Bikejoring
The Abakan Samoyeds have been running in harness since the early 70s. I trained Mischa and Chata(Abakan Chatanika) on my son’s Irish mail in 1972 and attempted to train another Sam with a 10-speed bike in 1973.
As a family, my husband, son, the two dogs and I, moved to Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1974 and I bought a 24″ ladies’ Schwinn single speed bike with a coaster brake there and began what has been a long partnership with the bike in training sled dogs.
We moved to E. Washington(Aeneas) in 1975. Here I started to train a three-dog team on gravel and dirt roads. We moved across the valley to Conconully, Washington, a year later and I continued to train the dogs by bike on gravel roads. We competed in the three-dog class in the 1978 Priest Lake Pacific Coast Championships. Belaya Buccaneer, Abakan Maggie Whitehair, and Abakan Rosalinda de Llana ran on that three-dog team. In that two day race we finished in 12th place in a 36 team entry. We averaged speeds of around 15 mph. That year we received the Organization for the Working Samoyed Most Improved Team award.
Buck, Maggie, and Rosa had only been trained by bicycle. We had not even run on snow before the Priest Lake race.

Walker(l) and son, Cash(r), Arkansas