Turning Heads Kennel

Alaska Dog Sledding Tours

Sarah

Sled Dog Care: PART 1

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Sled Dog Care Part 1 — A look at Housing & Caring for Sled Dogs

This is the first article in a two part series about how we take care of our sled dogs both at home and out on the trail. 

We love our dogs and strive to take the best care possible of them. To us, our dogs are family. We are not alone in this philosophy: mushers run dogs because we love dogs and when you love something, you take excellent care of it.

Owning sled dogs is a huge commitment. Like any animal, they require lots of attention every single day and so, in many ways, we give up a good deal of freedom. We choose to do this because we love our animals and the lifestyle we share with them.

Travis Beals Iditarod 2013 with his lead dog Boston out in front and all-stars Tamere and Zema in swing!
Although we lose some freedom in the responsibility our dogs require, we gain many other freedoms. Traveling the trail with our dogs is a true honor. Photo by Jeff Schultz.

Good sled dog care happens both at home and on the trail and its important to have both. We feel really honored that Travis has now been the recipient of two humanitarian awards, given for best dog care, by both the Tustumena 200 and the Copper Basin 300 sled dog races.

A Glimpse At Our Kennel: Sled Dog Care in The Dog Yard

When you walk into our dog yard you will notice two things. The first is that we have a lot of dogs who live at brightly colored houses. The second is that they aren’t making any noise. That’s because our dogs have their needs met: they have shelter, food, water, and, most importantly, lots of love and attention. Because we provide sled dog tours for a living, we are able to work with our dogs full time. I couldn’t think of better, happier co-workers!

Most mushers have between 30-100 dogs — seeing so many dogs at once can be overwhelming if you have never experienced it. We have 55 dogs and are leasing another 10 this year from musher Louis Ambrose. Our dogs are all friendly and generally speaking we allow our guests to interact with whichever dogs they would like.

Turning Heads Kennel from the Air
Our kennel as seen from the air. We have a perimeter fence around our dog lot to keep moose out of our yard and so our dogs can run loose.

Many people wonder why sled dogs live outside year-round. The main reason sled dogs live outside is that they are highly adapted for living outside in cold weather climates. While many of our dogs spend time in our home on a rotational basis, they generally get too hot and need to go back outside after a few hours. Imagine if you had to wear your parka inside all day long when it was 70F out — you’d get pretty uncomfortable after a while too! Throughout the summer and fall, our dogs hardly use their houses, preferring to sleep outside even in the rain.

Tethering Sled Dogs

Outside, our dogs are on tethers or in pens. Generally speaking, we space our dogs so they are close enough to play. We supplement this by routinely letting the dogs have free-time in our fenced in yard. We are currently working on building another large pen so that our dogs can enjoy greater freedom and more space to roam and play together. It is important to our philosophy as a kennel that our dogs have plenty of time to be dogs and have decided that building large enclosures where they can run around, play, and interact with their teammate is important to us.

Tethering sled dogs is a routine practice. Although many people are uncomfortable with the idea of tethering dogs, sled dogs receive so much exercise and care, it is important for each dog to have their own spot to call home where they can rest in relax. Cornell University published a paper saying that keeping sled dogs in pens showed no benefit over keeping them on tethers. You can read that study here, if you’d like. Nancy Russell also wrote a wonderful short article called “the positive effects of tethering.”

We tether most of our dogs but have pens for our puppies, who are not yet pulling sleds, and our females in heat. We would like to have more pens available for our older dogs in the future and hope to work on that this coming spring. We have also purchased two large dog carousels, but have lacked the time and resources to get it put together. This will be one of our springtime projects!

Part of great sled dog care gives dogs opportunities to play. This is especially important for young sled dogs.
Fergie enjoys getting some exercise outside of the puppy pen. It is important young dogs get lots of exercise when they are not in a training program.

Our young dogs generally run loose through the yard when we are not doing tours; this helps socialize our puppies with the rest of the kennel while also providing playmates for our older dogs.

