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Dryland Dog-powered sports
Canicross
Canicross is one of the most accessible and popular dog-powered sports, where a person runs while their dog is connected to them by a hands-free waist belt and bungee line. It’s a natural starting point for many people, requiring minimal equipment and allowing both dog and handler to build fitness together.
At its core, canicross is about teamwork and communication. Dogs learn to move forward with purpose, respond to directional cues, and work in sync with their handler. Whether done recreationally or competitively, it offers a simple and effective way to strengthen the bond between dog and human while staying active outdoors.
Starting Your Canicross Journey
Bikejoring
Bikejoring involves a dog pulling a person on a bike using specialized equipment designed for safety and control. It allows for greater speed and distance than running-based sports and is often practiced on trails, paths, or open terrain.
This sport requires a higher level of control and communication, as both dog and handler must work together to navigate terrain safely. Bikejoring is a great option for high-energy dogs and individuals looking to build endurance while engaging in a fast-paced, dynamic activity.
Scooterjoring
Scooterjoring is similar to bikejoring, but instead of a bike, the handler rides a sturdy kick scooter while being pulled by one or more dogs. This creates a slightly lower-to-the-ground, more controlled experience while still offering speed and excitement.
It’s often seen as a middle ground between canicross and bikejoring, making it a great option for those who want more speed than running but prefer something more approachable than biking. Like all dog-powered sports, it relies on clear communication, proper equipment, and a strong working relationship between dog and handler.
Carting / Dryland Mushing / Rig Racing
Carting, dryland mushing, and rig racing involve dogs pulling a wheeled cart or rig, typically as a team, in non-snow conditions. These activities are the closest dryland equivalents to traditional dog sledding, maintaining the same core principles of teamwork, endurance, and coordinated movement.
Historically, dogs have pulled carts for practical purposes in various parts of the world, and modern dryland mushing has evolved into both recreational and competitive forms. These sports allow handlers to work with multiple dogs and experience the dynamics of a team, making them a natural extension of sledding for areas without consistent snow.
Hiking, Distance, and Strength Work
While many dog-powered sports focus on speed and movement, strength and work-based activities highlight a dog’s ability to carry, pull, and perform purposeful tasks alongside their handler. These activities are rooted in the traditional working roles dogs have held for centuries and provide both physical and mental engagement.
Hiking
Hiking is one of the simplest and most rewarding ways to explore the outdoors with your dog. Whether you're walking local nature trails, exploring state parks, or tackling more challenging backcountry routes, hiking provides an opportunity for both physical exercise and meaningful time together.
Unlike many dog-powered sports, hiking emphasizes exploration rather than performance. It allows dogs to experience new environments, engage their senses, and build confidence while strengthening the bond they share with their handler. Accessible to people and dogs of all experience levels, hiking is often the starting point for a lifetime of outdoor adventure and can serve as a gateway to activities such as pack hiking, canicross, camping, and other dog-powered pursuits.
Pack Hiking
Pack hiking involves a dog wearing a properly fitted pack and carrying light gear while hiking with their handler. This activity taps into a dog’s natural desire to work and have a job, giving them a sense of purpose while building strength and endurance.
It’s a highly accessible way to engage dogs of all activity levels, as weight and distance can be adjusted to match the dog’s ability. Pack hiking is often used both as a recreational activity and as a way to add structure and enrichment to regular walks and hikes.
Weight Pull
Weight pull is a strength-based activity where a dog pulls a weighted sled or cart over a short distance. While it has competitive forms, it is also used as a structured way to build strength, confidence, and focus in dogs.
When done properly and safely, weight pull emphasizes controlled effort rather than speed, requiring the dog to engage both physically and mentally. It highlights the working capabilities of dogs while reinforcing clear communication and trust between dog and handler.
Water Adventures
Water adventures offer a unique way for people and dogs to explore the outdoors together while building confidence, trust, and new skills. From calm lakes and winding rivers to paddling excursions and dock diving events, water-based activities provide both physical exercise and mental enrichment in an environment that feels entirely different from trails and dry land.
Many water adventures can be enjoyed recreationally or developed into more advanced pursuits over time. Whether you're looking for a relaxing day on the water or an exciting new challenge, these activities create opportunities for dogs and their handlers to experience the outdoors from a new perspective while strengthening the bond they share.
Kayaking
Kayaking with your dog combines adventure, exploration, and teamwork as you navigate lakes, rivers, and other waterways together. Many dogs quickly learn to relax and enjoy the experience, making kayaking an accessible activity for people looking to share more outdoor adventures with their canine companions.
