Sibersong Sleddogs - Adventures in Dog Mushing

Early Summer 2000 - Getting Hooked
I don't precisely remember how I first came across dogsledding as a potential activity to do with my husky. As Mikayla grew into the doggie equivalent of a rambunctious 8 year old I began surfing around the internet looking for things to keep her busy, particularly in the wintertime. During the summer I planned to take her swimming, hiking, camping, rollerblading; but winter activity ideas escaped me.

Somewhere in my internet search I came across skijoring and dogsledding. I had no idea dogsledding was even done outside of Alaska, but I soon learned there were mushers and sleddog clubs and dogsled races located in Maine and New Hampshire.

Mikayla had always exhibited her sleddog roots whenever we went for walks on the leash -- running and leaping and pulling me along behind her. Whether it was the idea of doing something that came so naturally to her, or the idea of doing something so completely unique, I don't know. But I do know that the more I read about it, the more interested I became.

Initially I planned to do skijoring. So I read about training your dog to learn the turn commands, and during the summer months I began to teach Gee and Haw to Mikayla as we went on our walks. She learned the commands more rapidly than I, with my lifelong difficulty of remembering right vs left.

So what turned me from skijoring to dogsledding? The first was a book called "Murder on the Iditarod Trail", which was part of a series of books I had been reading. Reading about a musher running a race and the thrill of riding the runners and gliding through wilderness areas, forced to rely on yourself and your dogs completely, really appealed to me. I wound up visiting the Iditarod website to learn more about the race as I read the book.

The second thing that happened was someone recommended the movie "Iron Will". That was the very first time I saw dogsledding in action, and what finally pushed me fully over the brink and into the insanity of dog mushing.

August/September 2000 - Fall Training
One of the initial challenges of my wanting to become a musher (besides the fact that I only had one dog) was that I lived near Boston in a very large city. Not only did we not get substantial snow during the winter, nor are there trails close by, but most people around me also had no idea that dog mushing existing in New England.

I began pull training with Mikayla by taking her down to a large wooded park and having her pull a couple of fireplace logs behind her, using a rope to attach them to an adjustable walking harness. I'd run along beside her with a leash attached to her collar and call out commands. We did this at least 5 or 6 times before I ever hooked her up to a bike, and I spent half the time out there trying to assure the other occupants of the park that I was NOT actually abusing my dog. I got a lot of dirty looks anyways...

Eventually we moved over to bikejoring, but I still spent a lot of time answering questions like, "But doesn't she pull you on the bike?" Well, DUH!

December 2000 - First Snow
It finally snowed a few inches (ok, well just about an inch down here, but there's more in NH) so I tied my brand-spanking-new sled to the roof of my brand-spanking-new 4 wheel drive Blazer (before I became insane I drove a sports car) and headed for the Auburn training trails. The toll booth operator looked at the sled and inside my truck and asked, "Where are the dogs?"

Shut Up, Bud.

I was sort of hoping there would be no other mushers up there to witness our first attempt with a sled, but alas there was already a dogtruck parked up there, and another pulled up shortly after we arrived.

I tried not to feel too embarrassed about having only ONE dog, but let's face it...it is a little lame in comparison!

Well, we hooked up and I decided as long as there were other teams there I might as well use the fact that Mikayla likes to chase to our advantage, and we prepared to go out behind another team. Since our starting point was at the top of a slight rise, and since Mikayla was determined to catch the team ahead of us, we started off fairly well. As we coasted along, the sound of snow crunching under my runners, doing what we'd been training to do all fall and finally FINALLY living what I'd dreamed of for the past 5 months, I thought, "THIS is AWESOME!"

Until a minute later, when we hit a flat area.

As soon as the team ahead of us was out of sight (and considering they have 4 dogs and I have 1, this didn't take very long) and we were no longer traveling downhill, Mikayla and I discovered that it's MUCH harder for her to pull a sled than it is to pull a bike. [author's note: I later learned this was because I failed to properly give her enough pull or strength training during the fall] And while it's certainly easy for me to pedal here and there on a bicycle to help her out, it's waaaaaay harder when I have to actually run behind the sled. Particularly dressed in layers of snow gear (ok, so I may have overdressed for the outing), and wearing heavy snow boots that I swear weigh more than the sled itself.

Within a half a mile I was exhausted, sweaty, and having one hell of an asthma attack. Discovery #2: asthma inhalers do not always work when out in temps below 35. Hmmm, must remember to pack multiple inhalers in the future.

By the time we finished the 1 mile loop that takes us back to the truck, I was stumbling and panting behind the handlebars, wearing half the gear I started out with. The musher who took off AFTER we did was already back at her truck, with her dogs watered and her gear half put away. She looked at me and said, "How did it go?"

I have one comment: Must take up jogging next year...

August 2001 - Hay there!
I went to Agway to buy a bale of hay because I wanted to try it out as bedding in the dog houses; up to this point I'd been using cedar/pine chips. So I asked the guy at Agway in Waltham for a bale of hay. He called back to the warehouse for a bale of feed hay. Does he first tell me there are different KINDS of hay bales? NOooooo. Perhaps he, too, doesn't know this....

So they brought out the bale of hay and put it in my truck. Unfortunately (being feed hay) the hay was still green. I'm thinking "oh well, guess I have to dry it out some first." As I drove home I realized my truck now smelled completely like a barn. I put the bale of hay in the garage, thinking it shouldn't be out in the rain. Unfortunately the garage then smelled like a barn. "Mom's gonna loooove this!" I thought.

I came inside and proceeded to tell my stepdad of this hayful adventure and how the hay is green. He, being Minnesota farm-bred and wise in all hay ways, said, "What you needed was bedding hay, not feed hay."

Well, SHIT sherlock, how the hell was I supposed to know there were 2 kinds of hay??????

<< Back