Keeping Sled Dogs Inside

Even though sled dogs don’t always enjoy being inside, sometimes we have to bring them in. Last fall, I built a 10-hole dog box for our basement. We’ve used it numerous times to bring in sick or injured dogs, young dogs who we want to spend more time with, or if the weather is particularly bad.

Here in Seward, it generally does not get cold enough where we would want to consider bringing our dogs in. Mushers who live further north sometimes see temperatures of -40, -50 and even -60 below! While sled dogs are adapted to the cold, many mushers who live in these areas have “dog barns” where they can bring their dogs inside. Aliy Zirkle and Allen Moore of SP Kennel live in Two Rivers Alaska where it can get quite cold and have a dog barn they use. Check out their dog barn! Mike Santos of Wolf’s Den Kennel also makes use of a dog barn though his set up is quite different from SP Kennel’s. Check out Mike’s dog barn!

Although we do not have cold temperatures that warrant brining our dogs inside, we do receive lots of rain. Occasionally we get lots of rain at 33F. While our dogs are well adapted to the cold, no one likes to be wet and cold. If we need to, we can actually bring all 65 of our dogs out of the rain. We have spots in our basement, dog trailer, and truck to accommodate every single dog.

A number of our older all-star lead dogs such as Zema, Tamere, Boston and Madison are also familiar with inside living so they can be loose. When we bring the four of them in with our 4 pet dogs who already live inside, real mayhem can occur!

Being able to bring all our dogs inside is important. We learned in 2012 that we need to have an evacuation plan in place for our kennel because we can experience extreme flooding. Most of our dogs are able to go in dog trucks or trailers so that should we need to move our dogs to higher ground quickly.

Remember the flood? We sure do. Being adequately prepared for another flooding event has been important to us.

Musher undeterred by Seward flooding from anchoragedailynews on Vimeo.

Sled Dog Care: Taking Care Of Dogs

What proper sled dog care looks like in the kennel varies from musher to musher, kennel to kennel but these are some of the things that are important to us. We believe most mushers would agree that these are good standards of care.

A Clean Yard

At the kennel, proper dog care comes in the form of scooping the yard on a regular basis. We often scoop the yard 2-3 times a day. The cleaner the dogyard, the better! A clean dog yard is important for the health and well being of our dogs.

No standing water

This should go without saying but it is important. Standing water is a breeding ground for bacteria and infection. No thanks! While less of a problem in the interior part of Alaska, in Seward where we can see inches of rain per day having effective draining systems is crucial and has taken lots of time and money.

We put in thousands of dollars worth of gravel each spring, only to have September roll around and expose a new “low spot.” We will always have to worry about flooding but we can counteract problems that routine rainfall brings. When we do find low spots (mainly holes our dogs dig!) we end up digging trenches to help with drainage. We are hoping to alleviate this problem entirely by redoing our dogyard for a third time in the spring of 2015. Stay tuned for updates – this is going to be a pretty cool project.

A Good Feeding Program

Again, it should be obvious that a kennel, especially a kennel full of working dogs, needs to have a good feeding program as a part of having good sled dog care. Long distance sled dogs are some of the best fed dogs in the canine world. Because of their work, these dogs need to eat the best food out there.

In our feeding program, we feed the dogs anywhere between 2-3 times a day depending on their level of activity as well as providing snacks while training. The amount of food we feed varies based on the dog’s metabolism, their age, and how much they have run. In general, young dogs who have started running require the most food: they are like teenage boys – they can eat, eat, and eat some more but because their metabolism goes so fast they gain very little weight. Generally speaking, we feed a mixture of beef, fish, and dog food.

In the summer and fall, we feed lots of fish and kibble. Fish is readily available, free or low-cost, and is one of our dogs’ favorite foods and one of the best options out there. Sled dogs have been powered for hundreds of years on salmon. We are proud to continue that tradition with the help of the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association who donates us fish each year and Resurrection Bay Seafoods who help us freeze the fish. Here is a video we put together last year about getting fish.

Tim Osmar and Monica Zappa, two other mushers living on the Kenai peninsula, also helped us with getting fish this year. Monica will be running her second Iditarod this year Check out their kennel and like their page on facebook to follow along!

