Lines, lines, and more lines.

Posted on December 16, 2011 by mushbaby

So, I’m dying to get out on my skis. But if I can’t have enough snow to ski and skijor, I guess the next best thing is that what little snow we did have melted completely so that I could sneak in some scootering today. And I decided to experiment with my lines a bit – but before I elaborate I’m going to briefly explain some line terminology so that in case you are even more of a mush baby than I am you’ll know what the hell I’m talking about. People who already know what the hell I’m talking about can skip to the bottom.

This is a 2-dog skijor line:

This is about as simple as a line gets – one end attaches to the skier’s skijor belt, and the other ends attach to the dogs’ harnesses. There’s really no way to get confused about this as long as you remember what the numbers “one” and “two” represent. The skijor line contains a lot of bungee (you can kind of see it as the fatter parts of the main line and the Y-sections), which helps absorb the shock of any jolts from sudden movements by either skier or dogs.

When I decided to add Pip to the mix, I needed a setup appropriate for 3 dogs. This is where things could get confusing:

Thankfully the manufacturer has the good sense to offer different components in different colors or I’d probably still be sitting in front of the open package, weeping in frustration. So we’ll start at the  musher end (the right of the photo). The shock line is a short bungee section which attaches to the scooter (or sled). Like the bungee sections of the skijor line, its job is to absorb the shock of sudden jolts. But while the skijor line has great swaths of bungee, the shockline is pretty short and the rest of the lines pictured here have no bungee whatsoever.

Next in line is the red section, or gangline (also called a towline). Technically, I suppose any line between a person (on a bike, scooter, sled, skis, or foot) and the dog(s) pulling her could be called a towline, but in this case it is specifically the section or sections between the shock line and the leader line. I think of it as the main line that “the gang” is all hooked up to, although I don’t know if that’s really how it got its name. The gangline I have sectional and is meant to add 1-2 dogs into the team; to add even more dogs, you just add more gangline sections. .

The tugline is the line that attaches from the back of the gangline to the dog’s harness. The neckline is the line that attaches from the front of the gangline to the dog’s collar. Together, the tugline and the neckline keep this dog in position as well as adding his pulling power to the team. In my case, I have one tugline and one neckline attached here because I only have one dog (Pip) that runs in this position. If I had two dogs in this position, I would have two tuglines and two necklines, and one dog would run on either side of the gangline. Still with me? If not, this picture of the dogs all hooked up may help:

You can see the gangline running from the musher (me) to the leader section, and Pip’s tugline (at his rear) and neckline (at his head) keeping him in position. If I had a four-dog team, there would be another dog mirroring Pip on the other side of the gangline (the red line).

To make things possibly slightly confusing, there is a second type of neckline that is used to attach the collars of the two lead dogs; this keeps them relatively close to one another so they can’t wing off in wildly different directions. Since all the necklines attach to someone’s neck, though, I think this is forgivable.

Finally, the leader section is exactly what it sounds like – the section that attaches the harness(es) of the lead dog (or dogs) to the gangline. In my case, because I have two lead dogs, my leader section is Y-shaped with an attachment for each dog (just like my skijor line).

SO… up until now I’ve just been using my skijor line for canicross and scootering because I bought it first and I can be a pretty cheap bastard. But since I had to get this new set up to add Pip to the team anyway, I decided to try using just my shock line and leader line with the scooter today, thusly:

My reasons for this were twofold: One, I just wanted to try it and see if I felt a difference. I’m kind of a trial and error kind of learner with this stuff. Two, the skijor line has always resulted in a somewhat uneven distribution of doggie labor… Maisy almost always ends up pulling waaaay more than Squash. In retrospect, I think maybe what was happening is that if he felt ANY tension on his harness he called it a good enough effort, while she would pull out all the way to the end of her bungee until there was NO give left. And to test that hypothesis, I decided to try the leader line as it contains no bungee whatsoever.