Kayaking allows dogs to experience new sights, sounds, and environments while providing opportunities for exercise and enrichment. Whether paddling a quiet lake, exploring a scenic river, or embarking on a multi-day camping trip, kayaking offers a rewarding way to build confidence and create lasting memories together.
Learn more about kayaking with your dog.
Paddleboarding (SUP)
Stand-up paddleboarding, often called SUP, is a versatile water activity that allows dogs and handlers to explore waterways while developing balance, confidence, and trust. Dogs ride on the board alongside their handler, learning to remain calm and stable as the board moves across the water.
Because it can be enjoyed at a relaxed pace, paddleboarding is often an excellent introduction to water adventures. It provides a unique opportunity to spend time outdoors together while enjoying a peaceful and immersive experience on the water.
Canoeing
Canoeing offers a traditional and accessible way to explore lakes, rivers, and wilderness areas with your dog. The stability and extra space of a canoe often make it an excellent option for larger dogs, multiple dogs, or longer outings that require carrying additional gear.
Like many outdoor adventures, canoeing emphasizes patience, communication, and teamwork. It can be enjoyed as a simple day trip or incorporated into longer camping and expedition-style adventures.
Dock Diving
Dock diving is a canine sport where dogs leap from a dock into the water in pursuit of a toy or bumper. Dogs compete for distance, height, or speed depending on the specific event format, making it one of the most exciting and spectator-friendly dog sports.
Beyond competition, dock diving provides an excellent outlet for dogs that enjoy swimming and retrieving. It helps build confidence, athleticism, and enthusiasm while strengthening the connection between dog and handler.
Swimming
Swimming is one of the most beneficial forms of exercise available to dogs. It provides a low-impact workout that builds strength, endurance, and cardiovascular fitness while placing minimal stress on joints and connective tissues.
Whether enjoyed for recreation, conditioning, rehabilitation, or cooling off on a hot day, swimming is an activity that can benefit dogs of all ages and activity levels. Many dogs find swimming both physically rewarding and mentally enriching.
Water Retrieving
Water retrieving activities allow dogs to channel their natural instincts while building focus, confidence, and physical fitness. Whether retrieving bumpers, toys, or training aids, these activities encourage dogs to swim, problem-solve, and work cooperatively with their handler.
Popular among sporting breeds but enjoyable for many dogs, water retrieving can be practiced casually for fun or developed into more advanced training and competition opportunities.
Boating & Exploration
Many dogs enjoy accompanying their owners on boating adventures, from leisurely pontoon rides to larger excursions on sailboats and powerboats. These experiences expose dogs to new environments while allowing them to participate in outdoor adventures that extend beyond shorelines and trails.
Boating adventures often pair naturally with camping, hiking, paddling, and other outdoor pursuits, creating opportunities for dogs and their people to explore new places together while building confidence and trust in unfamiliar settings.
Camping & Retreats
Camping and retreats offer an opportunity to slow down, disconnect from everyday routines, and experience the outdoors alongside your dog in a more meaningful way. Whether it's a weekend camping trip, an educational retreat, a wellness-focused experience, or a multi-day adventure, these activities create space for exploration, learning, connection, and personal growth.
Camping
Camping allows people and dogs to experience the outdoors in a deeper, more immersive way. Whether it's a weekend at a local campground, a backcountry adventure, or a multi-day expedition, camping creates opportunities to slow down, disconnect from daily routines, and spend meaningful time together in nature.
More than simply spending a night outdoors, camping encourages teamwork, confidence, and self-reliance for both dogs and their handlers. It often combines many of the activities people already enjoy with their dogs—such as hiking, pack hiking, trail running, paddling, and exploration—while creating lasting memories and strengthening the bond between dog and human. Accessible to a wide range of experience levels, camping is one of the most rewarding ways to turn outdoor recreation into a true adventure.
Retreats
Retreats bring together people, dogs, learning, and adventure in a shared experience designed to deepen connections and create lasting memories. Whether focused on dog-powered sports, outdoor skills, wellness, personal growth, or simply spending time with like-minded people, retreats offer an opportunity to step away from everyday routines and fully immerse yourself in an experience with your dog.
Unlike a single class or event, retreats provide time to build relationships, develop skills, and explore new activities in a supportive environment. By combining education, community, and outdoor adventure, retreats create meaningful experiences that strengthen the bond between people and their dogs while fostering connections with others who share similar interests.
