From Great Dane to eco-pooch
I am still smarting from a comment, made after a recent doggy article of mine, that dogs have a larger carbon footprint than most humans. This is thanks to the amount of food they eat and the time they spend being ferried around in the back of their owners’ cars.
Well, just for the record, our dog is a ‘green’ Dog. None of this wussy getting in the car to go for a walk, as some dogs do. Truth to tell, though, the park is a good 10 minutes’ walk away and I am always short of time.
When I was 12, my parents gave me a rescue Labrador retriever: a lovely, gentle creature, in some ways my best friend, who lived till I was 29 and I had a family of my own. As a teenager I used to exercise him by bike. There was a disused rifle range near our home. I would put him on the lead to set out, and as soon as we were in open countryside, let him off and continue bicycling. We easily covered a couple of miles and yet I could be back home at my desk and studying again in less than 15 minutes. My mother continued the practice after I went to university.
I wondered how I could do likewise again with my Great Dane, Horatio. Our last Dane was a terrifying liability with a bike. I tried it once. Along a fairly fast road and on my husband’s huge bike because mine had been borrowed. He saw a dog he thought interesting on the opposite pavement, made a dash for it, pulled me and the bike into a tangle of metal and leads and nearly killed us both.
But, one of my characteristics is that I never give up. ‘I wonder,’ I said out loud in the kitchen, ‘if I could train him to run safely alongside my bike.’
Some time after the rest of the family had finished screaming, our daughter’s calm and sensible Norwegian boyfriend showed me something on the internet: the Springer [a heavyduty steel clamp arm that attaches to the frame or seat stem of a bike]. ‘It was invented by a friend of my father’s,’ he said. ‘Eventually, he started a business because so many of his neighbours wanted one.’
Sound people, the Scandinavians. And very green. So, you attach one end of the Springer to your bike and your dog to the other, climb aboard and set off just as if you were going for a normal bicycle ride. The dog runs effortlessly alongside the first time you ask him to. No training needed.
But the really cunning thing is its U-bend, which puts the centre of gravity a few inches above the ground so he can’t pull you over. And if he bolts around the wrong side of a tree there is an automatic release, so he doesn’t yank you off backwards.
Mind you, he is presumably then free to dart under the nearest articulated lorry. And I wasn’t quite sure what would happen if he decided to dash – forwards – over to the pretty little poodle on heat on the other side of the traffic. But let’s not fret. For one thing, Horatio, unlike his predecessor, is going to be neutered early on…
I contacted the company and had a Springer (the contraption, not a new dog) by the end of the week. Having asked Shaun, my husband, several times, over several minutes, to fix it to my bike, I ran out of patience and attached it myself. Upside down. Then back to front. Then, eventually and after much swearing, and help from the Norwegian boyfriend, correctly.
I hadn’t realised it needed a special harness, not supplied. No matter. I already had Horatio’s walking harness, designed to encourage him to heel GREAT DANE TO ECO-POOCH without pulling. It attaches from the front and the Springer needs attaching from on top, but if I rotated it 90 degrees and put it on him so the girth acts as a breastplate… well, it looked like it might just work.
‘Come on!’ I said excitedly, and we completed a circuit of the garden without my falling off. I couldn’t tell whether the heavy resistance was because the lawn was sodden or Horatio wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was, so I suggested we try the pavement.
Two lamp posts later and I still hadn’t come off, but it was quite hard going. I turned round to see why, just in time to see him wriggle triumphantly out of the harness. Hmm.
But now we’ve got the hang of it and we get to the far end of the park, all round the circuit, and I’m back at my desk in 20 minutes with the dog getting enough exercise for the whole day. And the next. Everyone oohs and ahs and jumps out of the way, and I’ve only been aggressively hooted at once, and that was when we were on the crown of the road and I was indicating right. I think he was simply terrified – the driver, not the dog, that is.
‘You’re mad,’ Shaun said. ‘It’s illegal to walk a dog on the road.’
That’s all very well, but it’s surely just as illegal to ride a bike on the pavement. Some day I’ll get round to ringing the police and asking whether they’d prefer it if I break the law, or the dog does…
But with this exciting device I am never putting a dog in a car again, not for any journey under five miles – regardless of traffic and the massive roundabouts.
I did worry, though, that all that running on concrete and Tarmac might be unkind, leading to bleeding pads and broken claws. I certainly wouldn’t run several miles on a road barefoot myself, so why should he?
Thankfully, there was a solution for that, too. The lovely Norwegian who rang to tell me how to use the Springer, mentioned dog boots.
‘Dog boots?’ I queried carefully, wondering if I’d heard correctly.
‘Don’t you have dog boots?’ We use them all the time on the snow and ice, and they protect feet on Tarmac too.’
Well, what’s funny about that? We shoe horses for the roads. Clever, these Scandinavians.
Very ‘green’, too.