When heavier training commences, we often start adding in beef, chicken, beef fat and chicken fat. Meat is an important part of a sled dog’s diet.

A Healthy Working Weight

Most people who encounter sled dogs for the first time are often surprised at how lean they are. Our racing sled dogs are lean because they have been bred for both endurance and speed. They are the marathon runners of the dog world: picture a winning marathon racer – not exactly someone you would call fat now, is it? Our dogs are built very similarly.

It’s important that our dogs stay in a healthy working weight. Because we focus on long distance events, good cardiovascular health is especially important. Being overweight is dangerous for any dog, but for a sled dog it can mean an inability to perform. Overweight dogs are also more likely to overheat. To keep our dogs in good weight, we exercise them regularly and change the amount of food we feed them if they are gaining too much weight.

Similarly, dogs who are underweight should not be run. Generally, mushers do not have a problem maintaining a healthy weight for their dogs as we focus a lot on feeding. Dogs, however, can become underweight due to changes in feed, exercise, weather or health. Immediate attention should be given to encourage weight gain.

Mushers generally classify their dogs as “easy keepers” or “difficult keepers” based on the dogs’ metabolism. Easy keepers do not have a problem maintaining weight under normal working and feeding conditions. Difficult keepers, as the name implies, do have problems and require more feed. Many people falsely assume that larger dogs require more food than smaller dogs. This is not true with sled dogs. The amount of food a dog receives is based primarily on the metabolism of the dog. Generally speaking, young dogs have faster metabolisms than older dogs. Unaltered dogs have faster metabolisms than dogs who have been spayed or neutered. Dogs who have problems maintaining weight can be altered to improve their ability to retain weight while working. We have done this on numerous occasions and found that dogs who are spayed or neutered require very little food in comparison to dogs who have not been spayed or neutered.

 

Water Availability

During months when water won’t freeze, access to water should be available at all times. During winter months when freezing becomes an issue, watering dogs should be done on a routine basis but especially before going on a run. Proper hydration is key to on-trail success.

Water should always be available to sled dogs during summer months
Water should always be available to sled dogs during summer months.

Water should always be available to sled dogs during summer months

We generally give a baited broth once in the morning. Baited broth is basically hot water that has been flavored with something. At our kennel, typically we bait our broth with beef or chicken. We also feed wet meals to ensure our dogs are getting plenty of liquid, even in the summer. Our dogs work in the summer so ensuring they are properly hydrated is important.

The Yukon Quest another 1,000 mile long dog sled race wrote an excellent article about keeping sled dogs hydrated. The article, titled “Water, Water Everywhere” is well worth the read and provides an in-depth look at how sled dogs derive water from food sources such as meat, fish, and fat but also goes in to great detail about how much water a sled dog needs.

Sled Dog Care: Vaccines and Worming

It’s important to keep the dogs healthy. One of the easiest ways to do this is by making sure our sled dogs stay up-to-date on their routine vaccinations and that we regularly worm the dogs. Reputable dog sled races also require that dogs have certain shots in order to compete.

We provide all of our own shots with the exception of the rabies vaccine. The rabies vaccine must be administered by a veterinarian so we have our local vet come to the kennel to administer the vaccine to those dogs that need it. When needed, we take our dogs into the vet.

We hope you enjoyed this post. While it by no means covers everything, we hope we helped provide a good foundation. Stay tuned for Sled Dog Care Part 2 — Taking care of the Dog Team While Out on the Trail.

Playing Chicken

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On Monday I didn’t want to run dogs but did anyways. That’s what you are supposed to do, isn’t it? The dogs needed to get out and were eager to go but I was in a funk. Iditarod, I told myself. So I rose reluctantly and headed out to the yard. The dogs eager heads popped out of their houses when they saw me. They quickly realized we were going to be heading out on a run.

I am slow and methodical when I hook up my dog team. I like them to be quiet but it takes time and patience for them to learn that. Today, they obliged sprawling out waiting as one by one their teammates joined them. When I hooked up my 8th dog, they finally started getting excited but I was able to calm them down.

