Great links!!! Thanks. I didn't know anyone except RJ Walsh was making dog sulkies. Have you -- or anyone else -- had any experience with Chalo sulkies?
Sorry, No.
Don't forget that unlike the USA, I think in Australia like the UK it is illegal to use a dog for draught work on a gazetted public road (including the adjacent footpaths). The sled dog fraternity here generally only use forest trails or private land.
Buggar!
I have a private limestone track that runs out behind my property, which should be ok for starters, but it would really be nice to be able to use public roads. Do you know if that's a national or a state law?
Btw. A book called The Pawprints of History (S. Cohen, 2002) gives a wonderful description of the outlawing of dogs as draught animals in the UK , and all the horrible consequences (tens of thousands of dogs died, many poor families lost their companion/draught animals as a consequence . . . and child labour was often brought in to do the work that was once done by dogs. The second legislative triumph of the RSPCA -- after banning bull baiting and dog fighting -- came in 1839, when dogs were outlawed as transport animals within 15 miles of London's Charring Cross Station.
Animal welfare laws are State laws, generaly administered by agriculture or primary production departments. Go to Laws and look up 'animal welfare' for your state.
Bear in mind that being in sulky behind your dog may not be regarded as complying with leash requirements under local government department dog law. How would you control your dog if it saw a cat?
By all means check the Companion Animal Act and amendments for your state. I have just done that for NSW and failed to turn up any regulation relating to the driving of dogs on public roads - which is not to say there aren't any such regulations, only that I haven't found them. What I have done is over 6,000 kilometers of driving a dog in NSW, nearly all of it on public roads, and occasionally past a group of on-duty police (who just smiled and waved). The only time I have been "pulled over" for dog driving was in Sydney's Centennial Park a couple of years ago, when a ranger told me that what I was doing was illegal under the park rules. I subsequently checked those rules; found no reference whatever to dog driving, and wrote a long letter to the park's administrators pointing out, inter alia, that their rangers were unfamiliar with the park's rules and requesting that the rangers be updated on the rules. To this day I have received no reply to that letter (sent by both post and email). I know dog drivers in NSW, QLD, VIC, TAS and WA, the UK, Sweden, the USA and Canada, and none of them have reported any problems with driving their dogs on public roads and/or footpaths.
On the matter of harness for dorsal hitch dog sulkies, the best there is comes from TZLites <www.dogdriving.com> (the brand I use myself and find to be excellent).
As a general comment on the issue of animal welfare, it should be borne in mind that modern driving vehicles are a far cry from the basic, often poorly balance and overloaded vehicles, which led to legislation (mainly in the 19th and early 20th centuries) banning the use of dogs as draft animals. The modern cart is a lightweight (11 to 18 kg) vehicle, which can be had with independent suspension and disc brakes, and in which single dogs (without any encouragement by way of a whip, verbal or anything else) have pulled an adult drivers at better than 60 kph both on and off-road. This is faster than a harness horse can manage, pulling the same load, and on a race track. It is a general rule in dog carting that the load (driver plus vehicle) should not exceed three times the (fit) weight of the dog or dogs doing the pulling. In my own case, the load is 2.7 times the dog's weight, and my dog has pulled me (on pavement) at over 60 kph for no other reason than the sheer exuberance of running. Driving has got to be fun for the dog, or they just won't do it. But given an energetic dog, good training an appropriate conditions, dog driving is a win/win for both dog and driver.
