2015

Camping Out With The Dogs

Sarah · September 5, 2015 ·

Travis has been traveling the last week and so the dogs and I have had plenty of time to ourself. For September, the weather remains warm. I’ve taken advantage of the warm temperatures and set up my new camping hammock in the dog yard.

Sleeping outside with the dogs has, well, been interesting. I picked two trees inside the dog lot to set my hammock up. On Tuesday when I decided to give sleeping out with the dogs a shot I was amazed by how warm it was. I listened to my book on tape and watched the stars, hoping for a northern lights show. Given the forecast for the lights, I considered my odds of seeing them high. Unfortunately, however they did not come out to dance.

I fell asleep, content to be swaying in the light wind. It reminded me so much of the summer I lived on a sailboat. I loved it.

I woke up to Hank barking and growling at me. In the night the shadow of my hammock must have scared him. Max, of course, went up to him and growled right back: come on, Hank. Do you really know who you are barking at?

That was, of course, until I woke up to cold droplets slowly tickling my face. The rain started slow enough that I thought it would pass. I pulled my sleeping bag tighter around me like a bear determined to hibernate.

The more I tried to avoid the rain, the harder it fell. Eventually, without cover from the rain, I moved back inside. Oh the perks of camping in your own back yard!

Today went better. I woke a few times. It is funny how the mind works. My immediate thought was “dogs howl at the moon” and then about 2 seconds later the whole kennel erupted in a gloriously beautiful song.

Another Time I could here an animal walking around. The dogs were on full alert and I could hear the tension in the air. The footsteps sounded to me like hooves so I can only assume it was a moose. A bear would have caused a communion.

This morning, I still sit in my hammock. Enjoying the slow peace of watching the dogs emerge from their houses, stretch, and wag their tails at me when they realize I have been with them all night long.

How To Host A Paint A Dog House Day For A Sled Dog Kennel

Sarah · July 29, 2015 ·

We are writing this article for our fellow dog mushing friends who are looking for ways to incorporate more local outreach into their kennel. After the Sockeye Wildfire devastated the mushing community of Willow, many mushers and non-mushers alike banded together to help the displaced sled dogs get new homes. Operation Doghouse became a community-wide effort dedicated to rebuilding houses for sled dogs that were lost in the Sockeye fire. Working together with #Operation DogHouse we thought it would be great if we could write about our own success as a kennel in hosting Paint-a-Pooloza and give advice on how to host a similar event.

It’s important as mushers and mushing fans that we work together to increase accessibility to our sport.

Paint-A-Pooloza was an event hosted at Turning Heads Kennel in May of 2015 as a way to involve the local community of Seward, its artists, and its children in our kennel. Running the event was a blast and we hope by publishing how we did this event that more kennels will be able to follow suit.

We added our event to our local community event page, for Seward we have two local online places to submit events: www.SewardEvents.com and www.SewardCityNews.com. Seward City News is an online publication and we used this platform to promote our event in the three weeks leading up to it.

In addition, we created simple eye-catching flyers for our event and posted them throughout town with permission from the owners or managers of the property. Some high visibility places that we posted in our town included our local grocery stores, gas stations, and our public library. We also connected with key community leaders who were involved in boy scouts or girl scouts to help us promote our event and would ensure that families would know we were doing something. We advertised sled dog rides, because we are a tour kennel, but most children would be happy simply to meet sled dogs or learn about mushing. Children also love puppies so If you (or a neighboring kennel that wouldn’t mind sharing) have puppies, consider advertising that. We advertised hot dogs and root beer as well.

Preparing for our event, we choose several bright colors. We have always been a fan of bold “loud” colors because we feel like they make our dog yard a very happy place. In general we have found that a gallon of paint covers about 4 or 5 houses. We bought paint but also put out advertisements saying we were looking for old paint on local websites and our local Seward community Facebook groups. People are more than happy to get rid of their unused paint!

