Training

Dog Sledding Commands: What They Are And How We Teach Them

Sarah · September 27, 2017 ·

Our shared language with our sled dogs plays an important role in how our dog team performs. Having uniform commands across the sport of dog sledding allows dogs to fit more easily into a new team or training routine. Today’s mushing terminology is the same throughout the english speaking world.

A musher relies on the quality of her dog training to get her and her team safely down the trail. Unlike horse drivers, mushers do not have reins. Everything sled dogs do is by verbal command. Although dog sleds come fully equipped with brakes, if a dog team does not want to listen to the verbal cue to stop the team (“whoa”), the team, in all likelihood, will continue down the trail.

Because a musher’s only control of the team is verbally, the dogs responsible for interpreting these verbal commands play a vital role in the team’s success. The sled dog or, more often, pair of dogs at the very front of the dog team are in charge of listening to the mushers commands. These dogs are called lead dogs. The lead dogs not only have to correctly interpret the mushers commands but they are also responsible for keeping the team in a line formation in front of the sled. The lead dogs are taught to stay at the front because if they turn around massive tangles of the various lines used to connect the dogs to the sled can occur. Because of the importance holding the team out takes, teaching a lead dog how to stay is extremely important. After a lead dog has mastered stay, it’s time to work on the rest of the commands! It takes lots of time and patience to train new lead dogs.

Commands Every Sled Dog Knows

There are several commands that every dog on the team must know in order for the team to perform as a unit. These commands are relatively basic and refer to the stopping and starting of the dog team. In general, the dogs learn this during their first several runs when they mature out of puppyhood and begin running with the team. When our young dogs begin running for the first time they are hooked up along side some of our older dogs who can show them the ropes. They also help them learn these very basic commands. The commands every sled dog should know are “Ready,” “Alright,” and “Whoa.”

Ready & Alright

Ready is the command to tell the dogs to get ready to run. It is used any time the dogs have stopped and are about to resume running. This alerts the dogs to pay attention, detangle themselves if necessary, and prepare to head down the trail. Ready is shortly followed by “alright” which is the dogs signifier that it is time to run.

In our kennel we try to teach our sled dogs to be more or less quiet while we hook them up. They must contain themselves quietly because a team of dogs, quite frankly, can be deafening. “Ready” is our cue to the team that they are allowed to make noise before we run. Doing this allows us to maintain more control of our team during the hook up process.

Ready is also used if the team stops for a quick break on the trail — to eat a snack, drink water, or if the musher has to fix something. By telling the dogs ready, they know to alert themselves so that when the musher says “alright” a dog is not caught unaware and pulled by his teammates.

We teach the dogs ready and alright through sheer repetition. The dogs learn that “ready” means they are about to run and that “alright” is the signal to go. More often than not, a musher is actually holding their dogs back preventing them from running; saying alright is the command that says “I’m getting off the brake, you can run now!” though a well trained and well traveled team will not move until the command has officially been given.

Whoa

Whoa is the command we use to stop the dogs and it seems like it’s the hardest command to get them to do sometimes. All season long we work with the dogs so that when we say “whoa,” they stop. Sixteen dogs is an unbelievable amount of power – we want to make sure they listen. This command, believe it or not, can take a lot more work for the dogs to obey because sled dogs want to run.

Selecting Lead Dog Training Candidates

Lead dogs are an essential component to a good dog team. Without lead dogs that are well trained, even a short training run is likely to end in disaster. Because good lead dogs are the foundation of a well disciplined team, a lot of consideration needs to go into selecting good candidate for training. Training a new lead dog is a continual process and requires a lot of commitment and patience from both the trainee and the musher.

We often look for the Three A’s in prospective lead dog candidates — these are: athleticism, attitude, and aptitude. Athleticism is important because the lead dog sets the pace of the team so naturally a dog that sets a quick pace is ideal. Attitude is essential because the attitude of the lead dogs is like an electric current — it travels down the team. Lead dogs are often like the captains of a team, providing the boost of confidence or surge of energy when the team needs it most. Finally, aptitude or a dog’s natural ability to lead and to learn to lead is important because it can cut down dramatically on training time. Believe it or not, we have found that when we breed two lead dogs together, the pups produced are also likely to be lead dogs.

