Stories

What Great Lead Dogs Have Taught Us About Success

Sarah · October 4, 2017 ·

A great lead dog a crucial component to having a great dog team. A lead dog is the dog or pair of dogs at the very front of a dog team who listens to the musher’s commands and helps guide the team down the trail. Although a musher should always retain control of a dog team, the lead dog is the key ingredient to success. That is why they are often the most well-known dogs in a team or kennel and why many races choose to honor their contribution through various awards like the Golden Harness award in Iditarod, which usually goes to the winning lead dogs.

There are many famous lead dogs, like Togo and Batlo from the 1925 serum run. These lead dogs helped bring crucial medicine to the village of Nome during a notorious blizzard thus saving countless lives. Then there are the famous lead dogs of Iditarod racers such as Granite, who belonged to Susan Butcher and Zorro who belonged to Lance Mackey. More recent famous lead dogs include Brent Sass‘ dog Silver, who did such an amazing job helping not only his team but other teams over a notorious stretch of trail in the Yukon Quest not just one year but multiple years that they named an award after him.

Great lead dogs have taught us a number of things about what it takes to be a truly successful person. It doesn’t matter the circumstances surrounding them, great lead dogs simply figure out a way to get their job done through a combination of focus, determination, and readiness. There is a lot to be learned from a determined lead dog who will stop at nothing to conquer the trail.

Focus on the Task At Hand

A great lead dog does not get distracted but remains focused on leading their team down the trail. It doesn’t matter if the team is traveling down the crowded streets of downtown Anchorage during the ceremonial start of Iditarod, if they are passing a team that is camped along the side of the trail, or if there are a bunch of camera men in their faces shooting a scene for a television show: a great lead dog will ignore these distractions and continue down the trail.

Successful people identify the tasks they need to accomplish in order to achieve a goal and they get them done. They do not make excuses or get distracted. They are able to keep their end goal in mind and focus on the tasks that will help them get closer to achieving their goal. By clearly identifying their goal, they are able to achieve it despite distractions.

Get Excited By Challenges

Any lead dog can run down a good trail but great lead dogs handle adverse conditions very differently. When the going gets tough, a great lead dog digs deep and gets going. They find challenges such as storms or wind-blown trail exciting. Great lead dogs thrive in adverse conditions. Rather than getting frustrated, a great lead dog enjoys a difficult trail because it challenges them.

Maintain A Spirit Of Optimism

A great lead dog stays enthusiastic about their job. Whether they show that optimism by barking and screaming, shouting their excitement or in their willingness to simply get up and go after only a short rest. A great lead dog never loses faith regardless of circumstances.

Develop Deep Bonds

Because of the intensity of training required to be a lead dog, lead dogs often form some of the deepest bonds with their musher. Their musher relies heavily upon them in times of need and they in turn rely on their musher to take care of them. The bond between musher and lead dog is that of profound trust and respect. Great lead dogs know that their mushers will take care of them — it’s what helps see them steadily through the toughest of trails. They know that their musher will ultimately do right by them and care for them.

Do More Than What’s Asked Of

A great lead dog somehow always manages to do more than what’s expected of them. Whether it’s fearlessly leading their team through a fierce blizzard or running up front for the entirety of a race, a great lead dog somehow never ceases to impress. They always find a way.

We have learned a lot about what it means to be successful because of the drive and devotion our sled dogs show us. They never cease to amaze us; our great dogs have turned us into better humans.

Our New Website

Sarah · June 23, 2016 ·

We just launched our new website redesign. We hope you find it easier to use. We will be improving and adding more content over the next several weeks to increase usability and to help you find all the interesting stuff we have written about in terms of dog sledding. We hope you enjoy!

Happy Valentine’s Day From Turning Heads Kennel

Sarah · February 14, 2016 ·

Happy Valentine’s Day! While most Americans are gorging themselves on chocolate, we are continuing to pack our drop bags. They are due in 4 days! While we expect to have a great day full of fun adventures and (hopefully) a run with the dogs. Please feel free to share our Turning Heads Kennel valentines with your friends!

The Warming

Sarah · January 3, 2016 ·

Today the forecast calls for rain. Yesterday, it was 45 degrees in Willow. When I got back from my training trip to the Denali Highwah, I tried to sleep but the cabin was too warm. Even up in Cantwell, I found myself too hot, gloveless, and at times mushing in the rain. It was almost welcome because it was so hot. But it is impossible to love something that barges into a party unwelcomed. The warm weather has its place; that isn’t now.