Unfortunately you’ll have to take my word that it was a resounding success, because my camera battery died shortly before we embarked upon The Great Leader Section Experiment and I wasn’t able to take any pictures or video of the action. Three things happened: One, the dogs paced themselves much better. Instead of sprinting straight out of the gate, they kept up a nice steady trot with just an occasional stretch of joy running. Second, they did actually end up pulling much more evenly and Squash was much more engaged and into pulling than he normally is. I don’t really have an explanation for either of those things other than that they’re trying to tell me that they like how this line feels when they’re pulling better than how the heavily bungee’d line feels. Which is just fine with me, because the third thing that happened was that I felt much more steady on the scooter. I think I must get sort of sling-shotted around by the skijor line’s vast tracts of bungee, because I feel like I got jolted around more with the skijor belt. It’s almost as if… different equipment is made for different activities for a reason!!

So live and learn and be willing to experiment and pay attention to what your dogs might be telling you, and who knows what can happen. You might just find a new favorite way to do something.

 

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The thrill of victory, and the agony of… not victory.

Posted on December 13, 2011 by mushbaby

It’s easy to make yourself look awesome on the internet. You can pick and choose who you interact with, ignore, friend, or unfriend; what information, interests, stories, and opinions you share (possibly overshare) or keep to yourself; what pictures and videos you use to show yourself to the world; even whether to be truthful or deceptive.

And it’s easy to make yourself look awesome at whatever you do. Say, for example, urban mushing. It’s easy to post pictures and videos of awesome runs and wax poetic about how fantastic your dogs are but neglect to mention the time that you fell on your head and cracked your helmet or when the dogs bolted after a squirrel and ran the scooter into a tree after you bailed out, screwing up the alignment of the handlebars, or when one dog tried to cut behind the other and ended up getting the lines and harnesses completely tangled up something like sixteen times in a row.

I was pondering this subject because I went canicrossing this weekend, and the run started very badly. As we were heading out on the trail, we passed two separate groups of dogs being walked and heading back into the parking lot, and both times my dogs made a fairly embarrassing spectacle of themselves. The command for “just keep moving and ignore that thing you don’t want to ignore” is “On By!” (kind of like a moving “leave it”), and my team made a pretty convincing case to passersby that these were really just some words I had randomly strung together because they were dogs who had not, in fact, ever heard that command before that very moment. Discouraging.

So fine. Let’s just move on and leave the past in the past and move forward… into a future where I ended up on a trail that was far, far longer than I realized in footwear that was not meant to circumnavigate the slush-covered globe and where one dog tried to cut behind the other and ended up getting the lines and harnesses tangled something like sixteen times in a row. About halfway through (although I didn’t know it was halfway, because I had no idea when or if I would ever see my home again) my feet were soaking wet and I was working on a blister that would eventually cover the entire inner side of my right big toe. (Oversharing, anyone?)

And then… I saw the deer. And then… my dogs saw the deer. And in a quavering voice I said things like “Easy!” and “Whoa!” but really meant “I’m tired and frustrated and my feet are cold and wet and I’m getting a huge blister and I’m sorta lost, and if you guys ignore me AGAIN and take off after these deer I am just absolutely going to have a meltdown inside my skull and just lay down in the snow and weep while you drag me through the woods so EASY WHOA FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHOA.”

And this is what happened:

And that Pretty Good Whoa – which in fact was quite a stupendous whoa – was the sweetest Whoa that ever was or shall be. With that Pretty Good Whoa, every bad thing about that day magically just melted away into a puddle of not-being-so-bad. And we found our way home and slept for hours.

And then I posted about it on the internet, warts and all.

Posted in Canicross, Training | Leave a comment

Getting Started, Part 2: The Legend of Maisy

Posted on December 11, 2011 by mushbaby

When I was an adult of mid-twenties-ish, my mother and I were talking in the aftermath of some thing that I don’t even specifically remember, although the gist was that I had done some major life thing in a weird roundabout way. At one point she said, “Well, you always did have to do things your own way” without a trace of exasperation, or resignation, or even disapproval, just…  putting it out there. You are, daughter, what you are.

