Thanks again to those who have contributed to this issue. This newsletter truly wouldn't happen without the efforts of those willing to contribute. Taking the time to write an article or answer the question of the issue is greatly appreciated.

On that note, if you would like to contribute articles for this newsletter we would welcome them. Maybe you have an interesting story to tell, took a fun trip with your dogs, or found a new piece of gear that others need to hear about. We also really need suggestions for our question of the issue.

You can send articles or ideas to editor@redpawfeed.com.

Thanks,
Randy Carris

from Megan Capon

Our 'sled dogs' are GSPs which sleep in the house every night, get a car ride to town for fun, etc. We've also borrowed 3 dogs from kennels over the last 2 seasons, and sister ended up buying a lead dog up in AK for pet/ occasional skijoring.

There are a couple things we discovered when transitioning such a dog from kennel to house.

1. These dogs have NEVER been alone and they DON'T enjoy solitary confinement, especially those first few nights! In a kennel there's dogs around 24/7. If there's another dog in the house it will really help, not only for companionship but also modeling good house pet behavior.

2. Every one of them had an easier time adapting to a wire crate instead of a plastic crate. I have no idea why, but it's been consistent. And, the crate is essential; the dog needs a safe place to relax, and housetraining takes some time and supervision.

3. Obedience training using mainly positive/motivational methods those first few weeks will help the dog bond with people and gain some needed self-confidence. If you can teach the dog "sit" and/or "down", you'll have something good for the dog to focus on when it starts to get nervous.

I personally think these dogs can make great pets- they're very dog socialized, they're usually handled quite a bit, and they're bred to be trainable and non aggressive. Once they discover the of in-house living, they take to it like butter on bread. :)

From Nancy Campbell

I'll respond to this one. I am a perfect example of the kind of person who takes in a sled dog that the musher just can't keep.

I first got into mushing thinking that it would be a perfect winter activity for my handicapped son who has a hard time walking on uneven surfaces. We can't teach him to ski, but he loves to ride, so hanging out in the sled bag as a "tourist" is great fun for him.

We first got one little husky, mostly Siberian, from a musher near Ely, MN, who was going to have her and her litter mate put down. He was getting out of the business and needed to unload the whole team.

Our second dog was added to our household to keep the first one happier. We didn't really expect her to pull a sled by herself anyway, and so we wanted one that would get along well with the first one. Another case of one too many litters in a dog yard, and we had our second dog.

Our third dog was a retiree from a racing team; just a little too old, and starting to slow down enough to where the new team members were too fast for him. Besides, speed is what a racer is looking for, right? We didn't care about that.

All three of these dogs presented certain problems that you have to face if you're a recreational enthusiast like I am. You have to understand that these are not your typical neighborhood dogs, even if they're not real team dogs either. However, as we all know, they are some of the most loving and intelligent animals on the planet (more so than a few humans I have met!).

While you have to be careful to screen any potential new owners, I think there are a lot of people who would be happy to take in a non-performing dog, as long as the human is provided with a little education.

We don't allow our dogs to come into the house freely. One of them had been de-barked, so he wouldn't be able to let us know if he wants out, so we keep two of them outside 100% of the time. I have a 20x15 foot pen they stay in, and then I let them run around our fenced-in back yard at least once a day.

The other dog frankly spends too much time in a crate indoors, but we have had problems with the next-door neighbor's dogs. They really get on her nerves and so she barks too much. I'm training her to hang out in one area of our den so she can be out of the crate when we're home. We feed her with the other two and leave her outside for at least 2 hours at night, also.

That leads me to the next point. I think that the greatest problem taking in sled dogs as a recreational musher or for pets in the "burbs" is the neighbors and their preconceived notions of what constitutes proper animal care or behavior. I used to get chewed out by my next door neighbor when the thermometer dropped below freezing for making my Alaskan huskies stay out in the cold! I handed them a few articles about the Iditarod etc., and they shut up. Then they moved, so they're no longer a problem. It's the new guy's 3 golden retrievers he got to compete with our 'team' that cause problems for our female. They're very territorial and come over to bark at my dog while she's eating. For the life of me I can't get the guy to understand that it's a problem HE can solve. The little poodle next door other side (that we have nicknamed "Lunchmeat" because I'm not sure my dogs know it's canine) is OK going out on the deck at 12:30 am and yabbering away like Dino on the Flintstones, but I get called at 1:45 am (by the poodle's owner) telling me that my dog is barking out back, when she's asleep in her crate in our den!