“Good dogs,” I told them when they settled back down.

So I harnessed them up and they were patient with me, letting me take my time and reserving their excitement until the end when I had all 14 of them hooked up. They were excited. We took off and then —

Oh no!

An orange ball of enthusiasm rushed out of the woods and charged at my team. Before I knew it, I yelled: “MAX! GET OUT OF HERE!”

The ball of fur was Max, my pet dog. And when I yelled he turned remarkably fast, but not before my lead dogs brush him aside.

Ok, Disaster Averted. “Good boy Kermit!” I tell my lead dog. He didn’t let Max phase him and I sure wasn’t it going to let it phase me. I tried to calm myself and get that mediative composure that seems so engrained to dog mushing. Max has given me some great training the past few months and now he is slowly trotting behind the fourwheeler.

“Go home,” I growl. He looks at me and then slinks off as if to say “I was only trying to help.” And he has helped. He comes out of the woods at random intervals and uses his moose-sized body to charge the team. One of two things inevitably happens when he does this: my team is well behaved, ignores him, and continues down the trail… or all hell breaks loose. Max likes mayhem. But today there is no mayhem, today there are only dogs who listen and who know their job and who know that no matter what the big orange dog does, they just keep running.

Good.

So we continue on our run. And it’s starting to shape up nicely. They settle into a fast steady trot quickly. We are probably averaging about 9 or 10mph and I’ve finally partnered all the dogs in a way that I can stand. My team is a  mess of gaits. Hardly anyone runs the same. I have the B-team, after all, but after several runs of moving dogs around, I’ve finally come up with some good pairs. Each dog matches their partner and they step in rhythm. I have the building blocks for a great team. Running with Travis for so many years though, I have caught on to some of his OCD about gaits, running, and rhythm and certain dogs, despite being great athletes, just don’t fit in. Finally though, I have matched them well:

Kermit* (m)– Bonnie (f)

Marlow (m) — Barkley*(m)

Sphinx (f) — Tamere*(f)

Dolly  (f) — Varden (f)

Ayla (f) — Havoc (f)

Ginzu*(m)– Teddy (m)

Bud (m)– Big Guy*(m)

That’s the team I have been running and they look good together. But I am still missing a few dogs from my training pool: Pinky (f), Weiser* (m), Ray* (m), Monroe* (m), Mary*(f), and Madori*(f).  I have 10 dogs who have run Iditarod*, 9 puppies, and 1 adult (Bud)who has never quite made it to race day.

We are starting to look really good and on this run, everyone is starting to finally gel. Yes. It’s happening. It’s hard not to get a little excited at how they work and move together.

So we keep running and we go by a neighbor’s house when all of a sudden —  YIP YIP YIP — a small, pint size dog comes tearing across it’s yard and starts to chase me.

Oh no. One of my leaders, Bonnie, turns her head for a second to see what the commotion is.  “Straight ahead!” I holler. The little dog keeps following me but isn’t gaining on me.

What do I do? I’m not sure if stopping is a good idea but I ams supposed to turn around in about 200 yards. I am terrified for the little dog. My dogs are well behaved. They are friendly. But this little dog wants to pick a fight with them. I have no idea what to expect from my own dogs — we routinely pass a Saint Bernard with gnashing teeth and a fat black labrador that likes to pretend its vicious, but these are big dogs and it’s become a game to my team. Those dogs have taught us how to speed up and run fast. They’ve taught the dogs discipline. So why would I expect my dogs to do anything but pass this little dog?

Because it weighed 15 lbs and it was wearing a sweater: my dogs had no idea what it was. Was it friend or foe?

We made the turn around and the little dog sat and watched us. My team picked up speed when they saw the small dog and the little dog began charging us head on.

Really? I asked in disbelief. You have to hand it to small dogs they are both brave and stupid. I don’t think this little dog quite knew the bargain it was trying to make with my team, so I stopped, got off my ATV, walked to the front of the team, and tried to get the little dog to go away. It just wouldn’t leave.