So that’s the way I am, and apparently the way I’ve always been. It should therefore come as no surprise that when Squash was old enough to get him in a harness and start some dryland training (starting with canicross, which is like skijoring except you are walking/jogging instead of skiing), I did it without company. Sure, I had resources – my beloved Ski Spot Run, Squash’s first momma, and a handful of online resources and acquaintances. And it’s not like I really forged any new ground – I approached the training the way it was recommended. But when it came to the nuts and bolts of actually going outside and training my dog, it was just Squash and me. I wasn’t interested in any meet ups, or training buddies, or local mentors. I don’t have anything against those things in principle, it’s just… I am what I am and I like to figure things out for myself.

Which is fine for teaching directional commands like Gee and Haw. For those of you who just said “whut?”, Gee is right and Haw is left. Why not just say right and left? Because Gee and Haw are supposed to be easier to say when your lips are freezing cold from hurtling through space behind dogs on skis or a sled in the middle of winter. Rather than subject this reasoning to cold weather scrutiny, I decided to just trust generations of mushers and go with it. They’re very easy to teach, just walk your dog and shortly before you take a left turn say HAW! and shortly before you take a right turn say GEE! and pretty soon they will make the association, because that’s what dogs do. While you’re training them, every intersection is magically transformed into an opportunity to practice two GEEs and two HAWs and receive numerous befuddled looks from your neighbors. Plus, later, when you screw them up (and you will, no matter how determined you are to be the first musher in history to never, ever mix them up because RIGHT has the letter GEE right IN in, for crying out loud how hard could it BE?) your dogs will generally go the way you TELL them to go, not the way you WANT them to go. Good times.

Anyway, one of the huge disadvantages to this approach is that there are certain skills that are easier to teach with other people and dogs around. For example, Line Out. Which simply means that the dogs go out to the end of the line and wait for what you tell them to do next. Lining out gets everyone in position and ready to go, and prevents lines from getting tangled up when you start moving. These dogs are lined out:

The line is taut and they are leaning into their harnesses (well, except Pip, but he’s just along for the ride), but they aren’t actually moving or trying to move yet. They’re waiting to be told “Let’s Go!” or “Hike!”  No one actually says “Mush!” except in the movies, again because of the cold lips thing.

So as it turns out, when you have a young puppy and you are behind him and there is no one in front of him, teaching the concept of Line Out can be a bit challenging. That’s where other people and dogs come in, they act as a bit of a tease to draw your dog forward. Here’s how I taught Line Out at first:

It’s a bit hard to see, and yes I realize my garage needed to be painted, but I’m standing in the alley and Pip and Maisy are in the yard acting as the teases to get Squash to line out towards them. Later, when I started taking Squash and Maisy to the state park to scooter, I hooked them up to my trunk latch and that made it much easier to really work on it because I could get in front of them. Maisy still likes to turn around and look at me, which can result in tangles, but they’re getting it down pretty well.

So we surmounted that obstacle, but there was a bigger one looming. Namely, that Squash wasn’t all that interested in staying out in front or pulling. Not completely surprising, since he was young and inexperienced and half Not Alaskan Husky, and he had an inexperienced handler/trainer. But what to do about it? Having another team walking in front of you can be helpful, as is hooking up your young, green pup with an experienced sled dog. But I had neither of those things… or did I?

I realized that while I didn’t have an experienced sled dog, I did have Maisy. Teaching a dog to walk nicely on a leash has never been my greatest strength as a dog owner/trainer anyway, but Maisy and I battled her incorrigible pulling pretty much from the day she came home until the day I first wondered if maybe she could help me out with Squash. The more I thought about it, the better the idea seemed… because not only did she pull, but Squash adored her thusly:

So I decided to give it a try even though she didn’t have a proper mushing harness or any trace of even a drop of breeds traditionally used for mushing. If things worked out, a real one could come later, but we’d use her  plain old walking harness to experiment in.