When I went to sleep my dog Max climbed our cabin ladder. He must have missed me. He quickly grew too hot upstairs but I had no idea how get him down. Finally, with coaxing he made it.

It is a sad reality being a dog musher when it feels, more and more, as if winter is slowly withering away. The peaceful gleaming white of winter is being replaced by the ugly Browns and beiges of spring break-up. Only it isn’t spring. And this is t the first winter we have seen grow sick with warmth.

Here we are at the start of 2016 and the snow outside is melting rapidly. The snowberms alongside the road are shrinking and turning dark brown as mud and dirt from trucks falls off and gets sprayed onto the sides of the roads. Driving by our trails, they were the sickening off white of slush. It has sort of a tan colored look when it is particularly wet.

Where has the cold disappeared too?

There are those who rejoice at the warm temperatures. They are not Alaskans. They do not thrive in winter. So much of Alaskan culture is tied to the cold. Dog sledding, snowmachining, skiing, skating, sledding – all significantly harder or impossible to do when the snow turns to rain.

Sometimes, I wonder if we are part of a dying breed and a slowly shifting sport. It is impossible to deny the climate is changing. It’s not up for debate and hasn’t been for nearly two decades. The endless war on science bewilders me, saddens me.

A hundred years ago dog sledding was the heart of th8/ state, connecting communities with mail and supplies during the winter. Now, these same places year after year haven’t had enough snow.

During the summer, we watch as the sun slowly eats away at the toe of Godwin glacier where we run our summer glacier Dogsledding tours. Each year Godwin Glaicer recedes about 30 to 50 feet. This was a river of ice that took thousands of years to weave out of the mountains. Now, we watch it shrink rapidly right before our eyes summer after summer.

Today is warm. I put on a t-shirt. I visit the dogs wearing a skirt and rain boots. I cringe at the thought that warmer days are to come and to keep coming. The dogs nails are sharp against my bare skin and I am reminded that they need trimming. The chores never end. So be it.

How can we breath life into winter?

Stuck in a Rut – Denali Highway Camping Trip Part 1

Sarah · January 1, 2016 ·

This is the first blog post in a 3 part series.

Well, our camping trip stared off in the most exciting of ways. After an uneventful drive to Cantwell we headed towards the Denali Highway. It was about 10:30 and we figured we’d be hooked up and on the trail by 11:30 or 11:45 at the latest.

But, like always, what can go wrong will go wrong.

Neither Wade or myself are particularly familiar with the Denali Highway. Wade’s previous trip up with Travis ended being somewhat exciting after the DOT plowed the last 10 miles from where they had parked making it an eventful mush to the truck.

Well, we headed down the road and this time Wade knew where the parking lot was. Or, at least, that’s what we thought.

The road looked plowed and Wade knew were they had plowed to the last time, so we figured we were golden.

Wrong.

So we continued down the road in the truck as it didn’t look ideal to mush on and the parking lot where they had plowed to the last time was still up ahead.

It was smooth going on the icy road until, of course, it wasn’t. We had known the forecast for the area had called for high winds. It was part of the draw. Nothing better than training in adverse conditions. We also knew that we should anticipate fresh snow.

What we didn’t know is that DOT reversed it’s decision and was now no longer plowing the 10 further miles. There was a sign somewhere but neither of us being familiar had thought that was wrong. But of course it wasn’t.

Things were smooth sailing for the first 6 or 7 miles. Then, the nemesis of our fun arrived. It was a small, wind-drifted snow birm. From the truck, it looked like a small no-frills give your truck just a tad more gas sort of bump. It didn’t look intimidating and surely this small mound of snow couldn’t get us stuck.

But it did.

The wind had drifted the snow in such a way that the snow was rock-solid. We plowed through it and realized quickly that this was an oh shit moment and we had to be careful not to get stuck. So we rocked the truck gently back and forth at first and had good enough traction that we could free ourselves but Wade’s trailer, loaded with 6 heavy dog boxes, 33 dogs, and two sleds wasn’t having it. We got a little bit backwards but the trailer started to jack-knife. We pulled a little more forward and risked getting more stuck.

Back and forth and back and forth. Minute movements of touching the wheel and giving gas. Eventually, however, we had to concede that we were stuck.