I could try to pass the dog — I am sure my team would pass it — but what if they didn’t? What if they thought this little dog was not a dog? What if they decided it was something like a porcupine? Sled dogs are famous for attacking porcupine out on the trail despite the fact that they get needle-nosed faces and then must spend hours having quills removed.  Or what if this little dog tried to attack them? If it tried to bite one of my dogs, which I wouldn’t put it past the dog, would my dogs retaliate?

So we sat. We waited. My dogs barked saying “What the hold up?” The little dog was still determined to get in the middle of my team.

“Go Home!” I told the dog.

I sit and stared at me. My leaders eyed it as if to ask “What is that?”

We played a game of back and forth that lasted 5 minutes.

With enough cajoling the dog finally got off the road and well back into the woods. I didn’t wait. I got on the ATV hit the gas and we roared past the little dog.

Phew! Glad that’s over!

I thought I was in for a quieter run after this but when we made our next turn I spied, with horror, a flock of loose chickens on the side of the road. We were almost upon them when I noticed.

Maybe the dogs won’t notice. I told myself. I really hoped they didn’t. We slid by the chickens without the dogs noticing. I was so relieved. I did not want to see the chaos of having a chicken run through the team nor did I want to have to admit to my neighbor that one of my dogs ate her chickens. You see, getting one dog to go by chickens is easy but the more dogs you add to the equation the more dogs you have that could potentially be disobedient.  It only takes one to think its a good idea. If one thinks its a good idea, if you aren’t quick about it, they all will quickly think its a good idea.

At this point I was only about 3 miles into my run and left with a question: Do I continue my run or should I wait? In order to continue my run I would have to run past the small dog and past the chickens at least another 10 times in order to get the mileage I wanted. I knew, at the very least, I had to run by the little dog to get back home.

So I ran back by and fortunately at this point someone must have noticed the little dog was missing because he was no longer out to chase me. And then the second question: do I continue my run? Do I hope the chickens have been put away?

I decided I would give it a shot. I came around through the neighborhood the reverse of what I did before. When I initially passed the chicken we were on the same side of the road and they were about 3 feet from my team.  This time, I came from the other direction and called my team over so we would have the whole road between us. I eagerly scanned ahead to see if I could see the birds. I knew if I did see them I would simply call the dogs up and make them run faster. I figured that at faster speeds they would have to be more focused and would have less time to notice the birds.

But the chickens were gone.

Thank goodness.

We continued to have a great run. We ran about 14 miles before I decided that we should go home. Once in the yard the dogs were still eager so I decided to take them out for another quick loop and put on an additional 2 miles. What a mistake that turned out to be!

Dusk was settling in now and a woman was out walking her two small dogs on leashes. We see her frequently and pass without much hesitation. Today was different though. Today we passed and I got a small tangle with a dog so I stopped ahead of the woman. My leaders turned down a driveway and I went up to correct them. That was when the woman walking her dogs dropped the leash.

This small 10lbs dog came barreling through my parked team. Before I knew it my lead dogs (they are in training) were turned around looking at the little dog. My whole team just sat there staring at this dog, who kept barking at them.

I tried to get the little dog out of the middle but it was dodging my hands. I was calm. My dogs were calm. But this little dog was barking, darting back and forth, and trying to elicit excitement from my team. Fortunately, they stayed calm and inquisitive though they proceeded to dance around the little dog.

Eventually, I got it out of my team but we got massively tangled.

My lead dogs were next to my wheel dogs. My swing dogs were my lead dogs. There were tug lines wrapped around legs and the gangline had gotten tangled around my team. And my team just stood there. This would have been the opportune moment for a dog, or the whole team, to panic. It was a recipe for someone to get injured, but I remained calm and talked to them. “It’s ok, we’ll get you guys untangled” I undid tuglines and necklines and had a few dogs completely turned loose. They went over to the little dog, who was still there with its owner, wagged their tails at each other and came when I called them to get back to their place in the team.

