I'm interested in teaching our berner to pull a sled/cart but am pretty sure that I need to wait until they are a certain age for it to be safe. She is 13 months old now. Has anyone done this before? Is it best to wait until they are full grown before starting this type of training?

Originally Posted by LLTANNER21

I'm interested in teaching our berner to pull a sled/cart but am pretty sure that I need to wait until they are a certain age for it to be safe. She is 13 months old now. Has anyone done this before? Is it best to wait until they are full grown before starting this type of training?

You could start putting a harness on her and having something light attached to it to get her used to having a harness on but do not attempt cart pulling until at least 18 months of age.

Originally Posted by LLTANNER21

I'm interested in teaching our berner to pull a sled/cart but am pretty sure that I need to wait until they are a certain age for it to be safe. She is 13 months old now. Has anyone done this before? Is it best to wait until they are full grown before starting this type of training?

In our club, our standard is two years of age before fully drafting (for full growth plate closure)...meaning pulling a cart with any weight.

But as already mentioned, it is fine to introduce to the harness and to start doing a lot of the precursor training to drafting.

Our club, as most clubs across the U.S. offer Drafting workshops to show how to slowly introduce drafting and what to train.

We start with harness introduction and then move to training to walk forward, backward, and follow directions - this is all a part of obedience and what you can do right now. I would walk with my dog between two parked cars whereby she couldn't turn around, use treats and a clicker to teach her the cues of forward and back....she learned this asap.

We also provide at our workshops PVC pipes with elbow joints that we can then start introducing the concept of pulling with poles alongside...this is very sensitive for most Berners and requires careful introduction.

Only after all of this is a dog actually hooked up to a cart.

Check out your area for a draft workshop.

Good luck!