As a professional dog trainer, and an avid cyclist I’ve always wanted to be able to combine my two passions together.

Training a dog to ride in a bicycle carrier

For information on how to condition your dog to a bicycle carrier check out this link to several short YouTube videos on the topic.

Bicycle touring with a dog from Vaudreuil, Quebec to eastern Ontario

Before setting out on such a large undertaking, I conditioned my puppy to be comfortable in a crate on a bicycle trailer without the trailer moving.

This meant simply parking my bike and having him hop in and out of the trailer and staying in there for progressively longer periods of time.

Once he was comfortable with this we started to go for small rides of 30 to 40 km.

I had the trailer set up indoors as well when I would be riding my bicycle on an indoor trainer and he would get in there and fall asleep while I did my workouts.  In fact, he liked it so much that I would often find him napping in there on his own when I was not in that room or doing anything bike related.

Considerations when cycling with a dog

For a ride as long as the one in the video above, I had several criteria:

• The weather had to be cool enough for him to be able to be outside comfortably for several hours.
• I had to be prepared to stop frequently so that the ride was a pleasurable experience for the dog and not simply me hauling him around while I paddled away on a bike.
• I had to make sure I packed extras that I don’t normally take along on my rides. Benadryl in case of reactions to bug bites, an extra water bottle with no electrolytes or carbohydrates in them so he would always have freshwater available, poop bags, snacks for the dog .
• an extra spare tube suitable for one of the tires on my dogs trailer.

I do this bike ride fairly often and on average it’ll take me about two hours and 45 minutes door-to-door.

With a 55 pound puppy and then all the added weight of the bicycle trailer and all the extra accessories totalling approximately 80 extra pounds and not to mention the additional aerodynamic drag I imagined the right to take me about five hours of moving time and an additional 2 to 2 1/2 hours of stopped time.

 

This is exactly what it turned out to be and we had a fantastic time and I look forward to many more rides with my dog!