I blocked the road and directed a few cars by as night settled in.  “It’s ok” I kept reassuring the dogs while working out the tangles. The woman, who was watching this all unfold, must have thought I was nuts as I never stopped talking to my dogs.

Then, when I was almost in the clear the  smaller of the two dogs got loose again. This time, my lead dogs  held the team out. They knew they had a job to do and that they hadn’t done it before so now they better. The little dog tried to stir up trouble but my dogs, frustrated at our lack of mobility, were patient and it grew bored and ran back to its owner. I was proud of my team.

Eventually, after about 15 minutes, we sorted everybody out and we continued down the trail with a little more trust in each other, a little more patience, and a little bit closer to the startling line.

On The Edge

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In the quiet moments between living I’ve been rewatching Ken Burns’ The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. It reminds me in many ways why our life is so blessed. We live in such a beautiful place — where mountains and ocean and ice meet. Right on the edge of a place so wondrous that we as a nation decided no matter what secrets were hidden there, they were not worth revealing. The mountains are enough. The oceans are enough. The rivers of ice, slowly melting away, are enough. The natural world does not need altering to have value.

Our house sits on the edge of Kenai Fjords National Park but is also just a 5 minute drive from downtown.We live carefully balancing life in society and life out in the wild, balancing past and present.  Often we go days without leaving home, lost in the quiet rhythms of our lifestyle that seem so antiquated compared to the fast paced of modern life.

We get wholly absorbed in work that fills our days and leaves our bodies aching. I don’t understand how you could or why you would want to live faster than this.

Training, Life, & Sled Dogs

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The weather has started turning. We’ve seen snow once or twice now, brief flurries but it doesn’t really get our hopes up just yet. It’s still early for snow, especially in Seward. Although our friends further north in Fairbanks are on sleds, we wait and take the ATVS out with the sled dogs. We’ve continued finishing projects from around the house and kennel. It’s amazing how much work there always seems to be: building dog houses, fixing things, putting things away. The days seem both long and short, we look forward to bed but never seem to have accomplished all we have hoped to complete. Everything is always ending too soon.

My cellphone went missing earlier in the week. We have a thief in our midst – a cute two year old part sled dog dog named Max who, by now, I know was the culprit. He’s taken many things from us over the past two years we’ve had him: balls of yarn, our house phones, knives, kitchen plates, empty beer bottles… and now my cellphone. It hasn’t been that big of a deal: I am not a huge talker anyways, but I do miss being able to take pictures and videos — especially because we have Pippa, a young 6 week old sled dog puppy, living inside and she is always doing something adorable like falling asleep on my slippers or curling up next to Betty. On more than one occasion Pippa’s gone “missing” only to be found in the dirty laundry pile or under a heap of blankets.

Things continue to go well and we are slowly heading in the right direction. Today I went for a walk and discovered that there were 24 salmon in the small drainage ditch by our house. Considering that the ditch is less than 2 feet wide and less than 2 feet deep in most places, I was fairly impressed. There were also lots of other fish, which I am assuming were fry (young salmon). We pass by this area frequently with the dogs but the dogs usually scare most of the fish away — with good reason too. Last year, our dogs Bud and Weiser (the Clydesdales) both caught themselves fish on a few different occasions. I’ve seen a young pup look at the fish with a tempted eye but we no longer stop our teams near the fish as we want to promote the run — even if it is in  a ditch.

Our house dogs are also doing well. They seem to be getting older and we are reminded that the only fault our dog’s possess is that their lives are far too short. We watch Archie struggle to get on the couch more and more frequently. Still, he seems undeterred. Any action, of course, is surmountable if there is plenty of kibble involved. He is an old dog though, 13 or 14 by now, and well travelled too having run in numerous Iditarod’s and Junior Iditarods and countless 200 & 300 mile races. Often, we find that he will go in the dog lot and steal another sled dog’s house and make them curl up outside. When we run, he is always there. He barks at the dog team while we hook up and chases us when we leave — never far — but enough. I’ve watched Perry, his partner, shiver with excitement when the dog team rounds the corner into the yard and gives him the opportunity to chase. Old sled dogs, perhaps, but always young at heart.