Now obviously, since I’ve already talked about Maisy and Squash as a team, you know that on the day of the big experiment, a beautiful thing happened (he’s in just a plain harness here, too):

This is from the first time I tried them out together and just let Maisy pull as much as she wanted to. They both went out and stayed out together the whole time. They were like some sort of crazy pulling, staying out in front team of baby mushing dogs. And it kept happening:

And it kept happening after they both got their new x-back harnesses:

And it’s been happening ever since.

I don’t know where she gets it, because she’s about as far from any kind of Northern breed as she can be. All I know is, Maisy is amazing at this stuff, a total natural. Once she realized that not only is she allowed to, but supposed to pull in harness, something clicked on in her brain and she started showing me things I never dreamed she was capable of. If Squash gets distracted by something, she either pulls him back on course, or runs between it and him and literally shoves him back on the trail. I didn’t teach her to do that – I wouldn’t even know how to begin figuring out how to teach her to do that. She just does it because she’s Maisy and she is totally focused on pulling, and she’s not going to let some distracted whippersnapper screw it up for her. On more than one occasion she’s shown some stunning intelligent disobedience when I’ve screwed up my Gee-Haw and gone the way I wanted her to go instead of the way I told her to go. And she Never Stops Pulling.

So it turns out that one of the best things that ever happened to Maisy and me was Squash. Without him, we never would have gotten into mushing and not only does it make her SO happy but it has totally changed our relationship to have this outlet for her rather than constantly battling against her urge to pull. We’re a team now.

And maybe it turns out that one of the best things that ever happened to Maisy and Squash was this stubborn insistence I have on figuring stuff out myself. Because without it, I probably wouldn’t have gotten her involved at all, and they are building a real partnership that is beautiful to watch. They’re a team now, too.

So yea. I always did have to do things my own way, but sometimes that works out for the best.

Posted in Dog Talk, Maisy, Wayback Machine | 2 Comments

Free Wheel-in’ Pip

Posted on December 8, 2011 by mushbaby

Sometimes when you get a new hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. And when your hammer is canicrossing and you’ve already gotten two dogs in the household involved, the third dog can start to look suspiciously like a fuzzy 16d flat head. So obviously the logical thing for any sane and normal person to do is throw a harness on him and see what he’s got.

It turned out that Pip didn’t have much:

Although he did seem to light a fire under Squash, which was something, and his jaunty trot seemed to indicate he was enjoying himself, which was something else, Pip didn’t really seem to Care For pulling. Pip doesn’t really Care For a lot of things, so this wasn’t exactly a surprise. And it was perfectly ok with me – I already had one puppy and one adult dog who were discovering their inner sled dogs while I discovered my inner musher, so I was content to let Pip just be a Pip dog.

I didn’t think any more about it until months later when I was scootering with Squash and Maisy. They were really coming along and I had moved our operation from the neighborhood to the trails at a nearby state park and one day as I was enjoying the scenery I randomly thought to myself: You know, Pip would really love this place. And really, if he wasn’t in the lead he wouldn’t necessarily have to pull so much as just keep up with the others, and they’d all have fun and get exercise together.  BRILLIANT.

So I hopped back on the internet, navigated the Forest of Lines once more, and figured out what I needed for a  three dog set up.  A few clicks and a short wait later I was the proud owner of my very own four dog gangline complete with a Y-leader section, two necklines, two tuglines, and a shockline.  Heck, I was proud just to even know what the hell those things were and how to attach them to my dogs in a meaningful way.  And even MORE proud that I knew that Squash and Maisy would be the lead dogs and Pip would be in the wheel position. The things you learn when you have dogs and take up new endeavors with them.

So anyway, out we went, just canicrossing around the block at first. I was in no way ready to hook all 3 dogs up to the scooter, and it had snowed and become treacherously icy by the time I had ordered and received the gangline anyway.

As you can see, I think it went pretty well. Tangling was kept to a minimum, I only slipped on the ice once, and everyone seemed to have fun (including me, which is sort of essential).

