Gee-haw!

When I was a kid, some of my favorite books were Call of the Wild by Jack London and Dogsong by Gary Paulsen.  So you can imagine my excitement when I found out that my boss, Linda, has a dogsled team!

In my first ever blog post, I was able to walk some of the dogs.  Well, a few weeks ago, Linda offered my roommate and I the responsibility of running the dog with a scooter! (Wh-what?!)  The dogs need exercise in the summer, when there is no snow.  It is way to difficult an and time-consuming to walk or run eight sled dogs, so what many dog team owners do is run the team in front of their fourwheelers in much the same set up as they would run them in the winter with a sled.  Some owners build custom carts that a few dogs can pull at a time.  Linda searched around the Internet and bought the most hard-core scooter I've ever seen. It has small mountain bike tires that hop up and down curbs and a low center of gravity for excellent control.  And front suspension!  Linda has rigged up a forked leash to this scooter, so you can run two dogs at a time.

We don't run the dogs in town due to fourwheeler traffic and a crazy amount of chained, and a few loose, dogs.  Instead, we take them across the airport runway to an area called "tent city", an area along the coast south of town where locals set up their fish camps and drying racks.  The road is pretty bumpy and gravelly (nothing my front suspension can't handle, heh heh).  The paths are pretty twisty, so I get to practice mushing commands a lot.

Here are a few commands for you to practice:

• "Hike!": Let's go!
• "Whoa!": Stop!  This is a good command because that's my reaction anyway.
• "Gee!": Turn right!
• "Haw!": Turn left!
• "On by!": Go straight, as in "go on by...".  This is my favorite command, because if a dog gets distracted by ground squirrels or garbage or loose dogs chasing us, they immediate pay attention and keep on moving forward.

The tile of this blog post, "Gee-haw", is not an actual command as you can see now, but the words go so well together.  The dogs are all very well-trained.  They are all retired dogs ranging from 8-13 years old.  Linda only uses them recreationally.  They all have their own personalities and I've been getting to know them pretty well.  One of the most fun aspects of running the dogs is figuring out which dogs should run together.  Some dogs are in better shape than others. Some are very work-oriented, while others would rather run into the ocean if you let them ("on by!").

One thing they all have in common (well they have a lot in common; they're dogs) is that they all love to pull.  So much so that running and pulling is their reward. If the aren't following your commands and you want to punish them, all you have to do is stop.

One of the few hazards I've encountered is loose dogs.  There is a man who lives in a shack along the route who has two labs and a beautiful and frightening German shepherd who are never tied up.  It's always a gamble as to whether or not they will see you or not. And if the see you they will chase you, police dog-style.  They are all bark actually and pretty nice dogs, but you can't have any dogs distracting the sled dogs.  Luckily, when that German shepherd comes a-running, they huskies pick up the pace.  Then it's up to my to keep the advancing German shepherd at bay.  I do a good job of sticking a foot out in its face and growling in a Batman voice (not Batman talking voice, which is barely above a whisper, but threatening Batman interrogation voice).  That usually startles her enough. 

I did have an awful run in with a flippin' Jack Russell terrier.  It can zipping across the pavement and slid just under the leash, between the dogs and me.  I could have ran it over (and in all honesty that little yapper deserved it).  The terrier continued to run after the huskies and try to nip at their heels.  It finally got to the dog on the right side, who swung around behind the left side dog, which tangled every thing up and that was a hectic mess for a couple seconds.

Normally, these run-ins don't happen (actually I run into that German shepherd just about every time I go out).  I plan on writing another post to introduce you to all of the dogs because each one is pretty neat.  For now, their names are Dillion, Ivy, Sadie, Zool, Jake, Nala, Dixon, and Gus.  Give yourself a pat on the back if you share a name with one of these dogs (or if you know somebody named Zool).