Dog 'sledding' With Gsd?

[Lexy88]

I'm keen to start sledding with Blade... My question is, would a GSD be suitable? He has extremely good history in his lines with good hips - and he has good hips himself but, he is a 'slope back' GSD [from showing lines] and I just wondered if his build may cause him to either be weaker or prone to injury while sledding?
Any experienced mushers here that could give advice? We just want to have some fun - no heavy compitition. Cheers!

 

[tigerlily46514]

How many pounds would the dog be pulling?
How far would the dog be pulling that amount of weight, and how often?


Your vet might be able to assess if your dog is good candidate with those "showdog hips" to pull much weight.
that is cool that you do know about show dog hips, and the severely sloped GSD hips of recent decades.

 

[Lexy88]

Apparently it is recommended that they shouldn't pull a weight heavier than their own plus 100lb. And I want a 'scooter' rig so I can help push it along as well - which is lighter so we're sweet to go [very few snow races in NZ - mainly just race around forest tracks so wheeled rigs are the go apart from very serious competitors who get to the snow ones down south]. So the 'casual' or fun races are only like a mile or so.

I have spoken to some malamute people and they say that the pulling mostly comes from the shoulders and a lot of people use GSDs, GSPs, collies etc And that Blade's hips are only very slightly sloped - his parents are German and Swedish imports and extremely well breed - and that they think he would be fine to pull light weights for fun .