We then purchased the supplies we needed for our event. We estimated an attendance of anywhere between 50-100 people and realized unused supplies could be used later in the summer or for other events, as we frequently do staff barbecues throughout the summer. This may not be the case for every kennel however. We purchased 96 hot dogs and buns from costco, ketchup, mustard, relish, paper plates, plastic silver, and plastic cups. We also bought otter pops and ice cream as we were going to serve root beer. We also bought napkins, baby wipes, and purell.

For painting, we purchased 6 gallons of paint. We also picked up several different sized foam brushes as well as 4 brush sets (containing 11 brushes each) from Home Depot.

To prepare for the event we scrubbed our houses with a wire brush. Then we power-washed our dog houses to remove any old paint and dirt. We washed some houses the day of and during the event as we ran out of time. This didn’t prove to be a problem because they dried quickly.

We poured paint into plastic cups for painters to use. Each cup of paint came with its own brush. People were encouraged to share, swap, and be creative as possible. We provided painters tape to those who wanted more geometrical designs.

The day of the event we closed our dog yard off but took turns taking small groups of people into the yard. Our dog yard is fenced. If you don’t have a fence around your dog lot consider getting plastic fencing or roping it off. Put up signs as well. We have a sign outside our dog yard that says “Not all dogs have good manners. Please do not enter without a guide.” Our dogs are used to guests and small children. If your dogs aren’t good with strangers, explain that. Every musher’s kennel is different and our dogs have lots of exposure to people they don’t know.

Another thing that you could do would be to set up a display of your winter gear to let kids try on or to see. It’s always nice to have an interactive element of some kind — just make sure everyone has clean paint-free hands before letting them touch your $800 parka!

To make sure your event goes smoothly, make sure you have plenty of volunteers on hand able to help. We had two people dedicated to grilling during lunchtime hours and other volunteers who helped refill paint cups. Additionally, make sure you have two or three trash cans available. Hot dogs and baked beans were easy and were a big hit. The root beer and ice cream proved to be a nice, easy treat for a sunny day that the kids loved too.

We set a time limit for our event and advertised it lasting from 11-4pm. The last visitors left around 5pm because they wanted to finish their design; we knew that it would probably last longer than advertised and didn’t have a problem with that.

Don’t forget that some people are willing to help clean up. You can set up stations for washing brushes and disposing of leftover paint. We let our houses dry for 24 hours before moving them back into our yard and in with the dogs.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to email me at: Sarah@SewardHelicopters.com

Running A Remote Glacier Dog Sledding Tour And Camp

Sarah · May 27, 2015 ·

Our summer job is beyond awesome. We get to hang out with our dogs all summer long and introduce people to dogsledding either at our kennel in Seward, Alaska or on our home away from home, Godwin Glacier. It’s a lot fun sharing our passion with guests to Alaska and our glacier dog sled tours help us train a competitive race team.

Running a remote dog sledding camp and tour is no easy feet. We are in our third year of running tours on Godwin Glacier and each year we assemble our remote camp in May and disassemble it in September. Lots of careful planning is involved because we strictly adhere to leave-no-trace camping skills: everything that goes onto the glacier must also come off the glacier — including dog poop!

What Is A Glacier

Glaciers are the result of snow accumulation that is greater than the amount of snow that melts during the summer. This snow eventually compresses into very dense glacier ice. As more snow compresses into ice, the glacier begins to flow in the path of least resistance which is generally downward causing the glacier to expand. The underside of the glacier travels slower than the top of the glacier due to friction with the ground. These changes in speed result in the ice cracking, forming large crevasses. Although crevasses can be found on any part of a glacier, they are mostly found at areas where the glacier is under stress. The accumulation zone generally has very few crevasses.

Although at 3700′ feet we are likely to have snow at our camp until the end of June, the hot summer sun beats down on the the glacier causing snow to melt at a rate of 2-6 inches a day. Godwin Glacier is currently receding. This means that the snow falling in the accumulation zone is not producing enough pressure to continue to push the glacier ice outward. Although we still have lots of snow in the accumulation zone, the toe of Godwin glacier has moved back approximately 30 feet in the last three years.

