Dogsledding

Our "behind the scenes" excursion was cancelled (everyone else selected whitewater rafting or fishing and I'm thinking they were sorry they hadn't planned to join us since it was pouring in the morning and ours would have been indoors) so we were really looking forward to dogsledding. Lucky for us the people running the event were prepared for the elements and soone Gerry was suited up appropriately (if looking a bit like the Gorton's fisherman!)

We were off to meet our team and then settle in for our ride. Due to the time of the year (making it difficult to transport male and female dogs together), our team comprised 6 males of varying ages. Pirate, a spirited youngster was learning (hopefully) to be a good lead dog (his lack of focus is holding him back a bit...squirrel) from Red, a really good lead dog with a lot of pride (his only problem is that they can't keep him running all the time. Whenever he has some down time he bites...himself and chews up his back pretty good but he has a new red coat as of today and they are hoping that will solve that problem).

The middle dogs, both 8 years old and brothers, are the most mellow, laid back dogs you'd ever want to meet, well-suited to being in the middle since they neither do much leading or much pulling.

The "wheel" dogs, the ones responsible for doing the most of the pulling, were already ready to run (even when we stopped to give them a rest). It amazed me when they told us that if the dogs get tangled, they let them untangle themselves when they're running (unless they are hopelessly tangled). That way they don't get used to the musher always stopping and fixing things for them. Just after we started out for the second time, the wheel dogs were tangled up pretty good and sure enough, we watched as they figured it out between the two of them and got it all straightened out.

Dogs begin their training when they are only 4 months old (getting used to the harness) and by the time they are one year old they are full-fledged members of the team. They usually work for about 10 years but Jackson (one of our wheel dogs) is still going strong at 11. In the summer they pull wheeled carriages as opposed to the sleds of winter. Today, because of the rain, they had a pretty good day but they generally like it better when the temperature is around 0 degrees.

~later, tw