The only problem was that obviously we had finally gotten some winter weather. So I knew I probably wouldn’t be scootering with all 3 this year. At first I was mildly disappointed, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because although my scooter is able to handle the small amount of snow we’ve had so far, after only a single snow scooter trip (earlier this week) the state park where we mush officially groomed their trails and designated my favorite scootering trails for skiing only, no dogs. So back to canicross on the winter walking paths it was, and now everyone could play!

So I went out this morning with all 3 dogs, and honestly it started out as a total clusterf#%@. Within probably 30 or 40 feet of the car Squash and Maisy were distracted by Pip and by being on a longer line than they were used to, Pip decided he Didn’t Care For the neckline and moped along in tragic woe, Squash took advantage of the fact that we were going painfully slowly to pee on the world, Maisy desperately tried to keep things moving forward, and everyone became hopelessly tangled.

Fortunately, perhaps due to some subconscious premonition of disaster, I had brought my normal canicross/scooter line along “just in case” something went awry. I marched everyone back to the car, swapped out the lines, and decided to try just attaching Pip directly to my skijor belt by a regular leash. Three deep breaths,  and we gave it another try.

That’s when we really started cooking with gas. Pip was much happier – the return of the jaunty trot!

I was very proud of them. Although by the end, my wheel started to run out of gas…

So I suppose there must be some lessons to take away from this day. Mostly, I think it’s to not abruptly change something like three hundred different things about your usual routine all at once and expect your dogs to perform exactly like they normally do.  Also, I think maybe you can never have too many backup lines in the trunk or be too willing to change your strategy on the fly. And lastly, it’s possible that a wheel isn’t a wheel isn’t a wheel. Some dogs might take to wheeldom like they were born with steel rims, while others need to start out somewhat more… freewheeling. As long as mushing isn’t an occupation or competitive or some other serious business for you… say, if you’re a wee mush baby and you’re only out there with your mismatched, cobbled together, not-very-huskyish team for the company and the fun of enjoying the fresh air and exercise together… it’s probably not worth getting bent out of shape over a Pip being a Pip for awhile. Or really, forever, if he never decides he Cares For the neckline.

Epilogue: if you like the sounds of heavy breathing and crunching snow (and who doesn’t), this video is for you!

Posted in Canicross, Dog Talk, Pip | Leave a comment

Getting Started, Part 1

Posted on December 6, 2011 by mushbaby

When last we stepped out of the Wayback Machine, Squash had just joined our household. But the groundwork for our future together attached by a giant bungee against a backdrop of snow was being laid weeks before he actually came home. The very first thing I did after reading the email confirming he would be mine was squeal and chair dance as well as I could with the laptop perched atop my knees. Fortunately, despite the resemblance of this spectacle to a seizure or a heart attack it went unwitnessed and  thus I was spared the embarrassment of a well-intentioned 911 call by any neighbors or passersby.

The second thing I did was to open a new browser window, and God bless the Internet. Really. Not only might it lead you to your future puppy, but lurking within its nearly infinite nooks and crannies is information about every subject imaginable as long as you are up to the monumental task of separating the cyber-wheat from the cyber-chaff. So, for example, an enthusiastic but ignorant budding skijorer who has yet to even bring her future puppy prodigy home can find pages and pages of websites, forums, books, clubs, magazines, and articles about mushing and skijoring with just a few clicks.

The first thing I learned is that, while I did learn some interesting trivia, “mushing” is really a better search engine term than “mush”.  The second thing I learned is that while starting anything new can be intimidating, simply learning the jargon of your new mushING endeavor can make you feel like maybe you’ve never quite appreciated the versatility of certain words. Take, for example, the humble “line”, a word which is clearly under-appreciated in everyday life. See, there are ganglines, tuglines, necklines, double necklines, picketlines, shocklines, snublines, scooter lines, utility lines,  towlines, canicross lines, and godknowshowmanyotherlines.