Glacier Dog Sledding: Camp Overview

Our dogsled camp is located at 3700′ feet elevation in the accumulation zone of Godwin Glacier. Godwin Glacier sits on the edge of Chugach National Forest and Kenai Fjords National Park. Nestled quietly among mountains, it’s very easy to forget an outside world exists! It is approximately a 10 minute helicopter flight from the Seward Airport to our dog camp.

We receive a tremendous amount of snowfall throughout the winter because of our local geography. Godwin glacier is located on a mountain that rises dramatically out of the ocean quickly gaining elevation. This sudden rise of land pushes weather systems up into the colder part of the atmosphere. Last year, our last recorded snow fall was on June 27th. During the month of June, we had approximately 3 feet of snow fall while we were on the glacier.

We often expect snowfall as the main form of precipitation until late June and expect it again in early September. Because of this, we are able to run our glacier dog sled tours late in the season. Last year, we were the last glacier dog sledding operation to close and anticipate once again claiming that title. This year, we estimate that we started the season with over 60 feet of snow and have steadily been gaining more snow.

Our dogs enjoy their time on Godwin Glacier immensely. For a sled dog, there is simply nothing better than getting to run on snow. For our guests, glacier dog sled tours mean a chance to experience the epitome of Alaskan culture without having to visit during the frigid winter months. Living in a remote environment, however, requires many careful considerations.

Living On Godwin Glacier

Our guides generally live on Godwin glacier for 4 to 7 days at a time before being flown off the glacier to have a few days off. We have a rotating staff of well qualified guides who are all in their second season working with us. Additionally, we have another guide who joined us from another company. We feel pretty blessed when it comes to our coworkers: we have a really great crew and love to have fun together.

While living on the glacier, our guides have many important duties to attend to besides giving dog sled rides. Although providing a great customer experience is their number one job, in this post we are going behind the scenes to share what their other job duties entail.

Glacier Communication

Being able to communicate with our dog camp is incredibly important to us. We have used a combination of different methods in the past with limited success. This year, we purchased a satellite phone for a no-worry system of being able to communicate between dog camp and the ground. Good communication is important for safety reasons. We communicate with our guides a minimum of two times a day.

Flying To Dog Camp

We use Robinson 44 helicopters that seat 3 passengers and a pilot. Our pilot, Michael Culver, is back for his third season with us. Our helicopters require good visibility for flying. If weather conditions are not optimal or their is limited visibility, we cannot get to camp. In those events, we do not fly. We work with our guests to reschedule their trips, if possible, around any other activities they have planned. Because of this, we always recommend people booking us for their first day in Seward.

Taking Care of Sled Dogs on A Glacier

One of the most important parts of our guides job is to take care of our sled dogs. Our sled dogs are competitive racing athletes. Their care is of the utmost important to us. During the summer, our dogs work hard — glacier dog mushing is a great strength training program for the team — so they eat a minimum of two meals a day.

Dog Food

Our guides prepare a mixed meal with either beef or chicken and dog food. We currently feed a blend of two different dog foods: one is fish based and another chicken based to ensure an all around balanced meal. The dogs will also receive snacks on busy days where they are running more to help keep them energized.

We are constantly resupplying our dog food levels on the glacier. During guest flights, we may store a bag of dog food under one of the helicopter seats or strap it to an exterior cargo rack so that we can have plenty of extra food in camp. It is important to stock up on things such as dog food so that in the event the helicopter can’t get up to camp, our dogs can still eat. We keep a minimum of 7 days worth of dog food in camp at all times but often have more.

Dog Poop

With eating, comes the aftermath — dog poop! Dog poop must be scooped on a regular basis up on the glacier. We always want our dog yard looking pristine for our guests and because a clean dog yard is part of good dog care. In addition to scooping our dog yard, we also scoop the trail our dogs run on. Anyone who has been mushing before can attest to the fact that dogs will “go on the go” so at the end of the day we snow machine the trail and scoop poop. The poop is put into 55 gallon drums that are then flown off the glacier, pumped by a local outhouse company, and are then flown back up onto the glacier.

