At thirteen weeks old Gus followed Bro jumping up onto the motorbike so from then on as I got Gus used to the motorbike I would ask Bro to get up on the bike then ask Gus the same thing and it did not take long for Gus to learn the command get up.
Also when I was riding away from the house Gus did not want to miss out on the fun. At first I had to put my arm around him so that he could not fall off.
Gus needs to know how to act around the motorbike as I don’t want to run him over. A lot of hunters have lost potentially good young dogs by running them over unintentionally so all young dogs have to learn not to move to close to a vehicle. In a ute a dog might not get a second chance but the bike is not as heavy. One of my dogs Rastus was a slow learner as he has been run over by the bike twice, luckily for him he did not get hurt too bad. When I ride the bike the dogs quickly learn not to run in front because I don’t always slow down for them because sometimes you don’t see them so they have to learn to think for themselves.
Another thing with having the dogs running with the bike I get to see how Gus likes to play with the other dogs while running. Different breeds of dogs act differently, a heading dog likes to runi in front of other dogs trying to cut cut them off whereas a huntaway will be barking a lot to keep the animal moving. With Gus I can see that he wants to stop the other dogs from running so that he can bail them. This is the behavior that I want to see and encourage.