Working with new lead dogs is a continual process in many kennels that happens throughout the year as mushers work with dogs and help them develop as athletes. Training lead dogs never really stops as there are always new experiences to work through, obstacles to overcome, and things we learn about each other.

Commands The Lead Dogs Should Know

In order to graduate from training and to be considered a lead dog, a sled dog must have successfully mastered their duties as a lead dog as well as several commands. Lead dogs must hold the line out whenever the team is being hooked up or unhooked and also when the team stops. This is the single most important thing a lead dog does. If a dog knows all the directional commands but cannot reliably stay up front and hold the team out then that dog is not a lead dog!

We have several directional commands that lead dogs must know: Gee, Haw, and Straight Ahead.

Gee

Gee means “Go Right.” This command can be used at a trail fork or on an open area of land to better direct the team. A lot of people are curious about the etymology of our commands. The first known uses of the word “gee” come from Scotland during the 1620s.

Haw

Go left. This command can be used at a trail fork or on an open area of land to better direct the team. Haw, as a command word, was first used in 1777 but its exact origins are unclear.

Straight Ahead

This means don’t deviate! Keep going straight! This command could be used at an intersection or while traveling down a river to get the leaders to stop zig-zagging. It can also be used as a way to say “hey don’t pay attention to that thing on the side of the trail, keep going!”

Training Mushing Commands

Once we have selected candidates, we generally begin incorporating lead dog trainees into the swing dog position, this position is directly behind the lead dogs. A swing dog can watch and learn as the lead dog responds to a command and, if they are sharp, will begin to pick up on what those commands are. After several successful runs in the swing position, we generally begin putting a lead dog trainee up front with a well trained tried-and-true lead dog. This pairing allows the trainee an easier transition and also tests our older lead dogs: will our older lead dogs help the young dog paired next to them learn the mushing commands or will they be led astray? If you have selected a good, confident, older leader than you should not have any problems hooking up a young rookie leader to a tried and true veteran leader.

We actually use our dog sled tours to help train lead dogs as we have found it is the perfect opportunity for a young dog to learn: they get to run up in front of the team but are not up there for too long. The trails we use for our summer dog sled tour are specifically designed to encourage our dogs to learn their directional commands. We love this approach as it creates a very interactive tour dynamic and allows us to show what we love — training dogs — instead of just taking people for a quick ride. Learning how to be a lead dog requires a lot of mental focus so utilizing shorter runs is less stressful on our dogs. It is also less stressful on the older dog who is teaching the younger dog how to behave.

We have found these short session are a wonderful training tool as we do not overwhelm our lead dogs. With several tours a day we have lots of opportunities to work with different lead dogs per day. Our trainees may have one or two training sessions per day, day after day. The brevity of our runs, under two miles, but the fact that they are done day after day, really helps our dogs learn. It is also very exciting for our guests to watch and be a part of a real training exercise. We enjoy running our tours far more because our dogs are not just moving, they are also learning.

Training is very simple; when the lead dogs get a command right we continue on down the trail. If the lead dogs do not get the command right then we stop. We do not use the “Whoa” command in this instance. Because our sled dogs love what they do, letting them do it is the positive reinforcement alongside our praise. When they are forced to stop running because of an error, that is actually a punishment. We do not need to use food to train our dogs; letting them do the work they were bred for is enough. Our job, in training, is simply to harness the desire to run and channel that love as our best training tool

When we transition out of our tour season, we begin fine tuning our lead dog training through the use of ATV training in the fall. The ATV is a wonderful training tool because when our lead dogs correctly interpret a command we can give the machine a little bit of gas, allowing the dogs to run faster, which is positive feedback to the dogs. If the dogs get the command wrong, we use the brake and work with the team until they figure it out.

Usually at this point in the season our lead dog trainees have done many runs with an older partner. We have watched the lead dog trainee develop and have watched their progression from being pulled by their partner to the correct side when a command is given to correctly interpreting the command on their own.

At this point in the season, it is time to let the lead dog trainee run on their own. This is exciting because we can truly see how much our dogs have learned over the summer. Sometimes without the older dog present to give them confidence, our young dogs may falter despite knowing their commands. This is why using something like the ATV is very helpful; we can give very quick feedback to our dogs.

If a lead dog struggles with understanding a command, for example when we say “Haw” but they are not going to the left, we may employ pointing if the lead dog looks back in confusion. Thousands of years of domestication and selective breeding have given dogs the unique ability to understand human gestures.