Dog Hair

Additionally, our guides must rake up our dogs hair. Our sled dogs shed throughout the season. Because we are leave-no-trace that means we must rake up their hair. It’s amazing how much our dogs shed throughout the summer. Raking up dog hair is a daily chore for our guides.

One of the reasons we like keeping our dog sled camp small is because of all the expenses of having to fly dog food up to the glacier and dog poop off the glacier. Fewer dogs means fewer flights and ultimately less work for our staff which means they can focus more on providing quality tours.

Managing Camp

During warm days, the snow on the glacier obviously melts and it doesn’t always melt evenly. When we place our dog houses or tents on the glacier, the snow around them melts faster. Our guides need to constantly level their living quarters and our dogs houses so that they provide a good home and so that camp is kept looking tidy.

As the season progresses, our guides will also work on moving camp. Throughout the summer our usable area of the glacier shrinks. At the start of the season, with 60ft of snow, we can travel almost anywhere we want as snow melts, however, we reduce the area we run our tours in because of the potential of crevasses.

Although we operate in the accumulation zone of the glacier, crevasses can occur anywhere on a glacier. One of the most important jobs our guides have are to ensure the safety of our trail and camp by probing for crevasses.Crevasses are formed by ice moving at different speeds or coming under pressure. Because of this, we move our trails inward and operate on only the flattest part of the glacier.

It is common to see small cracks along the surface of the snow, even in the accumulation zone of the glacier where our camp is set up. These small surface cracks generally do not have crevasses under them. It is our policy, however, to probe and investigate each crack that arises. Towards the end of the season, when we probe our camp and trail, we will actually hit glacier ice. If we do find crevasses, our guides carefully mark them off and immediately move our trail. Safety is our number one priority as a company!

Having Fun

Our guides have a number of options for entertainment while living on Godwin Glacier. We have a generator in camp for our guides and for safety reasons. We need to be able to charge our satellite phone and our aviation radios. Our guides also like to charge their computers and DVD players for rainy days when they don’t want to do much outside.

On beautiful days after tours our guides may hike, ski, snowboard, or dog sled. Living on a glacier is the perfect place for the active outdoor enthusiast who is good at entertaining themselves. Generally, our guides enjoy also enjoy serious games of cribbage and, our new favorite, Monopoly Deal to pass the time. It’s a very relaxing place to live as, with limited communication, the stress of modern life disappears.

As a company, we have an annual staff barbecue on the glacier where we hold summer dog sled races, go sledding and play trivia. Providing a fun work environment is important to us because our crew is our family.

10532925 1008366222523955 4189461625238079902 n — We operate in the accumulation zone of Godwin Glacier where it is extremely flat.

Why Choose Our Glacier Dog Sled Tour

Although there are glacier dog sledding tours located throughout the state of Alaska, our dog sled tour has some unique things that truly set it apart. Our dog sled camp is the smallest in the state.

Our kennel is located in Seward just a short flight from our dog sledding camp allowing us to easily adjust the number of dogs in our camp to our schedule. Although we specialize in small hands on tours, we are able to handle large groups. We can quickly adapt to meet the demands of a 30 person tour and frequently throughout the summer do a few large tours for corporate groups or large family reunions.

Unlike some of the bigger dog sled tour companies, we are not affiliated or contracted with the Alaska cruise ship industry which means we are able to keep our tours affordable. We have the best rates on glacier dog sledding in the state of Alaska because we want to share our passion with you!

We like being small for several reasons:

Small tours mean you can have as hands-on an experience as you want.
Our guides are 100% dedicated to your experience.
Our R-44 helicopters allow everyone a window seat.
Dog sledding is about enjoying the serenity of nature and the bond between musher and dog; small tours allow this.
Small tours mean we do not have helicopters constantly running so you are able to enjoy the quiet beauty that our secluded glacier has to offer.

Whereas other glacier dog sledding operations lease sled dogs from mushers not associated with their operation, we use our own dogs. We know everything about our sled dogs because we have raised many since birth.

