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A
Rookies Journey
September 8, 2005
"The art of choosing men is not nearly
so difficult as the art of enabling those one has chosen to attain
their full worth." -
Napoleon Bonaparte
Martin Buser - 1999 Iditarod |
Needless to say this is also the key
to putting together a good dog team. Martin Buser once said that you
could train any dog to “gee” and “haw”, but
that a leader was a dog that knew that a race was important to you
and acted accordingly. Many people have asked me how I choose leaders.
Since I’m in the process of starting and training my next generation
of leaders I thought I’d talk about that today.
Back in November 2001 when I was training for my first 300 mile race,
the Copper Basin 300, I ran my main leader, Tern, too hard too often
and she quit leading for me. Running lead can be mentally stressful
for a dog, and I didn’t know enough then to make it easier for
her. I had trained two young leaders to help her out, 7 of 9 and Lilly,
but had forgotten to run them together. The first time I hooked them
up in lead together they each wanted to be the alpha bitch. When I
corrected them they decided if they couldn’t fight they wouldn’t
look at each other – or the trail. The race was the second weekend
in January and I needed help. I had to purchase a trained leader,
or withdraw from the race.
Balu, the ex-sprint leader |
I was offered a nice 2 yr old sprint
leader, Balu, for $1,500, but as a sprint leader all he had to know
was “go” and “go faster”. Not a clue about
“gee” and “haw”. Now I had always figured
that if I spent $1,500 for a dog not only would he run lead, but when
he got to the checkpoint he would feed the team and fix my meal. ;-)
I posted the question on the sleddogcentral forum asking if this was
a good deal for a distance driver. I’ll never forget the response
“You always have to go forward, but you only have to turn occasionally.”
Truer words were never spoken, so I bought Balu and he is on the team
today. By the way, I had also contacted Jeff King about a leader and
he sold me Bass. We did run the Copper Basin and scratched at Sourdough,
but that was not the dogs fault.
So my main criteria for choosing a leader prospect is to look for
a dog that wants to go forward. I don’t mean at the start of
the run when everybody wants to go, but later in the run when you
stop to rest the dogs. Who is paying attention and looking down the
trail and who is focused on the brush at the side of the trail, or
the bird or squirrel that just ran off. Frequently my team has a cheerleader,
the dog that is the first to “talk to the trail” when
we take a break. This dog is a good candidate for leader. Second,
I look for a dog that is eager to please me, or at least listen to
me. My very first leader, OJ, also came off a sprint team and definitely
wanted to go down the trail, but it was likely the trail that she
chose rather than the one I chose. I can remember spending ½
hour at a trail intersection because she “knew” the trail
went left (we had been going that way) and today I wanted to go right.
It took me two years to train her out of that.
Another good story came to me
from the first Denali 300. A team had quit between checkpoints and
John Schandelmeier went out to rescue them. Rather than haul the team
back by snowmachine, the story I heard was that John went into a happy
little dance asking “Who wants to lead today? Who wants to be
a leader?” A young wheel dog started to whine and dance in response
to John’s antics and John but him in lead. When the driver of
the team said “But that dog isn’t a leader” John
replied “He is now!”
Please note that nowhere in the criteria do I state the leader is
the dominant dog (that is supposed to be me) or the smartest dog (also
my job). Leaders also don’t have to be outgoing dogs. One of
my best leaders was painfully shy, but totally bonded to me. If I
asked that girl to fly she would have run down the trail flapping
her ears giving me everything she had. It does help if your leaders
are not upset by new things, like culverts, overflow, loose dogs,
etc. But if they are all you have to do is see that they meet anything
they will see in a race in training often enough that it isn’t
new anymore. Remember, you always have to go forward, that is a leader’s
main job.
Base, the team's
main go to leader |
So you’ve got a good prospect,
now what? It depends on the dog. I like to hook up a good reliable
leader like Bass and then put the lead prospect beside him and hook
up the rest of the team. The young dog will learn much faster from
Bass than he will from me. If that stresses the young dog too much,
I’ll put him back in the team and next time won’t put
him in lead until just before we leave. If that is still too much,
then I’ll wait until we are on the way home on a trail the dogs
know and maybe 2 miles out I’ll swap the new dog into lead.
Typically by that time they want to get to the truck and dinner (I
always feed at the end of each run) and by the time they realize they’ve
been in lead it’s all over. I make a big fuss over them and
try it again next run. Then they get a couple of runs off and next
time I’ll put them in lead earlier and keep working back to
the hookup area. Some dogs don’t like the others following them
and don’t like to lead. Others merely don’t like things
that are new and different and just take time to mature and get used
to the idea. Bass didn’t start to lead until he was 4, but what
a strong leader he became when he did.
For those that are keeping score I’m working with Jewels, who
has run lead before but not for me and not strongly, and Java. Java
ran lead as a pup and isn’t phased by much of anything. He has
been in lead 4 times this year and so far his only problem is winding
up too tight during hookup. He just needs to mature and will be a
fine leader. His brother, Dijon, is another prospect, but currently
Dijon works so hard that he sometimes throws up after a run and frequently
doesn’t eat. I’d rather he calm down a little and then
try him in lead. He is very young and slower to mature than Java.
Next the two new girls, Mocha and Dash are strong prospects. I haven’t
had either of them in lead yet because they are both in heat and that’s
a bit much for a young dog. As soon as they are out of heat it will
be off to the races.
I have just one unrelated story this
for week. Last Thursday as we were dropping dogs Bonnie Foster thought
she heard a snorting sound from the woods off to our right. This is
a big park and right next to Fort Richardson. There are all kinds
of wild animals that run through here and sometimes we get to meet
them. I couldn’t see anything, and was not going to walk into
the woods to see, so we dropped the dogs and never saw the critter.
Friday I was running alone and just after pulling into the lot Dukat
started to bark from his box. It’s very early morning and you
can’t quite see, so I walked over a bit and there at the edge
of the woods was a moose grazing on the brush. Now Moose in Alaska
come in two types, the innocent funny furry forest friends (4F) that
we all like to take pictures of, and the 10 foot tall carnivorous
variety with stainless steel antlers and titanium hooves that eat
dog teams and mushers. Luckily this was a 4F moose and wondered off
into the woods, but you never know.
Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
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