Finally, as a last resort we may have to stop the team, ensure our brakes are set, and physically move the dogs to the left/right depending on the command we have given them. This is not ideal but can be necessary during the first few times a dog is running in lead. It is always important to use lots of praise and repeat the command.

Lead Dogs Never Stop Learning

One of the greatest joys of mushing is working with our dogs from the day they are born. Watching an individual athlete’s progression is truly satisfying. As a musher, our job teaching our dogs never ends. Because our sled dogs are capable of error and learning bad habits, any time we hook them up is a training and teaching exercise — though more often than not, it seems, the learning is done by the musher. Whether we are out on a training run or leading a tour, it is always important that our dogs perform their job.

As a musher, our job is to bring out the best in our dogs and in return our dogs bring out the best in us.

Steaming Ahead

Sarah · January 31, 2016 ·

It’s been warm out lately. These late January runs feel like the beginning of April and I often leave the yard without my parka. We stop often, to eat snow and roll around it. I enjoy the silly eccentricities of my dogs during our pauses, each with their own quirk, and they relish the attention I give them. Crazy in particular loves to roll around in the snow and though she is not alone in doing this, the joy she gets can be surpassed by none.

When we leave on runs its all I can do to keep the team slowed and moving at a steady pace. I’ve learned that the only way to trust my speed is by looking at my GPS so I’ve grown accustom to looking at it. I’m sure it will be glued to my palm the first few days of Iditarod. I’ve been running shorter since the northern lights 300 but need to go longer now. The dogs leave on our runs too energized and comeback unphased. More camping is in store in the days and weeks to come.

Today, the weather was glorious and it was amazing to be out on the trail. Although we moved well, when I stopped the team we would get tangled. I’m working with a young dog up front who doesn’t know his responsibilities as a leader yet. More than once I could be heard cursing as I ran up to get him lined back out. The lightbulb hasn’t click yet – He doesn’t get what I am asking – so it’s been a painstaking exercise in patience and praise.

For me, sometimes I think I learn the most when things don’t go smoothly. Today we made so many wrong turns because I had no idea where we were and so the dogs and I had to work through those consequences. Although my leaders struggled with lining out, they were pretty spot on when it came to their directional commands. We turned around in parking lots. We made arching loops on the river. We cursed at my stupidity — how many times could I get is lost?

We mostly had fun. The dogs wagged their tails and barked with excitement when we stopped. I enjoyed the weather, the performance of my team, and the serenity of the trail. And even when I was untangling my leaders for the umpteenth time I knew that I was learning as a musher and was trying (my best) to impart a little wisdom on my young leaders. Plus, it was better to find all this out now than on Iditarod!

Slowly Preparing for the 2016 Iditarod

Sarah · January 30, 2016 ·

I’ve been starting to work on drop bags. The easy parts. Packaging granola bars and Capri suns. I eat like an NFL defensive lineman when I’m out on the trail so outfitting me with food is no small task. Fortunately, both Travis and myself are well supported by our town of Seward. Dan and Madeleine Walker lead the team of Sewardites in cooking us trail meals. They coordinate donations and then go out of their way to make sure everything is vaccumed sealed. It is one of the most unique and helpful ways the Walkers have chosen to sponsor us — it frees up a tremendous amount of time not worrying about it.

In the next week, I’ll start working on packaging hand warmers, gloves, extra hats, and neck gaiters as well as extra sets of clothes to send out. It is so relieving and refreshing to put on a new pair of clothes out on the trail. I’m sad though because I only have one set of my favorite pair of long underwear. I’m seriously considering buying a second set!

The dogs have been doing great. Today I left with a 14 dog team and quickly tipped the sled and skidded for a ways before jamming in my snow hook. For a moment, I thought it was all over. I banged my wrist pretty badly and immediately thought the worst. I quickly realized I was over reacting and that I was just fine. I guess my nerves are starting to get me! But boy, does this team have power. I was on my brake for the entire run. They were wired.

I really had a great run with the team. After I got back, Travis and I compared field notes – also known as photos of our GPS and were amazed to see that we’d gone practically the same mileage despite not talking to one another, training out of different areas and running on seperate trails.