So, when facing the daunting task of navigating the Forest of Many Lines and other obstacles, a beginning adventurer has to start somewhere. And here are a couple of places my new browser window and I started:

First, I ordered a copy of  Ski Spot Run by Matt Haakenstad and John Thompson. And then as a double secret surprise my husband gave me a copy as a “yay, skijor puppy!” gift before he realized I had ordered it just because he’s a swell guy. I think some of my friends think I worship at the altar of this book, and not just because I owned two copies before Squash even came home and have read it probably four or five times. I talk about it a lot and I recommend it to anyone who asks me about mushing or skijoring. One of the things I really like about it is that it is written with the assumption that just because you are a novice and need every little thing explained to you, you are NOT a child or complete moron.

The other thing I liked about this book was that when started reading it I realized that the progression of my own personal transformation from “person who reads about skijoring on the internet and in books” to “person who actually skijors” would happen to coincide with how they recommend getting started: Start training in the summer before the winter you plan to actually skijor. So it made me feel like an absolute genius, which I fully realize is completely ridiculous. It’s not like my power over time and space led to a situation in which Squash would be born in November, come home in February, be old enough to introduce to walking in harness and training verbal commands in the summer, and be old enough to start skijoring the following winter. Still, the “that’s how I’m already doing it!” factor gave me a cheap thrill at the time.

Second, I asked for some recommendations for where to get equipment from people who already mush. My personal favorite is Alpine Outfitters (http://www.alpineoutfitters.net), because they have a really lovely and thorough “getting started” section that, again, is written for beginners without any “duh, stupid!” attitude. It was primarily Alpine Outfitters who helped me sort out what all of the lines are for.

Third, while I am not always known for accepting unsolicited advice graciously, I try to actually listen to  more experienced mushers than myself. This is easier now that I’m getting old, so that’s some kind of silver lining. I am by no means well connected and I wouldn’t say I formally have a mentor, but I do keep in touch with the musher I got Squash from and she is quite good at giving gentle advice. For example, when I post a picture like this on Facebook:

She is likely to say something like, “Oh, have you considered using a neckline? It might help with stuff like this!” and then I reread stuff about necklines, slap myself on the forehead, and say DERP while drooling slightly.

Fourth, I got new cross country ski gear. I mostly mention this because I have to say that cross country ski boot comfort has improved considerably since my youth. As I recall, cross country ski boots used to be something akin to really, really stiff bowling shoes with a flattish square projection off the front that clipped into monstrous bindings. So now you know how long it’s been since I’ve skied and understand why I need to get my ski legs under me again before I actually go out with a dog this winter.

So surrounded by my army of books, websites, skis, dogs, harnesses, lines, and knowledgeable people, I felt ready to tackle dryland training*. And that’s where I’ll pick things back up again the next time we step into the Wayback Machine.

*For you novices, dryland training is training in the off season, when there’s no snow on the ground. Yea, I just schooled you on that.

LET’S GO, PUPPIES!

Posted in Equipment, Training, Wayback Machine | Leave a comment

Through snow, and… well, through snow anyway.

Posted on December 5, 2011 by mushbaby

So I’m in a weird limbo right now because we got a little bit of snow. It’s not enough to ski, but it’s too much to scooter… or is it?

As an aside, in retrospect I honestly cannot fully remember whatever possessed me to get the scooter. Sure, I’d been technically canicrossing (albeit at a slow pace I like to call a wog – walking jog) with the dogs for a while and wanted to get them really pulling so I needed something with wheels. But I mean, I already had a bike. I could easily have bikejored all summer.  I think it might have been that I was more afraid of getting pulled on the bike than a scooter, because the scooter is shorter and in theory my legs are not very likely to get tangled up in it on the way down if I fall (which I have discovered the hard way to be true, but that’s a different story for another day).

Anyway, I did get the scooter, obviously.  And as much as I adore it I admit that I sometimes feel like I trivialize the scooter or don’t give it the respect it deserves. It’s just that the word “scooter” so easily conjures to my mind an image of packs of small children careening down the sidewalk on skinny razor scooters that look flimsy and wobbly to me. Then I tell people I went scootering with the dogs this morning and by the looks on their faces it seems to conjure the same images in their minds and… well… I feel a bit silly.

