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What's hot: Dogs who travel more than 100 miles a day and love it!

MUSH!

Liddy Riddles, the first woman to win the 1000-mile Iditarod race across the Yukon and Alaska, joined the cruise and gave a presentation on her race, her dogs, and the mushing life. She calls herself a "musher." The mushing life is surprisingly diverse, she says—men, women, young (18), old (89), Native Americans, Caucasians, Asians. All groups have produced winners in the races, of which the Iditarod is only one.

Iditerod is not a very old race. It was inspired about 40 years ago by the appearance of the snowmobile, which quickly began to displace working dogs as a means of winter transportation. The race founders wanted to keep the mushing practices and the breeds alive.

The dogs, she says, are Alaskan Huskies—not the Samoyans and Malamutes we think of as huskies.
“Those dogs are just too slow for mushing,” she says.

Their thick coats make them overheat during races. Alaskan Huskies need thinner coats to allow them to keep up their speed.

“Our mushing dogs are mutts,” she says, “high class mutts, but mutts.” She says that real mushing dogs are bred to include a small amount of the original Alaskan husky—a working dog that crossed the land bridges from Asia over 10,000 years ago. They are bred with labs and bird dogs, plus other breeds according to the preferences of the musher. There was a time when some of them were crossbred with wolves, but no longer.

Do mushers actually yell “Mush!” at the dogs or crack a whip?

“Never!” she says. They talk to the dogs in a normal voice. To display anger is to confuse the animal and bring it to a stop. “Hardly a way to win a race!” she concludes.

Riddles explained the trust that develops between the dogs and the driver—a trust that works in both directions. But she also explained that these dogs are not what most of us think of as pet--they live to run! They do not like warmth, confinement, or restrictions--although they do love to chew every leather shoe or slipper in sight.

The next day, as we were driving through the Yukon countryside, we passed bicyclists running their huskies. As Liddy Riddles mentioned the night before, these dogs live to run.

An hour later we have another encounter with a musher at lunch—this time a snack bar owner near Carcross, Yukon, who had decided to shut down her business to devote more time to her team. From her, we learned that the care and feeding and exercising of Alaskan Huskies is close to a full time job and not inexpensive.

We drive down the road to Caribou Crossing, one of those travel gems that you can only find by meandering to out-of-the-way places. Noted sled driver Michelle Phillips houses her 40 dogs there. We meet and spend time with her friendly dogs and puppies, while also watching her dry-land sledding concessions. Groups of high school students take off in carts pulled by dogs.


As she chooses dogs for the harness, the pen area is a barking cacophony as the animals beg to be hitched to the team and pull the group on a short route around the surrounding hills.

“They live to run,” she says.

As soon as the team pulls out of the yard, the entire pen falls so quiet you could hear a whisper. The dogs return to their stations, relax, and wait for another turn.

Scott and JJ were delighted to interact with the ice-blue-eyed creatures, who were friendly and affectionate.

While we wait for the team’s return, Michelle Phillips explains why the dogs wear booties in the winter.

“At 40 below, the crystalline structure of snow changes—we call it ‘sugar snow’," she says. It forms sharp points on the flakes and it’s quite difficult for the dogs. Her operation goes through something like 1000 dog booties a year.

The visit to Caribou Crossing was a high point in the trip and we'd recommend it to everyone.

I was contacted by a reader regarding the problems of the sledding life for the dogs themselves. She offered this commment:

"The Iditarod is terribly cruel to dogs. For the facts, visit the Sled Dog Action Coalition website, http://www.helpsleddogs.org. "

I offer this here as one reader's point of view--not an endorsement or an opinion.

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