Safety Precautions for Urban Mushing After Dark & Pence's Surgery

With urban mushing, we come across a lot of people and a lot of vehicles while running the dogs. Of course, there can be some safety concerns that go along with that. Some of the recent accidents in Alaska have opened our eyes more and caused us to add more safety measures to our routine, especially when we run after dark.

Our bikes and kickbike have the typical reflectors in the wheels, on the handlebars, and on the back, but that’s not enough.

Riley and I (Hannah) always wear helmets when running the dogs. We have a flashing red light that we clip to the back of our helmets while running. We also have a headlamp on the front of our helmets, as well as a headlight on the front of the bike that can flash.

Lately, I’ve been putting on a high visibility safety vest over my jacket too.

As far as dog safety goes, we use gangline that has reflective material woven into it, so our headlamps and headlight, as well as vehicle headlights, will reflect off of the leads.

We currently have one highly reflective dog harness from Howling Dog Alaska, which lights up brightly when lights shine on it. If we are running after dark, I prefer to put that harness on Boo since he is black and harder to see. I would love to get another harness just like it at some point.

We recently received two LightHound dog harnesses from Noxgear and so far, we LOVE them. These harnesses go on top of their pulling harnesses and are not only made from high visibility material, but they also contain 360 degree lights all around the dog. These lights can be seen up to a quarter mile away! The harnesses have several light modes, including 8 solid color options, 6 multi-color flashing options, and an always-bright illumination mode.

In addition to the awesome color options, the LightHound harnesses are super durable, very adjustable, and machine washable. The 12 hour rechargeable battery life is fantastic, as we can do many runs before having to charge them. We will definitely be using the LightHound harnesses on both dogs and on all of our night runs, and even our nightly walks! Their human light-up harnesses are intriguing too, but we haven’t tried them out yet.

Check them out at noxgear.com! Does anyone else use these or a similar lighting system for running your dogs in the dark? Let us know!

Quick side note on Pence - she’s getting spayed today! Last week, we had to take her in for pre-anesthetic bloodwork to make sure she is good to go for her procedure and everything looks good! We dropped her off this morning and will pick her up this evening. I’m sure I’m more nervous than she is lol. Hoping for a quick and easy recovery for her over the next couple weeks. Boo is going to Beth’s for a few weeks to allow Pence alone time to heal.

We’ll keep you updated on Pence’s health over the next week or two. Until then, we hope you have a great weekend!

[Urban Mushers + Video] Trying out the New LightHound Harnesses

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