Bert got cross country skis for Christmas and Meeka got a real x-back pulling harness. Put the two together and you get the wonderful sport of skijoring.

Picture this: a crisp cold winter day, a wide open field blanketed in sparkling fresh snow, the sounds of the city muffled to a dull hum. Suddenly a strange movement in the distance, a rapidly approaching flurry of fur, fiberglass and gortex. Before you can run and hide the specter swoops past you, a crazy dog attached viw bungy cord and rope to a wildly flailing man on skis. Welcome to skijoring.

Now a few things you should know about our dog: (a) she’s affraid of hockey sticks, brooms, mops, and pretty much every other man-made stick like object (b) she hates wearing anything other than her collar (c) we’re still trying to figure out if she’s super intelligent or dumb as a post.

And now Bert: (a) he has only cross country skied twice in his life before this Christmas (b) neither of those occassions involved the slightly more technical ’skating skis’ which is what he has now (c) Bert often forgets which commands he’s decided to train the dog with.

Naturally given the above we all expected the first Meeka-Bert skijoring experience to end in disaster but we were wrong! Bert picked up the skiing thing very quickly and Meeka was apparently born to pull and showed absolutely no fear of the skis, even when they were flying through the air as Bert face-planted in the snow.

So if any of you happen to be in Montreal this winter and you see a well-oiled man-dog team skiing it might just be Meeka and Bert. And if you see a dog leaping on top of a face-planted man, well that deffinately will be Meeka and Bert.