Sorry i missed some of the comments on this post!!
Jean - my diggler cost me $600, but it has be SO worth it. i started putting $50 aside from each paycheck until i had half (took 6 months) but i had it paid off in 6 months after i got it. I love love love love love this thing. Finally have the dogs conditioned enough to travel the longer trails at the metro park where we ride. Now my goal is to train Baxter to pull with Trophy since Koda (my sister's dog) doesn't live with us all the time since she's at college.
monsterdog - it can take a long time to properly train the dogs to pull, and you will need a partner, but it is well worth it!
You need:
scooter
properly fitted harness for each dog (i use x-backs from
http://www.alpineoutfitters.net)
gangline
bicycle and a partner to ride it
another friend to help hookup and hold your dogs.
an assortment of objects for your dog to pull before pulling the scooter
begin by desensitizing your dog to the harness. Put it on him for a few minutes, give treats, then take it off. repeat several times.
then put on the harness and take a walk.
It the dog is still leary about the harness, continue putting it on and giving treats, if the dog doesn't mind the harness you can move on.
attatch a leash to the harness and tie one end to a small log, tire or other light object and take the dog for a walk (by a leash on his collar). vary the weight of the object and also use objects that will make more noise. I used a milk crate which would roll and pitch around noisily. This helps to desensitize the dogs to heavy and noisy objects behind them. Some dogs may never get past this stage - my dog Shiner for example is way too worried by what is "chasing him" that scootering with him is out of the question. It is no fun for him, so he gets to stay home.
After your dog is used to pulling objects behind him, it's time to try the actual scooter. The best place to start this is somewhere with a paved or packed dirt trail - preferably one that is not a long distance and is in the shape of a circle. Smooth trails help by making sure the scooter is easy to pull (grass is VERY hard for your dogs to pull on, especially when they are just learning and aren't conditioned!) it also helps them learn to stay on a trail. It's also helpful if there are relativly few distractions. I started at the local metroparks riding on the paved parking lots and driveways. I also started in winter so there were no ducks and VERY few people around.
this is where you friends come in. start by teaching one dog at a time. hook up you dog to the scooter and have one friend hold him while you get on the scooter and hold down both breaks! Have your other friend get on the bike (this person is called the rabbit) and start riding the trail while calling excitedly to your dog by name. hopefully your dog will start to strain to run after your friend. If he doesn't, switch places so the dog will be chasing you! Either way, slowly release the breaks and watch your dog's reaction to the weight and noise of the scooter. I got lucky in that the dog i started with (Koda) was hell-bent on getting after my sister on the bike that he paid zero attention to the scooter and the rest was a piece of cake!
If your dog whips around to stare in horror at the scooter, STOP! go back and do more drags with heavier and noiser weights (try pulling over gravel, nothing is noiser than that!)
Keep your first several sessions SHORT and stop while your dog is still raring to go!!!
after a week or so, start increasing the distance, and now you can start adding cues to turns. i use RIGHT and LEFT ans it's easier than remembering GEE and HAW for me. either way, call it out right before your dog goes around a corner while following the rabbit. do all rights one day, all lefts the next, and then both. Eventually the dog should associate LEFT with moving to his left. using the commands while on walks will help too.
Once you have one dog with the basics you can add the second. the first dog will do most of the teaching with the second, but WATCH OUT as dogs will run MUCH faster with a partner!
I ran with a rabbit going 3-4 times a week (and once a day over christmas holidays) for about 3 months before we tried running without a rabbit. Only your dogs will tell you when they're ready to do it on their own - try starting with your usual rabbit holding the dogs, and start running with them when you release them (i always start with a READY?READY?READY? GOGOGO!! so they know it's coming) if they stop and turn to you they're not confident enough yet to run without a rabbit. don't get discouraged, just go back to running with a rabbit and try again in a week.
make sure you slowly increase the distances you run, and ALWAYS provide plenty of water. My boys have been running since november and we're just now going on 3-4 mile runs with a 30 minute break in the middle for shade and water.
if you have any more questions just ask!
here's some photos of me running a 3 dog crew. i don't have a 3 dog gangline, so we kind rigged this up. The husky belongs to my college roommate who was visiting for a day. Once you have trained dogs it's easy to train another dog using them. i did ZERO pre conditioning with Luna, we just put her in the harness and away we went.
. Great pictures too. TY