But in reality, my scooter is no slouch. This isn’t the type of thing I ever thought I’d hear myself talking about, but it’s got 16 inch, mountain bike-style off-road capable wheels. What’s a mere inch of snow in the face of such specifications, really? Is it fair to any of us to leave it languishing on the back porch when it should be able to carry us easily through such a puny obstacle? No, I say. No, it is not. I mean, look at this baby!

So we went scootering this morning in the snow, despite the fact that choosing to do so meant leaving my warm, cozy couch for the opportunity to freeze my lips off and possibly fall on my head into the snow. I know there are probably some people reading this thinking “I understand completely and would do the same” while other people reading this are thinking “what is this I don’t even…”  It’s addictive, you see. But it’s the kind of addiction that gets your ass off the couch and into the fresh air with your dogs. There’s a paradoxically serene exhilaration to speeding through the quiet woods behind your dogs, so it’s not all lip-freezing and head-falling… there’s also the silently praying that they don’t notice those deer over there.

Anyway, the scooter was up to the task and we had a blast. Despite taking a familiar trail the dogs were very distracted by the snow at first and I ended up walking the scooter behind them for maybe the first quarter of the run. Once they got into it, though, they did great. I only took them about a third of our normal distance because I was concerned about the trail conditions elsewhere on our normal route, but I’m glad it worked out that way because they were really worn out afterwards as if we’d gone on a normal run. Even that small amount of snow was like going through deep sand, so it was clearly more work for them and they had to work harder to pull the scooter for sure. And I had to work harder to steer and stay up.

There are their adorable little hineys. That’s Maisy on the right. Believe it or not, she’s my powerhouse despite being about as not-husky as she can be. Someday I’ll tell the story of how she got mixed up in all this crazy business but for now all you need to know is that she’s amazing.

And finally, here is a wee video that you can watch if you like to see dog butts and hear droning narratives. I’m mostly adding this because I’m very proud of the start. They don’t always line out and stay put that nicely, but we’ve been working hard on it and it’s nice to see results.

And a final safety  note… for any pictures or videos that you see that are taken from the scooter, I am using my camera mounted on a GorillaPod that’s on my waist. Even I’m not crazy enough to let go of the handlebars to take pictures.

Posted in Scootering | Leave a comment

Genetics: A Helluva Drug

Posted on December 4, 2011 by mushbaby

I’m going to make a brief foray into Semi-Tangent Land before I talk mushing. I want to first talk dogs a bit.

Out of all the generalizations I could make right now, it suits my tangential purpose to make this one: There are two types of people in this world, those who already know what Alaskan Huskies are and those who don’t. My novice explanation for those even less knowledgeable than I am is this: Alaskans are a sort of sled dog gumbo that started off with a husky base and had a number of different breeds mixed into the pot, including sighthounds and pointers (among others). They’re more of a type or tribe than a true breed in the way we usually think of breeds. Racing dogs built for speed, they are the kings and queens of races like the Iditarod and typically smaller, leaner, and not as long-coated as the Siberian Huskies and Malamutes that most people picture when they hear the word “husky”. Although… I cannot tell a lie, I admit that I sometimes picture Bobby Hill when I hear the word “husky”.

Anyway, this is an Alaskan Husky:

In fact, this is a very particular Alaskan Husky: Linney, Squash’s mom. Isn’t she lovely?  You can see how I would think to myself, “This will do nicely. I already have two dogs around 50#. A Linney puppy, since she is also around 45-50# and quite breathtaking, will therefore complete my small pack of medium sized dogs just perfectly.”  Oh, silly human. Nature can’t help but drool at the opportunity to tear down such best laid plans.

This picture was taken the week he came home, in February 2011:

This picture was taken when he was about eight months old, in July 2011:

 (Don’t judge my messy floor… an 8 month old puppy leaves toy guts everywhere!)

And this picture was taken today:

These days, at just over a year old, he weighs in at about 85# or so. So he’s kind of monstrous for a sled dog, especially for an Alaskan. Still, even if I knew then what I know now about what was lurking in his paternal DNA, I still would have chased a massive snowstorm to bring Squash home. He’s an amazing boy and I have found that I quite like having a big-ass sled dog and at the same time have fallen hard for Alaskans.

