They compliment each other very well. Chewie never wanted to take the lead before, he always wanted someone next to or in front of him. If he got out in the front and was unable to see anyone else, he would stop. However, when he gets going, he is wicked fast! Skippy will go just because I tell him to, but he is much slower than Chewie. So when they are together, Skippy keeps Chewie moving forward when there is no one else around and Chewie makes Skippy move a bit faster (though I still have to slow Chewie down a little).
I got started doing this when we took Chewie out sometime early this last spring. We took our bikes and thought that Chewie would just run alongside my bike. Well, he didn't want to run alongside... he wanted to pull! I have never seen natural instinct kick in like it did that day. He pulled my bike for about six miles and seemed to love every minute of it. We didn't waste much time ordering a proper harness and figuring out how to hitch him to my bike.
When we got Skippy, I was really hoping he would be a good team member for Chewie. The first time I took him out, he did very well. He doesn't have as much natural pulling instinct as Chewie, but he always has a lot of fun. He is still building up his stamina, so he can't go for as long as Chewie, but he'll get there.
The biggest challenge in this sport is teaching the dogs to obey voice commands. You don't have much physical control over them when you are back on the scooter. I can put on the brakes to make them stop moving forward if I need to, but they have lots of leeway on which direction they go or if they choose to go at all. I still have trouble getting my dogs to go the side of the trail I want when we are passing someone, but they follow my direction commands about which trail to go down fairly consistently. We all still have a lot of training to do, but it sure is going to be fun doing it!
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