.
Tegan’s behaviour challenged me and made me look for activities to help her separation anxiety, reactivity and our bond. When someone suggested canicross, I was not keen, but at that point I was pretty desperate to find something that we could both do together that we weren’t going to get kicked out of!
The friend who suggested I try canicross was actually an animal communicator, and I had gone to her to ask for some help because I felt I was running out of ideas to meet Tegan’s needs and that we were both misunderstanding each other and miserable.
I decided to bite the bullet and bought some cheap trail trainers, took a belt from my jeans and a lead to attach to her walking harness and one morning, instead of walking our usual walk, we started to run bits of it.
At first, Tegan looked at me and started to jump up and bite the lead, spinning around, but I told her to ‘go on’ and praised her when she got in front and stopped messing around, and because she was a quick learner, she rapidly realised we were running together now.
It didn’t take long at all before I began to see the benefits of our newfound activity and realised this was going to be our thing; I’d cracked it. Tegan would be much more tired after our runs because she was having to focus on where we were going and listening for my directions, using her brain as well as her body. We could cover more distance in a shorter time when we were running, and so we started to build up our fitness together.
How I now hope to inspire more people to try canicross
Some people will tell you that if you walk your dog more, the fitter they get, the more trouble they become, because they will need more exercise but, if you are meeting their physical and emotional needs then your dog won’t become more hyped up, they will connect with you and understand that your running time together is your chance to communicate through activity and then when you get home it’s time to relax and process that experience.
If I had done my research initially then I should have realised that running would be the perfect activity to bond with my husky (bred for endurance running in harness) crossed with collie (bred for running all day working sheep) but it took me a bit longer to work that out and even longer to work out the way to get the best experience from our running. I have written this blog to share with you my reason for getting into canicross, and for you to know it had a very happy ending, but if you want to know more, I’ve also written a book of all the things I wish I knew before I got started canicrossing, and you can buy that HERE
I hope to inspire more people to try canicross or cani-hiking with their dogs, and so if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me, and I will point you in the right direction to get started. I believe you won’t regret it.