October, with the cold air blowing down off the mountains and the leaves fallen off the trees, is a month that leads to wistful thinking. I’ve thought a lot about my dog Chena, who will have been gone three years at the end of the month. She was with me for such a short time but impacted my life in such a profound way. Dogs, I suppose, will do that.

We leave now on another adventure… a story, perhaps, for later on in the week.

 

 

Training Sled Dogs in the Fall and Why It’s Important For Success

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Although it is called “dog sledding,” much of the important training that happens to a competitive dog sled team actually happens in the fall on ATVS or carts long before there is any snow. While perhaps strange to those unfamiliar with the sport, fall training provides a crucial first look at the team a musher has to work with for the coming season and puts on the early fitness foundation required for later success.

Most mushers generally start fall training some time during the month of September. Our kennel generally starts towards the end of the month as many of our dogs run all summer long doing dog sled tours and a few weeks off between the last tour and the official start of the season are needed for both dog and musher alike. After a few weeks, however, it is back to training. A team, especially one training for Iditarod, needs to build a solid conditioning foundation and this often takes several months to accomplish.

Iditarod is a 1,000 mile long dogsled race but at its core, is really nothing more than a canine marathon. The race is an endurance event that requires high levels of physical fitness and mental preparation from both the dogs and the mushers that run it. Just as humans need months to prepare for a marathon, our dogs require several months of training before they set out on Iditarod.

Training Sled Dogs: The First Few Runs

Fall training starts out in incremental steps where we slowly build mileage up for our dogs. First runs generally are between 5-7 miles in length and are highly dictated by the weather: huskies cannot run in warm weather so most runs are done in the early morning or at night, when temperatures are coolest. Often, these runs require numerous stops that allow the dogs time to pant so that the dogs can get rid of excess heat. Mushers also cater their training runs to hit water sources such as rivers, streams, or even large puddles where the dogs can drink and cool off.

Training Sled dogs during the fall requires finding water sources. Here the team stops at a creek next to the road we train on.
Training Sled dogs during the fall requires finding water sources. Here the team stops at a creek next to the road we train on.

Training Sled Dogs On ATVS

All-Terrain-Vehicles (ATVs) are equipped with numerous features that allow mushers to maintain maximum control of their team during fall training. The ATV is a good choice because we have both gas and brakes at our disposal as training tools. The ATV can also be put into various gears to determine how much the dogs will pull. When put into 1st gear, the dogs have to pull against the gears of the machine making for a tougher pull. Higher gears ease the pull and allow the dogs to travel faster by having to pull less. Generally, mushers vary gears throughout training.

We primarily run in 2nd and 3rd gear as well as neutral but will occasionally put the ATV in 1st gear and require the dogs to do some tough pulling. Other mushers, of course, do it differently.

Training early on in the season allows mushers to look at their dogs with fresh eyes from the previous season. With another year on their belt, dogs that previously ran in the team may now show qualities that warrant their training as a lead dog. In the fall, we run enough short runs that it is a great chance to try new dogs up front.

Positioning Sled Dogs in the Team

The fall is also a good time to bring younger dogs up onto the main team. During the fall, we spend run after run looking at how we match our dogs and where we place them in the team to maximize our efficiency.

For example, earlier this week I ran a dog named Cricket towards that back of the team. No matter what speed we traveled at, Cricket always trotted. As a young, energetic but smaller dog, if she is going to make our race team it will probably be as a lead dog. Knowing this later in the week I ran Cricket behind our swing dogs. I wanted to give her more experience up near the front of the team where, some day, she will hopefully end up. Up that far, Cricket trotted but whenever we started moving at a faster pace she loped. Our travelling speeds were no different than the run I had taken her out on earlier in the week. The team was also identical. The only thing that changed was Cricket’s position and that, it seemed, affected her gait. In general, we want our dogs to maintain a nice steady trot. Does this mean I will run Cricket in the back of the team? No, it means I need to work with her so that she can have her smooth trot further up in the team.