Mind & body
While many activities focus on adventure, exploration, and physical performance, mind and body activities emphasize overall wellbeing for both dogs and their handlers. These experiences help build confidence, reduce stress, improve fitness, and strengthen the connection between people and dogs through intentional movement, learning, and shared experiences.
Whether your goal is improving physical conditioning, developing new skills, enhancing your dog's confidence, or simply creating more balance in everyday life, mind and body activities provide opportunities for growth that extend far beyond the trail.
Yoga With Your Dog
Yoga with your dog combines movement, mindfulness, and connection in a way that benefits both dogs and their handlers. Whether your dog is actively participating or simply sharing the experience alongside you, yoga creates opportunities to slow down, focus on the present moment, and strengthen the bond you share.
Beyond flexibility and physical fitness, yoga promotes relaxation, body awareness, and stress reduction for both people and dogs. It encourages calmness, trust, and intentional time together, making it a valuable complement to more active pursuits such as hiking, canicross, and other outdoor adventures.
Learn more about yoga with your dog.
Dog Massage
Dog massage is a hands-on wellness practice that can help improve comfort, relaxation, mobility, and overall wellbeing. Through gentle techniques that target muscles and soft tissues, massage can support recovery after physical activity, reduce tension, improve circulation, and help dogs become more aware of their bodies.
Beyond the physical benefits, massage provides an opportunity to strengthen communication and trust between dogs and their handlers. Whether used as part of a fitness program, recovery routine, or simply to promote relaxation, dog massage encourages a deeper understanding of your dog's physical and emotional needs while supporting long-term health and quality of life.
Snow-Based Dog-powered Sports
Dog Sledding
Dog sledding, also known as mushing, is the original dog-powered sport and the foundation from which all modern dog-powered activities have evolved.
For thousands of years, sled dogs have worked alongside humans in some of the harshest environments on earth, particularly in Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Indigenous peoples relied on dog teams for transportation, hauling supplies, hunting, and survival—forming deep, functional partnerships built on trust, communication, and teamwork.
Over time, dog sledding developed into both a practical means of travel and a competitive sport, with organized races emerging in the late 1800s and early 1900s during events like the Alaskan gold rush. Today, it remains an active sport in snow-covered regions, while also serving as the inspiration for modern dog-powered disciplines.
Activities like canicross, bikejoring, and skijoring are all derived from the same core concept: a dog working in partnership with a human to move forward together. While the equipment and environments may differ, the foundation remains the same—connection, communication, and shared movement between dog and handler.
Skijoring
Skijoring is a snow-based dog-powered sport where a dog pulls a person on skis using a harness, line, and belt system. Originating in Nordic countries, it was historically used as a practical means of winter travel before evolving into a popular recreational and competitive sport. Today, skijoring allows individuals to experience the speed and teamwork of mushing without needing a full dog team or sled.
The sport relies heavily on communication between dog and handler, using directional and pace commands similar to those used in sledding. Skijoring is a great option for those who enjoy cross-country skiing and want to build a more active, engaged partnership with their dog while taking advantage of snowy conditions.
Pulka
Pulka is a traditional Scandinavian dog-powered activity where a dog pulls a small sled (called a pulka) while the handler skis behind it. Unlike skijoring, where the dog pulls the skier directly, pulka involves a sled between the dog and handler, often used to carry gear or supplies. This makes it both a practical and recreational activity, especially for longer outings or backcountry travel.
Pulka emphasizes steady movement, endurance, and teamwork, and is often used in touring or expedition-style settings. While it shares many similarities with sledding and skijoring, it offers a unique experience that combines elements of both, allowing for a deeper connection to traditional working roles while still being accessible to modern participants.
Snowshoeing
Snowshoeing with your dog is a winter adventure that allows both of you to explore snow-covered trails and natural areas together. Unlike skijoring or dog sledding, snowshoeing does not require specialized dog-powered equipment, making it one of the most accessible ways to stay active with your dog during the winter months.
Snowshoeing emphasizes exploration, endurance, and partnership rather than speed. It provides excellent physical and mental enrichment for dogs while allowing handlers to enjoy winter landscapes that may otherwise be difficult to access. Whether you're taking a leisurely walk through fresh snow or covering longer distances on backcountry trails, snowshoeing offers a simple and rewarding way to strengthen the bond between you and your dog while embracing the outdoors year-round.