And What of the Musher

Alethia heads my medical staff. She's applying IcyHot to my back. To much snow shoveling lately!

So what of the musher? In a nutshell, everything is the musher's fault. The musher assumes credit for both success and failure. Mike Williams was featured on an Iditarod documentary once where he said, "It is never the dog's fault. It is always the musher's fault." It's a lot of pressure to put on yourself and I'd like to explain it a little.

First an exception to the above. Most competitive racing kennels run multiple teams in races including the Iditarod. If you signed on with a musher to train and run a team of dogs in a race you probably didn't get to choose which dogs would be on your team and definately didn't choose the breedings that created that team.

A musher who has selected breeding stock, chosen which dogs would breed, raised and selected pups, chosen the equipment they use, selected the diet and housing arrangement, and set the training schedule, has assumed complete responsibility for his dogs. This is the boat I'm in. Most of my dogs are alive because I arranged it. The few dogs that weren't born under my care were carefully chosen to do a specific job. Interestingly, that job did not originally include running races. I wanted 60-75 pound dogs with good coats and feet to haul wood, go hunting, go camping, run a trapline, and spend time with my family on nice winter days. The dogs I have selected, bred, raised, and trained will do all those things very well.

Can they race? This question has bothered me in recent years. As it became clear that my dogs were accomplishing all my goals within a few years, I wanted to push things further. Entering the Kusko 300 has pushed me, and ulitmately the dogs, to learn more and work harder then before. I've enjoyed that part of it. For my part, I've lost 15 pounds and am trying to drop 5 more before the race. We've purchased some new equipment more specific to racing. I've gone 48 hours with 4 hours sleep many times while still holding down a job and a family. Special care has been given to the dogs' diets. Foot and leg care has also been a huge issue. I've contacted knowledgable mushers about various training techniques. All this has been done in an effort to prepare the dogs for a new challenge.

If the dogs do well, I've got much to be happy about. If they don't, it's all on me. These are the dogs I've chosen, raised, and trained. They are a team of my own making. If they don't do well I don't think it will bother me too much. I did not set out to build a team of distance racing sled dogs 6 years ago. But down deep I hope they do well. I'd like to say not for my sake, but it probably is. These dogs didn't ask to be entered into the most competitive 300 mile sled dog race in the world. I did it for them.