Chemistry: Finding The Right Match for Sled Dogs

In dog sledding, finding the right match for your dogs is also important. A good pairing of dogs can bring the best out in each dog while a bad pairing can bring out the worst. Often, we find that dogs can be paired with one or two other dogs. We aren’t talking about getting along: all of our dogs get along well. When we talk about pairing, we talk about having two dogs that work and move in sync and that also motivate each other to work hard.

Ideally, we want a team that moves as a single unit, rather than as 16 disjointed pieces. A well-trained dog team should move in sync, the legs of the dogs moving synchronously so that as one dog swings his front legs forward, they all do. Having good pairs is important because it is the pairings that comprise the team. Mushers often talk, admire, and want beautifully gaited dogs because the dog is the first building block of smooth team.

Moving Sled Dogs Around

In training sled dogs, especially in the summer during tours and in the fall when we are more focused on short runs, we can try many new pairings. Many mushers like to move dogs around during runs but we generally do not do that in our kennel. We want our dogs to know that if they are hooked up in a certain position or next to a certain dog they will finish the run in that position next to their partner.

There are some exceptions to this, of course, but most of those involve working with young dogs. With young dogs, our goal is to focus on making their time out on the trail positive and to inspire confidence. This is no different than we do with young kids: we don’t start off pitching curve balls to first graders, they hit a ball off of stand. We make things as easy as possible for our young dogs and build their confidence thus setting them up for success later on in their careers.

How Do We Pick Sled Dog Pairings?

So if pairings are so important, how do we pick them? Really talented mushers usually just know after a few runs. These are the dog-savy people who just innately have a gift of understanding and communicating with dogs. For the rest of us, it’s trial and error. Often, there are many clues that dogs will run well together. Typically littermates or dogs from similar genetic backgrounds will run well together as, genetically speaking, they should have similar builds. Similarly sized dogs also generally do well together. Other than that, it requires assessing a dog’s gait. Believe it or no, most top mushers do not have perfectly gaited dogs — what they have is well-paired dogs.

Training Sled Dogs: Finding A Lead Dog

The fall also lends itself as a great time to train new lead dogs as the control of the ATV makes it easy if problems arise or commands are perfectly followed. We say “finding” new leads dogs as, with any leader, the dog must have certain traits that cannot be trained into it. Lead dogs are generally some of the most eager to run dogs on a team as well as the most athletic. While most people believe that intelligence is important, it is actually the least important trait that our leaders have.

In our kennel, we look for three traits: athleticism, attitude, and aptitude. In some dogs, these traits stand out in a dog even as a young pup – at that time it’s clear this dog is a leader and should begin some form of leader training. Other dogs, however, mature into having the all-star can-do-it attitude that mushers look for and rely on in their lead dogs.

In any event, when we find lead dogs training them in their initial runs in lead on an ATV can be very beneficial as the ATV maximizes our ability to reward our dogs. Our dogs naturally want to run and pull – they wouldn’t be sled dogs if they didn’t – so training a lead dog is all about channeling that pull in the right direction. The commands we use in mushing are “gee” for right and “haw” for left.

Using the ATV, we can reward the dogs when they get a command correct by giving the ATV a little gas. If the dogs do not get the command right, we simply stop the team. Because these dogs want to run and because they hear us talking to them, they will try to do something different – like try a different direction – to see if that produces their desired result which is, of course, to resume running. That is it. That is the great secret to training commands to our lead dogs. While it takes lots of patience, we aren’t doing anything extraordinary. We are simply using our dogs love of running as positive reinforcement.

Why Is Training Sled Dogs In Th Fall So Important?

Fall training is important because it is a time of trying new things and getting back in the groove of training. Properly conditioning the dogs for long distance events such as Iditarod is important and requires that mushers start months in advance so that when it is time to race, the dogs are at their peak physical condition and have a solid foundation. It is also the start of that season’s adventures and we are always excited with possibility about what our team will be able to accomplish in the months to come.

You can learn more about fall training from an earlier post we did: Fall Training For Sled Dogs.

Seppala Kennel‘s also has an excellent post about the progression of training from fall to winter.