At night, I’ve been trying to be productive – by packaging up things for food drops or doing other things to prepare me for the ‘big’ day. I should have made necklines tonight or worked on my toggles for my gangline. Instead I binged on Law and Order SVU and relaxed by doing some art. I can never get enough of Oliva Bensen, so much that I even named a dog after her ( a boy) who is currently on my team. I wanted to name a whole litter after SVU characters but that got the vetoed. I’m sure I’ll have another opportunity!

Anyways, it’s late and I have all the work I didn’t do – toggles, labeling drop bags, running again – to do tomorrow. Things are sneaking up fast!

I am excited because my sister confirmed last week her plane tickets and I just got an email from my brother with his plane ticket. My whole family, minus my amazing brother in law and my two adorable nephews, will be at the starting line to send me off on my way to Nome! I am beyond thrilled!

Happy trails,

Sarah

Back at it

Sarah · January 18, 2016 ·

The cold has returned and with it the trails. I’m still working on my 2016 Copper basin 300 story but I thought I would still share the going ons that occur day to day.

It’s been strange reemerging myself in cabin routine. We took a break from running dogs to recoup and recover. I visited friends in Anchorage, I gave the dogs lots of rubdowns, and mostly have tried to sort out all that is left to do between now and Iditarod. There’s still so much to do. So much training, so much packing, so much for preparing that at times the thought of it can be overwhelming.

On any given day, it seems as though the easiest thing to do is simply run dogs. Ignore the world. Ignore the phone. And in some instances, ignore the people.

To be honest, the last week has been hard. Racing was such an easy, wonderful distraction. There’s nothing quite like being out on the trail with your dogs from mile after mile after mile. Knowing that you don’t have anything to worry about, except the next time that you were going to stop and rest.

In Anchorage, I took good care of myself. I leisured in the joy of running water and electricity. Working for rent late to start updating my blog. I wrote three posts, one on my team, one on Wyatts team, and one on Justin’s team. It was fun, but telling the true tale is what I look forward to most. That part, is still coming along slow. Hi showered and hot tub I let my sore muscles relax. I got a haircut and died my hair pink. Something I had been wanting to do for months and finally, did.

So much of who we are is wrapped up in how we look. I don’t know if a tiger can change it’s stripes, but I can sure try!

Sarah Stokey after having her hair done in Anchorage after the 2016 Copper basin 300

We enjoyed the company of friends. And I enjoyed the fact that I could clean the cabin, and get reorganized. Today I went out with the dogs. I was so happy to see how well they did. The sugary conditions of the Copper basin we’re so different then the trails we’ve been training on.it was nice to see how well my team bounce back. They look better than they ever have today.

Sarah Stokey and her dog team training for the 2016 Iditarod

I love this time a year. I love the way we gain light. The soft pale blue greens that fill the skyline and the muted yellows. Today, was one of the first times I hoped up and ran my entire run during the daylight. It was fun. I enjoyed watching Denali as I weaved through the swamps. At one point, I took a trail I didn’t now. My headlamp that I had packed was pretty dead in terms of batteries so I ended up calling the dogs Gee off the trail we were on and across the swamp. We forged our own trail, Using the mountains and the powerlines as reference points. I was so impressed with how spot on my leaders were.

With the swamps as icy as they were, we could travel practically anywhere. The idea of following a set Trail was somewhat ridiculous because everything was hard and fast. After the soft snow of the 2016 Copper basin 300, my sled dogs seemed to enjoy the challenge of going off trail.

Sarah Stokey right before taking off with the 14 dog sled dog team in Willow Alaska

It really was a magnificent run. I followed the sunset home and chase the last the daylight. It was my first run wearing a new helmet and goggles my mother had sent me. I felt a little ridiculous, because not a lot of people wear helmets in the sport. I have to admit though, I forgot how warm wearing a helmet was. I enjoyed the goggles immensely because the last run I’ve gone out on that was this cold, I started having problems with my eyes getting too cold. I read about Brenda Mackey in the kusko 300 and I’ve decided that I better get used to mushing with goggles. The one time I froze my eyes was brief, but immensely painful. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain of frostbite.

