Once upon a time...

I got my 1st Husky in 1996 and my 1st litter in 2005. Since then, I've always harnessed between 10 and 16 dogs, most of them born at home. I've done a few races (Pirena, Sedivackuv, etc.) and raids in Finland (Rovaniemi-Inari, etc.). Over the years, I've made a lot of mistakes and learnt a lot about dogs, their training and equipment. Now, I'm sharing all the knowledge I've gained through experience with those who ask me for it, and I've developed my own brand of mushing equipment, selling what I test and make for myself.

How and why did I end up with Chukchi harnesses?

I started mushing almost thirty years ago in the forest of Fontainebleau with 16 dogs harnessed to a 40kg scooter. With dogs weighing 16kg for the females and 23kg for the males, as soon as an Xback harness turned a little the dogs were injured under the armpits. At the time, I used a short, articulated harness that avoided this problem. This type of harness, because of its construction, goes up the trachea and therefore causes quite a lot of loss of power. This wasn't a problem with the size of my team in relation to the load to be pulled. When I moved to Auvergne, where it's never flat, and hitched up a 110kg kart, this power loss problem became crucial. So I started looking for a solution that would allow the dogs not to be constrained while running and that would be efficient in terms of performance. After two years of frustration and discouragement (the solution was good in the summer when we were doing 6km and all the dogs were burnt as soon as we went beyond 50km a week) I saw a photo of Joar Leifseth ULSOM who had just won the Iditarod with a type of harness that I had never seen before and that aroused my curiosity. After a few failed attempts, I finally found the solution to my problem of power and unconstrained running: the CHUKCHI harness.