Teaching The New Dog A New Trick

When I moved to rural Nova Scotia in 2007, my dog Stella was four years old. She'd never driven on a four-wheeler before and it wasn't something she was the least bit interested in. She would sit in the seat but as soon as my husband started moving forward, she'd jump off. I always dreaded the broken leg so we gave up. At 60 pounds, she was too heavy to ride on my lap with my arms holding her tight.
One afternoon two autumns ago, I happened to look back as we headed up the unimproved road that goes up alongside our land and there was Stella, running, trying to keep up. Poor thing, she was too old and unconditioned for that kind of hard endurance running. Big dog, big heart.
With this new puppy, who is now six months old, we want to get her comfortable with riding on the bike as soon as possible. She can ride on my lap now that she is small but she's growing fast and soon, it just won't be comfortable.

It's fun to take her, to have a dog part of our woodland excursions, so perhaps I'll go out more on the bike by myself if Abby can ride along with me. So for these early days of spring, we're getting her used to the bike with short rides around the yard. Soon, she'll be helping "Papa" lug chicken poop and dirty shavings to the compost pile at the top of the field.
A real country canine companion.