We are also very proud of the fact that our dog camp is home to 23 year old, 11th place Iditarod Finisher Travis Beals. Travis oversees the care of our dogs and we routinely rotate our dogs on and off the glacier so they all get time-off. Travis has been given awards for best-dog care by two different dog sled races: The Tustumena 200 and The Copper Basin 300. Travis runs tours on Godwin Glacier part-time to evaluate dogs but spends a majority of his time operating our kennel tours.

Other Glacier Dog Sled Tours in Alaska

Not everyone is fortunate enough to travel to Seward, Alaska but this doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the fun and excitement of glacier dog sledding. There are glacier dog sled tours all across the state, allowing you to experience the magic of winter in the summer time.

Dog Of The Week: Teddy

Sarah · May 25, 2015 ·

His first few weeks of life, Teddy lived on the floor beneath my desk with his sibling Fergie and Mama B. He was not a planned litter and came in the late January of 2013, right before Travis’ first Iditarod. It was a miserable January — we’d had so much rain — so I choose to raise the pups inside.

He was jet black and from the beginning he stood out. Last year, many visitors who came for a dog sled tour were convinced that he wasn’t even a dog but was actually some sort of wolf-hybrid.

“That’s a wolf!” I remember one woman saying.

We assured her he wasn’t but she still seemed skeptical. “No, he’s definitely a wolf!”

But Teddy is anything but a wolf. He is one of the friendliest most playful dogs we have. He takes after Mama B and is somewhat a quiet dog. He knows his job and he simply does it.

After Iditarod we were given a generous package of chew toys from Nylabone and Teddy has been in heaven. He not only enjoys chewing his bone but he simply enjoys having it and often plays soccer with it, scooting it along in his circle with his nose before pouncing on it.

Teddy you have brought so much joy into our lives! Thank you for all your hard work. We are so proud of you for finishing 11th place in Iditarod 2015. Keep up the good work!

Travis Beals during Iditarod 2015 — Travis Beals with his team. Teddy runs in wheel.

How Summer Dog Sled Tours Help Us As A Competitive Racing Kennel

Sarah · May 20, 2015 ·

Racing season may be over but it doesn’t mean we stop training. For an athlete, the journey to better yourself and your team is never ending. How can we improve? What can we build upon? What do we need to do to continue our success? These are the questions that pour into our conversation at morning coffee.

Most importantly, what can we be doing right now to help us later on in the season?

Even though the snow has melted, our dogs still need to exercise. Exercise is a crucial part of any healthy lifestyle. When your job is to compete in 1,000 mile races staying in shape is a critical job requirement. Although the length of our sled dog runs may shorten due to the warming temperatures, it is important that our dogs still have an outlet for their endless energy. Running is required!

Lots Of Visitors Means Lots of Opportunity for Dog Sled Tours

During the summer, Alaska comes to life as visitors from all over the world flock to see our state’s majestic scenery and experience our unique Alaskan culture. Dogsledding is such a unique part of Alaskan culture that people can’t help but be interested. Before we started doing dog sled tours, curious visitors would pull in to our driveway at all hours of the day.

We’d happily great them, thinking they were lost, but they weren’t lost.

“Can we check out your sled dogs?” People would stop in asking, again and again.

Eventually our need to run our dogs, our passion for sharing our sport, and the curiosity of people passing by our kennel made doing dog sled tours an easy choice for us.

On a daily basis, we get to share our passion.

“I had no idea how much they loved to run!”

“I am amazed at how smart your dogs are.”

“They are so excited.”

Guests on our summer dog sled tour help us socialize our young puppies

We get so much positive feedback from people who are curious because dogsledding is something so foreign to them. By the end of our tour, many of our guests are hooked and continue to follow us along throughout the racing season – some of you may even be reading this blog post!

Time and again people are amazed at how much our dogs love their job. To a sled dog running isn’t work — it is a way of life. For a musher, running dogs isn’t work either. It’s a way to decompress and get away from the hectic chaos that defines most modern lives. When we are out on the trail, we must be one hundred percent focus on our dogs.

