Right before that last hot spell, I took a little time to begin training Smoke Jumper for carting. He had no problems at all with the harness or walking with all that hardware and dangling lines. He is a very smart and calm gentleman and willing to try something new! We did have several minutes of confusion on both our parts when I first tried to “ground drive” him from behind. Normally this is a two-person job, but I had to try it alone. Still I was impressed that Smoky seemed to respond to the reins quite well in a short period.
After a couple more workouts, and Fred’s help, we were walking Smoky in the cart, and took a few photos. He is only just starting his training and we are certainly not ready to go solo, but already I can understand how addictive this activity can be!
Fred’s travel late this summer is taking so much time that we will probably skip a couple of shows that we had planned on attending. Hopefully those extra weekends will give us a little time to work with Smoky and perhaps bring along a couple other cart trainees. Rocko and Spot stand watching the activity from their fence, and I think they might enjoy the chance for an outing too!