Springers are available from: 01527- 894595, www.springerdogbikeattachmentuk.co.uk
Harness and boots by Inner Wolf: 0845-602 3564, www.innerwolf.co.uk
Well, just for the record, our dog is a ‘green’ Dog. None of this wussy getting in the car to go for a walk, as some dogs do. Truth to tell, though, the park is a good 10 minutes’ walk away and I am always short of time.
When I was 12, my parents gave me a rescue Labrador retriever: a lovely, gentle creature, in some ways my best friend, who lived till I was 29 and I had a family of my own. As a teenager I used to exercise him by bike. There was a disused rifle range near our home. I would put him on the lead to set out, and as soon as we were in open countryside, let him off and continue bicycling. We easily covered a couple of miles and yet I could be back home at my desk and studying again in less than 15 minutes. My mother continued the practice after I went to university.
I wondered how I could do likewise again with my Great Dane, Horatio. Our last Dane was a terrifying liability with a bike. I tried it once. Along a fairly fast road and on my husband’s huge bike because mine had been borrowed. He saw a dog he thought interesting on the opposite pavement, made a dash for it, pulled me and the bike into a tangle of metal and leads and nearly killed us both.
But, one of my characteristics is that I never give up. ‘I wonder,’ I said out loud in the kitchen, ‘if I could train him to run safely alongside my bike.’
Some time after the rest of the family had finished screaming, our daughter’s calm and sensible Norwegian boyfriend showed me something on the internet: the Springer [a heavyduty steel clamp arm that attaches to the frame or seat stem of a bike]. ‘It was invented by a friend of my father’s,’ he said. ‘Eventually, he started a business because so many of his neighbours wanted one.’
Sound people, the Scandinavians. And very green. So, you attach one end of the Springer to your bike and your dog to the other, climb aboard and set off just as if you were going for a normal bicycle ride. The dog runs effortlessly alongside the first time you ask him to. No training needed.
But the really cunning thing is its U-bend, which puts the centre of gravity a few inches above the ground so he can’t pull you over. And if he bolts around the wrong side of a tree there is an automatic release, so he doesn’t yank you off backwards.
Mind you, he is presumably then free to dart under the nearest articulated lorry. And I wasn’t quite sure what would happen if he decided to dash – forwards – over to the pretty little poodle on heat on the other side of the traffic. But let’s not fret. For one thing, Horatio, unlike his predecessor, is going to be neutered early on…
I contacted the company and had a Springer (the contraption, not a new dog) by the end of the week. Having asked Shaun, my husband, several times, over several minutes, to fix it to my bike, I ran out of patience and attached it myself. Upside down. Then back to front. Then, eventually and after much swearing, and help from the Norwegian boyfriend, correctly.
I hadn’t realised it needed a special harness, not supplied. No matter. I already had Horatio’s walking harness, designed to encourage him to heel GREAT DANE TO ECO-POOCH without pulling. It attaches from the front and the Springer needs attaching from on top, but if I rotated it 90 degrees and put it on him so the girth acts as a breastplate… well, it looked like it might just work.
‘Come on!’ I said excitedly, and we completed a circuit of the garden without my falling off. I couldn’t tell whether the heavy resistance was because the lawn was sodden or Horatio wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was, so I suggested we try the pavement.
Two lamp posts later and I still hadn’t come off, but it was quite hard going. I turned round to see why, just in time to see him wriggle triumphantly out of the harness. Hmm.
But now we’ve got the hang of it and we get to the far end of the park, all round the circuit, and I’m back at my desk in 20 minutes with the dog getting enough exercise for the whole day. And the next. Everyone oohs and ahs and jumps out of the way, and I’ve only been aggressively hooted at once, and that was when we were on the crown of the road and I was indicating right. I think he was simply terrified – the driver, not the dog, that is.
‘You’re mad,’ Shaun said. ‘It’s illegal to walk a dog on the road.’
That’s all very well, but it’s surely just as illegal to ride a bike on the pavement. Some day I’ll get round to ringing the police and asking whether they’d prefer it if I break the law, or the dog does…
But with this exciting device I am never putting a dog in a car again, not for any journey under five miles – regardless of traffic and the massive roundabouts.
I did worry, though, that all that running on concrete and Tarmac might be unkind, leading to bleeding pads and broken claws. I certainly wouldn’t run several miles on a road barefoot myself, so why should he?
Thankfully, there was a solution for that, too. The lovely Norwegian who rang to tell me how to use the Springer, mentioned dog boots.
‘Dog boots?’ I queried carefully, wondering if I’d heard correctly.
‘Don’t you have dog boots?’ We use them all the time on the snow and ice, and they protect feet on Tarmac too.’
Well, what’s funny about that? We shoe horses for the roads. Clever, these Scandinavians.
Very ‘green’, too.
Springers are available from: 01527- 894595, www.springerdogbikeattachmentuk.co.uk
Harness and boots by Inner Wolf: 0845-602 3564, www.innerwolf.co.uk