I got back to find that the oil stove went out. I’m sitting in the cabin now, using my headlamp for a light, and waiting for the cabin to fill back up with heat. My hands and toes are so numb that I may as well be back out mushing. Six dogs keep me company in the cabin. Lying on my feet or on my chest as well as three cats who mostly stay upstairs but have now wandered down to try and find a little bit of warmth.normally, the cabin would be warmer. But I was gone for several hours and I left the windows open so that the dogs would not overheat. The stove must’ve gone out shortly before I left while I was outside still hooking up. I have it on and running now but it certainly is not at full blast.

As I do whenever I face something that is less than ideal, I remind myself that this will toughen me up for Iditarod.

Well, I guess that’s it for now. I want to get back to working on my Copper basin 300 right up. I haven’t gotten very far. I suppose that’s mostly because I’ve gone into such excruciating detail so far. I hope it will be a good post. For now, happy trails!

Mushing Home – Part 3 of the Denali Highway Trip

Sarah · January 2, 2016 ·

This is the 3rd and final installment on a series of posts describing my 165 mile training trip o the Denali highway with fellow Iditarod musher, Wade Marrs. You can read part 1 and part 2 first but do not need to in order to enjoy this post.

It was hard to leave the warm hospitality of Alpine a Creek Lodge. They fed us some delicious biscuits and gravy and a few hours later some pasta and an Amazon salmon spread with crackers. I sat next to the wood stove and wrote about our adventure out and chit-chatted with the kind hearted snow machiners that had fed us breakfast the day before.

I’ll be the first to admit that I wasn’t exactly motivated to be on a fast schedule out of there. My dogs were a little tired and I had two that were sore. We planned on running the 65 miles straight back to the truck. My dogs longest run up to that point had been 50 miles. Mostly we’d been running 30s and 40s and doing lots of camping. I didn’t want to ask more of them at the end of the trip, knowing that we would be heading out into some gnarly winds, then necessary.

So I wrote my blog, ate lunch, watered dogs, and slowly got ready. I had a few repairs to do on my sled. One of snow hook lines had snapped on the previous run. Snow hooks serve as our anchors when we stop the team. I’d put on a spare rope I’d had in my sled that was close to the right length but was a few feet too long. I knew this at the time but I had one hook that worked great so if my back-up hook wasn’t perfect then quiet frankly whatever. If it became an issue, I knew I could always tip my sled over.

So Before we left I fixed my line and made careful to make it the right length. Too short or too long makes it difficult to stand on your sled while you pull it out of the snow. Not impossible to get around, but an annoyance I didn’t want to have to deal with.

I slowly put booties on my dogs, having to unravel each dog out of their tight Coul before doing so. I stood them up for a few second, put their booties on, and then they curled back up to hide from the wind. Normally when I booty a dog I have the booty I am going to put on in my hand and the others on the ground. That didn’t exactly work with all the wind so I held what I wasn’t using in one hand while bootying. After having tried this, it was so much more efficient than what I had been doing and I’m surprised at how long it took me to adopt something so simple.

Before we took off, I filled my cooler with water and kibble to make a wet meal for the dogs. Hydration is so important and windy conditions often cause more water loss so having a quick wetsnack really helps with their overall hydration.

The mush back was mostly uneventful. At one point you go around a wide sweeping hill. When you look at the edge of the road you can see the tops of trees down far below its edge. I don’t think I realized how much I hated heights until, in my sleep deprived state, I felt as though we were getting closer and closer and oh my god closer to the edge. Of course, we were fine. I’ve learned through racing and other mushing trips that the more tired you become the more things become mind-over-matter. So instead of worry about something that had a 99.9% chance of getting swept off the road, I focused on the beautiful dog butts in front of me.

Wade waited for me at the bottom and we crossed a long bridge that spanned the Susitna river together. His team, older, more experienced and more miled up than my own, took off at an impressive clip in a fast steady trot. My team, with 7 dogs who this was their first season running, couldn’t keep up but I knew that asking them to was unrealistic. He had a seasoned veteran team. I had babies. Asking my dogs to keep up after going 100 miles with them would be like asking a T-ball team to go out and play a game against the Red Sox. So we travelled slower, but not much.

It was warm out for most of the run. At times I took my gloves off because I was too hot. At other times, my parka was wrapped tight around my face in an effort to prevent the wind from getting at me. When the wind came, my team would blow from one side of the road to the other. I couldn’t help but think it was like the wind we playing ping pong with us.