Our tours have now evolved into a crucial part of our training program. Just as collegiate and professional athletes train during the “off season” so do our sled dogs. When you go on one of our dog sled tours, you are not simply going for a dog sled ride. Our tour is about experiencing training in action. It’s about sharing not only what we love but about educating people on how sled dogs our trained.

The summer dog sled ride we give at our kennel incorporates two crucial components to help us maintain a competitive edge throughout the racing season. First, instead of simply running our dogs we are actually putting them through a strength training program. Second, we use each tour as an opportunity to work on training a new lead dog.

Dog Sled Tours As Strength Training

Running dogs in the warm summer months is inherently different than running in the winter. Careful considerations have to be made about how to best run the dogs and how to accommodate them to the warmer temperatures that summer brings. We are particularly lucky because our kennel is situated in a glacier valley and we often have cold wind that blows down off the Harding Icefield that helps keep our dogs cool. Additionally, we take precautions by resting our dogs frequently and giving them plenty of access to fresh water before, after, and even during our tours.

Because of the warm conditions, we generally run the dogs between 1 and 2 miles. We are fortunate that our trail system allows us to customize the length of our runs based on the weather so we can adjust how far we run them based on what is best for the dogs. On warm days, we run shorter than on cool rainy days.

We use an aluminum cart that weighs about 800 lbs without passengers and can seat 8 for our summer time mushing. Unlike some of the bigger dog sledding operations, we generally have between 4 and 8 guests per tour. This roughly equates to an additional weight of 600 to 1200 pounds that the dogs are pulling. So on average when we go out with our team they are pulling anywhere from 1200 to 2400 pounds.

We use this information to build a great strength work out for our dogs. At the start of the summer our dogs have generally had close to a month and a half of very light easy runs. They are no longer on the aggressive training schedule required for racing because that is over so we carefully work them into their new routine.

When the summer season begins, we generally hook up 14 to 16 dogs based on the size of the tour and rotate our dogs out after every run. That means the dogs run once and, if we have another tour, a completely different team is then hooked up. As the summer progresses however, we begin making changes so that the work outs continue to challenge our dogs.

Generally speaking, the weather in Seward caters to us strengthening our team. We generally see more temperate weather in the early part of the summer and we see more rain in the latter half. The latter part of July and August can bring wet, cool, and damp weather – which allows us to run our dogs longer and harder. As we enter the cooler and rainier stretch of summer, we take advantage of it.

During the middle of the summer, our will adjust to pulling heavy loads. We can’t up the weight but we can increase the number of reps our dogs do so when the weather is sufficiently cool we may “camp” our dogs in between tours. Camping refers to the practice of leaving the dogs hooked up but resting on the line so that they are ready to run again. This is commonly done in checkpoints and during races.

Young dogs learn to camp inbetween dog sled tours — Young dogs, Wrangler and Carhartt, learn to camp inbetween dog sled tours. Wrangler finished 11th and Carhartt 10th in the 2015 Iditarod.

Camping the dogs allows us to spend less time hooking dogs up and more time interacting with our guests. It also starts teaching our dogs the basics of racing: first you run, then you rest, then you run some more.

Finally, towards the end of the season we may even start to use fewer dogs. The number of tours we do each day significantly decreases towards the end of August and at this point our dogs are officially body builders so instead of hooking up 14 dogs we may only hook up 10 or 12, depending on the number of guests we have.

This great strength training program helps our dogs stay in shape throughout the summer and ensures that every dog is ready to begin working on building their endurance come the fall.

Lead Dog Training Is The Best Part Of Our Dog Sled Tour

The tours we do in the summer don’t just serve as weight training. They are a vital component to our lead dog training program. This year, we realized how special our kennel is because of the number of high quality leaders we have. This is a direct result of the emphasis we place on making our tours a training exercise for our guests to be a part of rather than simply a ride.

