Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Small Kennel Training

I quite often get asked by gentiles( non-mushers) what I do?  My response: "I run dogs."  "What do you mean you run dogs?" I repeat, "I run dogs."  "Do you make money doing that?" "Sometimes," I reply. They walk away perplexed as I feel no need to explain further.

The last couple of years, our peers, inquire how we are able to field competitive teams when we have such a small kennel (never more than 20 dogs).  I give them the same response, "I run dogs."  Our dogs do well because they get run everyday.  I am fortunate  because I live my bliss daily by running dogs every morning.  The alarm goes off at 5am: and if the sun is shining, out the door I go immediately to water our 19 Alaskan huskies. Unlike the majority of other Alaskans, I love to hear the sound of rain pounding on the tin.  This means I don't have to race the rising sun. I can enjoy my coffee.  

We are fortunate to live at nearly 2000 feet between the glaciers of the Alaskan range and the Wrangells. Mt. Sanford, the fourth highest mountain in North America, is less than 20 miles away.  Our cabin sits a mile away from the confluence of  the mighty Copper River and the pristine Chistochina River. These glacier fed waterways allow for the pooling of cool air off the nearby icefields.  Calm sunny weather means temps in the 30s at  sunrise.  This cool air and the cold water makes for prime summer four-wheeler training conditions.  Why are we able to compete with kennels that are 2 to 3 times larger than ours?  Quite simply because I take advantage of our local conditions and run dogs all summer.
Summer training utilizing the Chistochina River. Mt Sanford in the distance.
This year my wife will participate in the annual pilgrimage to the mushing mecca of Nome. Several times in the past, I have made the pilgrimage through Dawson; mushing other sects' mecca.

This training description is aimed at those small kennels who are attempting to qualify for and complete a 1000 mile race using a small pool of dogs, as well as the non-mushers who are interested in our lifestyle and want to know what we do.  Quite simply, I run dogs.  I run dogs as well as I can on daily basis year round. 
Darrin running a team through high water after localized flooding in the Chistochina River.
I am not going to be claiming in this piece that there is a single right or wrong way to prepare a dog team to finish a 1000 mile race. Nor that this is a way to finish in the top of the field. This is how we have done it with a small kennel.   Our four youngest dogs Boris, Norbert, Zane, and Zoee represent dogs 50, 51, 52, 53 that we've owned in 20 years of mushing.   Most of our competition has that many dogs in their kennels as I write.   You can succeed in meeting your goals in mushing by focusing on quality over quantity.  Simply keep running the dogs you have within their capabilities.

My wife is a special education teacher and I am a former teacher.  In order to effectively educate kids one must have fidelity to your education program.  In mushing you must have fidelity to a training program.  Just as the educator must know what skill each lesson is addressing, the effective dog trainer must understand what each type of run is aimed towards.  Yes, I run dogs, but I am also aware each morning what conditioning and training goal I am aiming toward.  Loping, power trotting, walking a load and their related verbal commands are all focused upon.  Sometimes transitioning between them is a focus.  Some runs every dog has a neckline on and on some others runs no necklines are used.  The intended learning consequence is each dog learns how to run without a neckline.  The related skill is "going on the run" without pulling against the forward momentum of the team or ending up back in a tangle with the wheel dogs. In teaching there are unintended skills that are learned each day.  In mushing the same thing happens. Dogs cannot learn these unintended skills if they don't run.   An example of an unintended skill is passing a squirrel that runs through the team.  


The team runs over a wolf kill (caribou carcass) without hesitation on the Copper Basin 300 trail during a training run.

THE SUMMER TRAINING PROGRAM
At the end of every race season we give the dogs a couple of weeks off in the spring during breakup.   Around first of May, the last five years I have taken the dogs other places including well-known mushing areas such as the Maclaren/Paxson area, Murphy Dome Road and this year to Carcross in the Yukon. Sometimes we stay on sled till the middle of May.  Other times the dogs pull carts or fourwheelers. Usually by solsitice we return home to Chistochina. By this time the ice has melted off the Chistochina River and we can access it using the Copper Basin 300 trail. We have a small training area that is no more than 8 square miles but has multiple trail combinations where we have an unlimited amount of cold water always within 5 minutes. This access to cold water is the key to effective summer dryland training.  If you don't have this water in the summer, well you are screwed.  As soon as I see the dogs starting to overheat I can get them cooled off.  We also have two safe road crossings every run, as well as a pullout area that presents unattended training opportunities to pass parked vehicles, moving vehicles as well, and Fido the pet dog.  I can opt to not pass Fido too if I have an unexperienced leader. Folks often ask why our team passes so well.  We never practice passing as we rarely encounter other teams, but on a daily basis there are passing opportunities in this pull-out that we take advantage of.  If a team can pass a loose Fido then another team is no problem. For example, all of last year I only head-on passed two sprint teams here locally. While working for a musher in Two Rivers last fall, the team I was running head-on passed 12 teams in one run.  Better have a well-trained team if your running in Two Rivers or train at mid-night.
The team LOVES to run through water. Here we take a short break to cool off in 36 degree water on a sunny spring day.