Besides, it turns out that Squash and I are uniters: We bring both kinds of people in this world (those who already know what Alaskan Huskies are and those who don’t) together over the shared experience of a skeptical sidelong glance and the certainty that I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about when I answer the question “What kind of dog is that?” with a cheerful “He’s an Alaskan Husky!” So I’ll just go ahead and pencil in World Peace here on his list of accomplishments next to “being an Alaskan Husky” and “Somehow peeing on the agility tire while jumping through it” and call it a day.

LET’S GO, PUPPIES!

Posted in Dog Talk, Squash, Wayback Machine | 1 Comment

From Humble Beginnings…

Posted on December 4, 2011 by mushbaby

God bless the Internet. That’s where it all started.

If someone had told me fourteen months ago that someday I would willingly climb atop a scooter attached to two young dogs and allow – nay, encourage!  –  them pull me around on it, I would have laughed. Oh, how I would have laughed. Because frankly it would have seemed reckless, dangerous, and pointless… and how is THAT fun?

But then I fell in love with an Alaskan Husky. How did this happen to someone who didn’t even know what an Alaskan Husky was until she fell in love? It was the internet, see.

Another member of an online dog forum I frequent, a recreational musher who until then had been sledding with a team made up mostly of rescued husky mixes, had recently added an experienced working line female Alaskan to her crew to help sharpen her dogs’ skills. But unbeknownst to anyone, a secret tryst had taken place shortly before this dog joined her household. And it soon became apparent that she was not, in fact, just getting fatter – she was getting puppy fatter.

I voyeuristically followed a thread documenting the rest of the pregnancy and the birth of the puppies without any serious interest. After all, I already had two dogs and while I casually had intermittent thoughts about adding a third, I wasn’t decided on it. But then, shortly before Christmas 2010, this picture went up:

And I was lost. I’m still not completely sure why. It wasn’t simple puppy cuteness because he has four siblings and none of the others affected me like he did. Far be it from me to encourage anyone to get a dog impulsively, but upon seeing this picture I was struck with such a monumental “that’s my dog!” feeling that I didn’t even worry about convincing my husband that we (ok, I) needed him. It was simply going to happen, and I was simply going to master the art of skijoring to keep him happy and exercised. After all, I was a Minnesotan, dammit! Family cross country skiing had been frequent weekend entertainment throughout my childhood, at least until I broke a ski tip roaring down a hill and jamming it into a crudely-constructed jump. And I was simply going to start dryland training in the summer to help prepare for skijoring. (Although admittedly at the time I didn’t know it was called dryland training.)

It was all settled. Now all I had to do was convince my husband, apply for the puppy, be approved for the puppy, figure out how to get him from Ohio to Minnesota, and learn how to skijor. Simple.

Happily, so far things really did turn out to be Just That Simple, although I’m still working on the last one. I’m not going to belabor the details, but my husband had my back, the puppy’s mama’s owner/musher did me the honor of approving me for a puppy, and my best friend accompanied me on a whirlwind weekend drive to Ohio and back on the heels of Snowpocalypse in early February 2011. And thus, Squash joined our household and introduced me to a whole new world of dog sports that has become an incredible bonding and training experience as well as being thoroughly exhilarating and, yes, FUN.

It was always my intention to learn how to skijor with Squash. When I started, I knew a little less than nothing about it, and now that I know a little more than nothing about it I wish I had taken the time to document that transition from total ignorance to (advanced?) beginner as it happened. We’ve come a long way, and we have a long way to go. So I suppose it’s better late than never, and since we’re finally getting some snow around here I thought it would be a good time to start recreating the past summer/fall dryland training season and capturing the upcoming transition into skijor season. Hopefully I can entertain you along the way, or even inspire you to willingly attach yourself to your dog and get pulled around.

LET’S GO, PUPPIES!

Posted in Dog Talk, Squash, Wayback Machine | Leave a comment