It is very easy to hook up well-trained leaders to make your runs go smoothly. It’s much more difficult to take dogs who have never run lead and work with them up front while communicating with guests. That, however, is what we have chosen to do. We don’t stick with our go-to race leaders, instead we focus on building new leaders. This gives our kennel tremendous depth.

The first step involves identifying potential leaders. This is generally easy as we already know the dogs. Each spring we identify about a dozen dogs in our kennel that we think could possibly run lead. Then, we make a goal of trying to get those dogs in lead as much as possible. We challenge ourselves, we challenge our dogs, and we keep our guests thoroughly entertained because seeing a lead dog develop is truly exciting.

Every other dog sled tour we have ever seen in the summer time has a set course that they operate on. The dogs (and even sometimes the musher) eventually go into “autopilot.” The dogs aren’t taking commands, they are simply going through the motions. This is not good training and, in our mind, is actually un-training the dogs.

So we don’t have a set course.

We have a system of trails and each time we go out for a tour we never know exactly where we will go. Sometimes commands are called at the very last second and guests are awed by how our leaders quickly take the command or sometimes they watch as we patiently work with our dogs until they correctly figure out what we are asking.

To effectively train lead dogs over a short 1 or 2 mile run requires having multiple intersections so that the dogs can constantly be tested with their commands. Throughout our tours the lead dog or pair of lead dogs need to take, on average, about a dozen different commands. The commands we use are “gee” for right, “haw” for left and, occasionally, we use “straight ahead” to tell the dogs that they are to continue down the trail without turning.

When we start a new dog off in lead, we generally partner it with a more experienced leader. Zema is one of our go to dogs for partnering new potential leaders. She know her commands better, I think, than most people know their right and left. She turns on a dime and having her up front means you can go anywhere you want. She is the ideal tutor for our younger dogs.

When we start training a new young dog up front we hook them up with Zema and Zema (or another well-trained lead dog) shows them the ropes. This usually lasts 1 or 2 weeks. After that, we start hooking up the young dog on their own in single-lead or with another young leader who has been running up front but still hasn’t “mastered” the commands.

That’s when the magic happens.

We start giving commands and we can see how much our dogs have or haven’t absorbed from their previous times up front. Instead of relying on the wisdom of the older dog, the new young pup must now rely on their own intelligence. Sometimes, the new leader gets the commands right from the beginning but that is very rare.

Instead, they make mistakes. We stop. We work with them. Honestly, after doing this for three years, I think our visitors actually enjoy seeing the dogs mess up because they then get to see how we work with the dog to get it to make the correct decision.

Training a lead dog is actually a very simply process if you own high caliber dogs and know what you are doing. A sled dog wants to run. To train a lead dog we simply must channel this desire.

When we approach an intersection we will call a command such as “Gee!” to that the leader will go to the right. If the leader goes to the right nothing happens; the dogs got the command right and the reward is that they get to keep running. If, however, we call out “gee” and the dogs get the command wrong, we suddenly stop the team.

A good sled dog does not like being stopped. If we are giving a command, our leader knows it is supposed to be doing something but perhaps it does not know what. The connection between the word and action has not yet solidified so the dog will make guesses. We repeat the command “gee” and when the dog tries to go to the right we say “yes! Gee! Gee! Gee!” release the brake, and the team can continue to go.

It’s really magical watching this process happen and some very lucky guests got to be part of this last year as we worked and refined many leaders. Last year, we made Fidget a leader through our summer tours. This year, we reaped the reward from that effort in Iditarod. When several of our leaders became injured right before the race, Fidget really had to step up her A-game. She led 700 miles of Iditarod either in single lead or with a partner. She was able to do this because we invested time in training her to run up front during our summer tours.

Fidget running single lead during Iditarod 2015

Running sled dog tours during the summer has helped us build a competitive kennel with a tremendous amount of depth. After the summer season is over the new leaders we have built spent much of fall training running up front on the open river bed in front of our house as a kind of “final” exam. Out on the river bed, there is no trail to follow and the wind can often reach 30 or 40mph. Amazingly, our dogs seem to have no trouble.

We love getting to share our passion with guests and inviting them to be with us as we train future champions.