Drafting with your Bernese
The process for training your dog to be a draft dog requires extreme patience and unending praise. Your dog must always be excited by each training and practice session. Rushing any of the training steps may scare or discourage your dog from draft work. A dog that has become fearful during any of these training steps may never become comfortable with draft work – so take your time. Your Bernese instinctively wants to work – it pleases you and it please him/her. A well trained draft dog demonstrates confidence and pride while pulling his/her cart.
Week 1 – Acclimating Your Dog to the Harness
This is an important first step in training your dog for draft work. Your dog must always be excited to see and wear his/her harness. So to get started you will need:
A properly fitted drafting harness (the Siwash harness is recommended)
Lots of your dogs favorite treats
Patience, excitement and encouragement.
Day One: This exercise is best done alone with your dog, without the distraction of any other dogs or pets. Approach your dog with the harness with lots of exciting things to say. “Oh boy, look what I have! Look how pretty!” Praise your dog for touching or sniffing the harness or for showing any interest in it. Then put it away. The idea here is that only special dogs get to look at the harness. Repeat this 3-4 times on the 1st day, but for these, call your dog to you and let him/her see and sniff the harness. Praise your dog and then put the harness away. By the end of the day your dog should be pretty excited every time the harness comes out. The feeling your dog develops for the harness will carry over to draft work so make this fun and exciting. Wait at least 1/2 hour between these harness introductions.
Day Two: Repeat Day One.
Day Three: If your dog wags his/her tail or displays excitement when he/she sees the harness go on to the next step, otherwise repeat Day One until he/she does. Do NOT rush this step – your dog’s entire attitude toward draft work is being formed now. Don’t rush this process or take short cuts. A few extra days of patience now will surely pay off. So if your dog is happy about the seeing the harness, untangle it and remove the traces and show it to your dog, praising him/her for sniffing and touching it. Tell your dog to “sit” or “stand” and to “stay”. With a treat in your hand, place your hand through the neck opening. As your dog goes to take the food, gently slip the harness over the head and down the neck – using LOTS of praise and feeding the treat the entire time. Leave it on for just a few seconds and then gently slip it off with more praise. Repeat this step 6-8 more times, waiting at least 1/2 hour between.
Day Four: Repeat the steps for Day Three and then proceed to put the harness on completely. Talk to your dog while you do this with lots of praise and reward for being such a good dog. Remember to make your dog feel special for wearing the harness. If your dog will need to change positions during the harnessing process, use the commands “sit” “stand” and “stay” together with lots of praise. It is strongly recommend to train your dog to “stand” during the entire harnessing since that is requirement for some draft test regulations. Repeat this process 6-8 times.
Day Five: Harness your dogs as in Day Four. Supervise him/her while wearing the harness and encourage him/her to do every day activities – walking sitting, lying down, sleeping and eating. There are three things your dog CANNOT do while wearing the harness. He/she cannot chew on the harness, cannot play with other animals and cannot go into the water. These activities are unacceptable and dangerous when your dog is hitched to a cart so do not start these bad habits now.
If your dog starts to do one of these things, tell him “NO” and then expose him/her to a situation where he/she can exhibit proper behavior, then praise and treat your dog. If your dog starts to rough-house while in harness, tell your dog “NO” and tug on the harness to remind him/her that he/she is in harness. Then give a “sit” or “down” command – then praise and reward. Remember, calm, controlled behavior is encouraged with in harness.
If your dog gets tangled in the harness, get him/her to calm down and hold still. Praise and treat your dog while untangling, then have your dog continue to wear the harness for a short time before removing so that his/her last association with the harness is pleasant.
Day Six: Practice your obedience commands with your dog while in harness. Remember to make this fun and exciting while your dog is in harness. Let your dog wear the harness, supervised, while in the house and yard.
Weeks 2 & 3 – Dragging Traces, Objects and Weight
This next step of the training process is very delicate. Once your dog is comfortable and confident wearing his/her harness, it’s time to acclimate the dog to dragging objects. The distraction of dragging traces and objects can be very unsettling to your dog so it is important to take this process slow so that your dog does not “freak-out” while dragging training equipment.
These healing exercises are done with your dog on lead and under control. Harness your dog with praise and treats. Attach the traces while praising your dog and assuring him/her that this will be fun. Make your dog aware that these traces are now part of the harness and that it is fun to have them on. When you heal your dog, these traces will be dragging on each side near your dog’s back feet creating a distraction of noise and contact behind the dog. This could cause your dog to “panic” in an attempt to get away from the traces. Keep your dog’s attention with treats and praise, rewarding the situation where your dog tolerates the traces. If you dog seems comfortable with the traces you can proceed with some healing exercises, otherwise, more time will be needed to acclimate your dog to the traces. You do not want to make your dog afraid of the traces so if he/she is initially uncomfortable with them, unhook them and give your dog an obedience command followed by praise and a reward. Spend the first day just getting your dog to be happy to have the traces attached – lots of praise and treats when your dog shows tolerance and excitement.
There are special healing commands associated with drafting that many choose to use. This is a personal decision so the commands are offered here.
HIKE instead of Heal
WHOA instead of Halt
GEE instead of Right
HAW instead of Left
Easy instead of Slow
When you dog is comfortable with the traces, being some basic healing exercises. Practice healing and halting. In draft, your dog is not required to auto-sit upon a halt. Control the pace of your dog – encourage a slow, steady pace. Cart pulling is not a speed event so the proper practice techniques now will pay off later. Practice very gradual turns and no more than 90 degrees to prevent your dog from getting caught in the traces. Use lots of praise and treats. Use only gentle corrections.
In draft work (and test) you are allowed (and encouraged) to talk to your dog as much as you want and to use as many hand signals as you want. So when practicing your right and left turns, talk, coax, point, and cheer your dog to execute the desired maneuver. You are NOT allowed to “block” your dog into a turn or a halt so avoid using that technique. Practice healing with attached traces for the first two days.
If your dog is comfortable and confident with dragging traces, it’s time to attach a drag object. The easiest starting object is a small board or log that attaches to the traces. This object will add some drag resistance and an additional noise distraction behind your dog. It is very important that the object is far enough behind your dog so that it doesn’t hit his/her rear feet and interfere with a normal walking gait. Again, this new object could spook your dog so use treats and praise for tolerance of the object and for getting it to move. If your dog is comfortable with the drag object, continue with more healing exercises. If not, remove the drag, and practice something your dog is comfortable with – then reward for good work. Attached the drag and attempt short healing moves and halt. If your dog moves the drag forward and halts – give lots of praise and treats. Continue brief practice sessions with the drag until your dog is comfortable and happy pulling it around the yard.
Practice with your dog dragging the board across different surfaces so that it makes different noises and produces different pulls. Remember to encourage your dog to take it slow and steady. Practice dragging the board for four more days.
If you feel your dog is now comfortable dragging the board, it is time to add weight. The commonly used method is to add two 1/2 gallon plastic milk jugs to the log. These will add more noise and distraction behind your dog during drag and they will also enable you to add sand weight. Practice dragging with both jugs empty. Again, proceed slow to not spook your dog with the new noise. If your dog is comfortable dragging the empty jugs, fill the jugs 1/4 with sand and continue with healing exercises, dragging across different surfaces. Use this weight for two days and then fill the jugs half way with sand. Practice with this weight for two more days – 3/4 full for two more days and then full jugs for two more days.