These heavy wind conditions only lasted a few miles but I was so happy with how Penny did leading. She drove into the wind and kept the team on track. Last year, she spent the winter skijoring with our friend Meret so this is her first full season mushing. She is going to be just like her mother, Fidget – an absolute super-star. At times the trail was soft and blown in and others it was hard and fast. The dogs and I enjoyed it all.

Halfway through the run, I started feeling how tired I was. The day we left for the highway, I’d only gotten about 5 hours of sleep the night before. That night (Wednesday), when we were supposed to be mushing, we ended up digging out the truck and getting unstuck. (If you haven’t, you can read about that in part 1.) Because of how long that took, we only got 3 hours of sleep. We took off and spent most of Thursday on the trail, arriving at Alpine Creek Lodge around 6:30am. Once settled in we slept for about 3 hours and then ate breakfast at the lodge, I wrote my second blog post, and we hung out with snow machiners. By the time we got back to the truck around 11:45pm, I had slept a grand total of 11 hours since that Tuesday or to put in better perspective during a 96 hour period I had only slept 11 hours.

Going down the trail, my fatigue began to hit me. The night before I had suffered from minor hallucinations — as my mind morphed pine trees into cabins, oil tanks, animals, and farm silos. I’d snapped back awake eventually but it was hard and took some serious effort. Mind over matter is infinitely harder when your mind is worn-out. But I preserved.

On this run, I decide that the best way to stay awake was to sing. Sure, watching my dogs was important, but my mind needed something more active to keep itself going. I belted out Adele for all the moose and caribou to hear. Apparently, they didn’t think much of my singing because they stayed off the trail. Good.

I did see a rabbit and a common murre. These are ocean dwelling birds that have blown inland due to strange weather patterns. They can’t survive away from he water so if you see one you are supposed to catch it. I stopped my team and went to pick it up but it was warm out and I didn’t have gloves on. I took one look at its long beak and, quite frankly, it’s grumpy attitude and rifled through my sled to pt some on. When I got my gloves on it had already taken off and was no longer on the trail.

One of the rules of dog mushing is to be very careful about walking away from your sled. If your team pulls your hook, they could take off and leave you in the dust. But my dogs had run a long way so I set both my hooks and decided that the life of this little bird was worth it. As soon as I stepped off the trail, I sunk up to my belly button. The bird darted further into the woods. So that was the end of that.

I felt bad leaving it behind, knowing it would most likely die, but wih a full string of 16 dogs in front of me who were now ready to run wallowing in waist deep snow to chase a pissed off bird seemed like a moronic idea.

So down the trail we continued. It seemed like no matter how far we travelled though, the truck wasn’t getting any closer. Time, it seemed, was moving excruciatingly slow. But the miles came and went. We passed a few teams who were just starting their runs.

At one point we passed the mythical parking lot where more trucks were, miraculously, more trucks and an enclosed trailer were parked. You’ve got to be freaking kidding me. I thought to myself. How the heck did they make it through those wind berms? Seeing the four trucks and trailer there made me laugh. Apparently it was just Wade and I who had all the back luck.

The one thing that can be tough about the highway is the mile markers. I couldn’t remember what mile we were parked at. I watched them slowly tick by: 116, 117, 118… On and on and on.

Finally, at mile 130 we made it to the truck. We loaded dogs and sleds and gear, prayed the truck would work, and miraculously left.

But we didn’t make it far. I had warned Wade that I was absolutely exhausted. I would do my best to talk to him and help him stay awake while he drove but not to judge me by what came out of my mouth.

We’d been in the car for about a half hour chatting and driving when I stopped making sense. We were talking about how fun the trip was when I launched into a tangent about how it was just as good as the movie.

“What movie?” Wade asked, slightly confused.

“Jurassic Park.”

“Oh.” There was a long silence. “Weren’t we talking about dog mushing?”

“I really liked Jurassic world.”

At this point, we realized that we both needed to sleep, found a pull off, and passed out in the truck for almost 7 hours. You have to be tired to sleep in a truck for that long because that is not a position humans are designed to sleep in. Wade got driving at some point and I continued to nonsensically mutter responses. At one point Wade was on the phone but I still had my eyes closed and responded to everything he said.

Then, out of nowhere, I popped up and said, as if it were perfectly normal, “ok my brain just reset. I’m good to go.”

And for the rest of the ride, I was. Now that my dogs are put away and this final installment has been written, I am going to go pass out.