Wade Marrs uses a ratchet strap to try and left the trailer up high enough to grt it hitched back on to the truck — unfortunately getting the truck unstuck was easy, getting the broken trailer back onto the truck proved to be more challenging

We put on gear and went outside to assess just how badly we had screwed ourselves. Overhead the northern lights danced in whimsical patterns. Despite being stuck, we stopped and watched them for a bit. Reds and pinks darted once or twice in small segments across the sky. At least if we were stuck, we told ourselves, this wasn’t a bad place to be.

We decided the best thing to do was to unhook the trailer which was no longer lined up straight with the truck so that we could focus on one problem at a time. We got the trailer off and then had to power through the drift. We used a combination of digging, packing snow down, and laying down straw we had for traction. The poor truck had to work hard, and so did we, but eventually we got it unstuck.

We high-fived our minor success.

The trailer was somewhat perpendicular to the road. Hooking the truck up as-is with no real ability to pull forward would almost certainly land us in the position we’d just spent the better part of an hour getting ourselves out of.

The trailer conveniently had some spots that it was conceivably for us to tie the truck into besides using the ball hitch. It was not an ideal option but given our situation seemed like the best option. We only needed to go far enough to straighten the trailer out and from the angle we were pulling from that shouldn’t have taken much.

We carefully concocted a way to rig things up that would help us achieve our desired goal. We got the trailer straightened out but, somehow in the process, had managed to seperate the trailer from its welded jack. So now we had a 20 foot trailer with 6 heavy dog boxes, 33 dogs, and two sleds with the receiving hitch on the ground and no jack to be able to lift it up.

We had to lighten the load which meant dropping dogs and removing 2 of the dog boxes from the trailer

What followed was several hours of good natured oh this sucks and we’ll what if we tried this and so on and so on. We tried all sorts of things but in the end had to unload 20 dogs and take off two of the heavier dog boxes. We made a picket for our dogs out of gangline and unloaded them, two by two, to sit in the snow and stare at us as we tried to get ourselves out of our self-created mess.

2am trying to figure out how to reattach the trailer after the jack broke off.

Then, we took an industrial strength ratchet strap and had it going up over the tailgate and attaching back in to the framing of the truck to give us leverage. Slowly, we ratcheted the trailer up into the air. We got the trailer at the right height and tried to shove the trailer onto the ball hitch, but given how the whole thing was rigged we weren’t strong enough.

I had suggested earlier that we should cut a tree and use it as a lever. Wade got his ax out and picked a good sized spruce. With his new lever, he began pushing the truck in place. When I said it was lined up from my position standing in the back of the tailgate, my job was to undo the ratchet. I undid the ratchet but we were a fraction of center so it wouldn’t couple. Wade continued to use the tree lever to keep things in place and I hopped in the truck and moved the smallest bit forward.

The trailer hitched in. Sweet, sweet, sweet, success.

Then came the realization that, well, this was not really a parking spot, the road was too narrow, and Wade was going to have to go in reverse the 6 or 8 miles we’d come in.

Leaving the truck where it was, wasn’t an option. It was starting to snow and, if we didn’t get it out now, we might not be able to get it out at all of we just went on a dog run.

Fine. We laughed about how this was probably the worst start to a mushing adventure pretty much ever. We joked. We both took it in stride. We knew getting pissed or frustrated would only make the situation worse so we chose not to.

So then we started backing up. It was slow going, the trailer was not reversing well straight, we were tired, and we just wanted to be done. We’d gotten to the highway around 10:30pm and it was now nearing 4am.

Backing up was slow and frequently Wade had to put the truck in drive. Then, at one point, the truck decided to quit working all together. We shut it off, unsure of how to proceed, shot the shit and then decided to see if we could get it to go again. It wouldn’t. We repeated the cycle and eventually through what must have been some sort of divine intervention, the truck decided it was going to work again. This, of course, was completely beyond our control but we celebrated nonetheless.

Then it happened again. We repeated the cycle and found success once again. Then it happen again. It was nearing 5am at this point and we’d been up all night. I grabbed my parka from the back seat, curled up into a tiny ball in the passenger chair, and fell asleep.

We woke up around 8 and continued driving backwards. It was slow going and we didn’t cover much ground. I wa grateful I wasn’t someone who struggled with car sicknesses. Between going backwards and all our zig zagging, it would have been easy to get sick.

Wade Marrs patiently reversing the truck and trailer

We spent another two hours slowly backing up. We have officially been at the highway and the closet we have gotten to mushing is dropping our dogs.

Well, happy trails and look forward to part 2 when we actually get out on the trail to mush!

Continue to Part 2…