So we live in a place that I can run everyday and  I am in a situation that I have the time to train everyday, not to mention the discipline to get up every morning.  For those of you who complain that you have to work.  I have been in that situation before.  I once finished the Copper Basin at 5 in the morning and was in the classroom working at 7.  I trained that team after work every night.  Another summer while working construction in Paxson, the team  was trained  before work every morning.  Sometimes doing 18 mile runs.  Neither situation was ideal, but none-the-less I ran dogs.  We much prefer our current situation.

What is the program then?  First of all, I have two ganglines setup.  One is 32 footlong and is for a ten dog team with 8 of the dogs in short harnesses, the leaders wear x-backs or h-backs.  The other is a 42 foot long ten dog gangline that is used for x-backs and h-backs.   There are 3 types of runs.  Anybody who has read Welch's Speed Mushing Manual knows the interval, multi-variable, and long-slow run.  I have 19 dogs so there are 2 teams.  There are 2 dogs: Norbert and Trek that are not race finishers.  The other 17 have finished multiple races over the years. Norbert and Trek get doubled up on by moving between the two teams.  Each cycle consists of the following:
cart = no motor on

interval short harness 4 minute loping run 3 minute standing rest in water (cart)
multiple variable short harness 2 minute loping run 2 minute running rest in 3rd gear
multiple variable long harness 3 minute trotting (8-9mph) with a brief call up (cart) squirrels welcome
long/slow long harness 3rd gear @ 1 hr no stopping
long/slow short harness cart @ 1hr no stopping
multiple variable short harness 2 minute loping run 2 minute running rest in 3rd gear
multiple variable long harness 3 minute trotting (8-9mph) with a brief call up (cart) bird is welcome
interval long harness cart 3 minute loping run 2 minute standing rest in water (cart)

Each cycle takes @16 days because there are two teams.  Remember the young dogs are run 12 out of 16 days while the veterans go day on day off.  I never stress if I miss a day because then all the dogs get two days off in a row. My biggest self-criticism is I don't give the dogs enough time off, but I like to run dogs.  The multi-variable runs and interval runs vary in length  due to temperatures.   Cooler temps equal longer runs, warmer temperatures and shorter runs.  The second time through the cycle I "peak" the team during the long/slow phase.  June peak this year was 1 hour 10 minutes.  July peak will be 1 hour 20 minutes.  August peak will be 1 hour 25 minutes. September peak will be 1 hour 30 minutes.   Beginning and end of October the last couple of years we have traveled to the Nabesna road and the Denali highway and done clusters of runs never over 1.5 hrs on a four-wheeler.  We might do 4 of these runs in a two day period.  I say birds and squirrels are welcome on the long harness multiple variable runs because the intended skill is an explosive speed up.  If I see a  critter I call the team up and quickly bring them back to a trot.  We are practicing for catching and leaving a team behind in a race.  

Heidi uses voice command to overtake, and beat, a team in the Tolsona 50/50 race this spring. (The white capes are used to keep the dogs cool on sunny spring days)
On the long/slow run I quite often direct the team to run against the current in a channel.  The intended skill is to walk a load up a hill such as Eagle Summit (watch video here of the team going up Eagle Summit).  The water keeps the dogs cool while they  pull against the current.  Remember according to the theory of Fidelity of training everything has an intended learning consequence.  The unintended learning consequence is water training.  Our team is an excellent water team.   We run dogs in both types of harnesses because they learn both systems and each type of harness allows the dog to use different muscles and run in different ways.  We continue to do this when we switch over to sled.   By the first of November the dogs have close to 1000 miles on them and are capable of doing just about anything you want on a sled but sled training is another blog topic.

By  now the "gentiles" head is spinning and saying, "There is a lot to it when you say you run dogs."  Other mushers say,  "Wow that is complicated."  In fact, last fall I was working for Sonny Linder and we were on a four-wheeler training his dogs.  This was his second week of four-wheeler training and his teams were already running as far as my longest peak runs.   He knew I had been training all summer and asked what I did.  I started  explaining and after a while he smiled shook his head and said,  "That sounds really complicated.  I like the way I do it."  Remember there is not a single right or wrong way to prepare a dog team to finish a 1000 mile race.  This is simply a description of how I run dogs and how we get the team to look happy at the end of a race.