We hope that everyone had an awesome holiday season and is falling contentedly back into their routines. Thanks to the muddy winter and lack of snow, we are currently running two sports at the same time in the middle of winter- something that is almost unheard of for us. Winter is for dog sledding! I think Mother Nature forgot this one or thought it would be fun to see all of the dedicated mushers repeatedly get a face full of mud, owing to the fact that the dogs think every mud puddle must be ran through on the trail.
Lessons In Lead Training
Our training runs have thus far been educating and challenging. Personally, I have learned much about what I need to teach my dogs to help them succeed. Training a puppy is never easy for a pet owner. However, combine that with the challenging tasks of trying to train one to join our young team, all while simultaneously re-training your forgetful backup leader everything he supposedly learned last season, might cause someone with less passion for dog sledding to pull their hair out or to go as far as quitting before ever really starting.
With Shelby, our main leader, in standing heat, Ohio law says she cannot be taken off of the property. Thus we have had to run without my more experienced leader up front. At first I was super-excited to be able to run Tundra, my back-up leader. I've been wanting to work with him all season in lead position, but I've needed him to fall back in the team more often than not to show the puppy how to get things done. While this strategy was successful with the puppy, he hasn't run lead in a few months. Now I was suddenly asking a lot from him- not only did he have to run lead, but he also had to do so with our puppy and keep her in line. As much as I love Tundra and his dedication to winter foot warmer status, I am the first to admit he probably is not the sharpest tool in the shed or the brightest crayon in the box. Often, this works to my advantage since he seems more inclined to do the running and leave the thinking to me. We have few arguments between us and those few that we do have involve his breed's characteristic stubbornness. Perhaps I've grown complacent and used to winning these battles, because there is no doubt that I am to blame for what followed.
To say our first run without Shelby was simply eventful might not be telling it exactly like it is. Little did I know or even think through the fact that I could be throwing myself on the double edged sword of Tundra's intelligence combined with his stubbornness when I hitched Revvy and Tundra to the bike for a two mile spin down the road and back. Tundra had taken this path numerous times with Shelby without any problems. He knew where the dogs would be in their yards and he knew to keep right and perfectly understood and responded to the "On by" command, or so I thought.
What would typically take us ten minutes tops to go down and then turn the two-dog team took us over an hour. There are four houses and several fields along the one-mile stretch. Most of these houses have a dog of some kind that plays in the yard. After a month or so of training, my dogs' interest in them has decreased enough to continue running if I just shout up "On by!!" Although, today would prove the holes in my logic and in my training. We got passed the first two houses, I believe, mainly because there were no distractions, aka dogs, present. When we reached the third house, we discovered that our neighbors had obtained a new German Shepherd that enjoyed barking at our strange setup and just wanted to play. Thankfully, he seems to have an underground fence to keep him in his yard. However, this didn't stop my social huskies from greeting their new friend and it was all I could do to hit the brakes and pray.
We got stopped, but it took us at least thirty minutes to get passed that house. I can only imagine the spectacle we made of ourselves to my neighbors who already think I'm a bit touched in the head for taking up the sport of dog sledding in this hick little town.
After struggling my way up to the front, I finally managed to grab the neckline and lead them past the yard, untangle the mess they made of their lines, mount the bike, and shouted "Line Out!" and quickly got out the command "Hike!" I didn't really even care if they managed a Line Out since I doubted they would do even that with the dog barking at us from behind. I cared only about going forward and continuing the run. I have no idea why in the perverse scheme of things I thought "Hike" would work either. Besides, the puppy had other ideas. I had no sooner got them untangled and unbeknownst to me during my mad dash to mount the bike, the pup had turned in her harness and darted under Tundra's gang-line, thus trapping her neckline underneath Tundra's tug loop. Also, somehow she had managed to wrap her own back legs in her gang-line so that we couldn't proceed forward without her doing a strange looking three legged bunny hop. Oh, and while she was making a mess of the lines, Tundra was also trying to turn back to investigate the barking dog and created further chaos by dragging my now three legged, bunny hopping puppy along with him.
It took me umpteen tries at untangling their lines, moving them forward again, and putting them into a line out position before we got passed that one house. While the remainder of the ride was uneventful in comparison, Tundra refused his Gee Overs and we ran mostly in the center or right side of the road for the remainder of the first mile. Thankfully, my neighbors are well adjusted to seeing us at certain times and are willing to slow down so I can grab the dogs and allow them to pass.
Lessons Learned
I have to admit that while this run was going in my top ten most demoralizing runs, it does not make the cut for top ten for most useless runs. I learned that no matter how strong your belief is that you are on the right path, the dogs will always take you down a different path and give you something to think about.
Clearly I needed to re-work the basics like "Gee Over" and "Line Out" with both dogs and "On by" is going to take some time and patience and will be an ongoing lesson to be taught. We also need to work on distraction training to avoid this situation in the future if and when possible. Life is not always simpler with dogs and it takes dedication, perseverance, a twisted sense of humor, and a large dose of humility to get where you want to go with them.
In addition to learning that we need to do retrain the basics, I also need to ensure that Shelby isn't ever the sole brains of the operation. Perhaps this could account for her lack of enthusiasm when seeing the harness come out- maybe I've asked too much of her too soon. I also need remember not to shoulder Tundra with the sole task of training the pup from a dog's perspective.
When we ran Tundra with Revvy at Carlisle Reservation a few weeks earlier, he learned quicker and faster than he did with Shelby. In hindsight, I might have taken a few seconds to puzzle this out and notice that without being cued and bossed by Shelby as to what needed to happen, he was almost completely lost. Maybe without any dog to take his cues from, he could be better and really learn the commands that I thought he knew. However, rather than take this lesson home with me, I bull-headedly proceeded with training as I always did, ignoring what was staring me in the face. That needs to change and leave it to my dogs to remind me that "husky" stubbornness isn't just present in the breed, but in the owners as well.