I just know that if something happens and someone else's dog did it, I'm the first suspect in the area. They don't bother me as much any more, but it used to be a problem.

If you're going to take in a sled dog as a pet, you HAVE to be ready to stand up to scrutiny and walk the fine line between both the mushing world and the 'neighborhood pet' mentality. It's amazing how critical and judgmental people can be.

All that said, I wouldn't prefer any other kind of dog to these guys. We have a little sprint sled, and I am teaching my daughter to handle and drive them. We love them and are willing to put up with certain hassles.

I would just say - "It's a musher thing".....

Mid-April, 2005

Well, another season is slowly coming to an end. I'm writing this from Kotzebue, Alaska where some of the last races of the North American season are run. After two weeks of rest from Iditarod we hopped a plane bound for Kotzebue and on to Noorvik, a small Eskimo village 60 miles East of Kotzebue. They were hosting a 3-day 16-mile race with a $20,000 purse. I figured there would be a good turnout with such a large purse but was surprised to only see 6 teams sign up. I was racing a group of dogs that was a combination of our stage dogs, 5 dogs that had run Iditarod, and 6 yearlings that our handler Julie had run in the Tustemena 100 and the North American. I had run many of those dogs in the Fur Rendezvous (less the Iditarod dogs) just before Iditarod. I was happy to see that we could hold off the local teams but we didn't quite have the speed to edge out Bill Kornmueller, a long-time sprinter with a well-trained speed team. Hopping a small bush plane back to Kotzebue, we ran the dogs in the Arctic Circle Championships, a 3-day, 25-mile sprint out on the sea ice in front of town. The dogs gave another solid performance, finishing 2nd again to Bill. We depart later today for the last hurrah of the season: Shishmaref. A tiny Eskimo village located on a rapidly eroding spit of land on the Chucki Sea, Shishmaref hosts a 3-day 36-mile race, also held on the sea ice. Shishmaref is always an interesting race where distance teams meet sprint teams head to head. Joe Garnie, an Iditarod legend from Teller, 70 trail miles from Shishmaref, usually runs his team in a few days before the race and always manages a good showing. Nils Hahn and Aaron Burmeister, both

Iditarod racers from Nome, usually fly in as well, as does Bill Kornmueller. Sometimes it goes to the sprinters, sometimes the distance guys win. Usually it depends on the weather. The Iditaroders will be hoping for a blizzard, the sprinters will want sunny skies and hard trail, and I'm a bit indifferent about the trail conditions.

I'll be heading home after Shishmaref to get going on summer projects, but there's still one more race scheduled for the weekend after Shishmaref. The Kotzebue Dog Musher's Association hosts the Coastal 180, running 90 miles North to Kivalina where teams take a 6-hour break and then back. I would love to try my hybrid team in that race but I'm also anxious to get back home after a long racing season. Plus, Kivalina is a hot spot for polar bears....no thanks. Hats off to KDMA; a well-organized mushing club that pays out a grand total of $125,000 in prize winnings over their race season thanks to a long tradition of dog racing in the area and the help of the local bingo players.

Over the last few years of traveling and racing all across North America, I have seen Redpaw quickly rise to the upper echelon of the premium dog food market. Right now it's the most widely fed food in interior Alaska. I truly believe it's been a big part in allowing us to train for such a variety of different styles. The dogs' recovery time after races has shortened and their overall health is noticeably better. On the Iditarod this year I watched as all the teams around me had to drop dogs due to sickness and diarrhea, which my team never got. We finished with the most dogs in the top-20 and had the fastest time from Safety to Nome. The dogs always ate the Redpaw and right now my leaders in this sprint team both ran the Iditarod. I feel very fortunate to have this top product available to us in the north at such a reasonable price.

In the Dog Yard

It's that time of year when the dog yard needs to be cleaned up to get the dogs ready for a relaxing summer rest before fall training kicks in. Here are some ideas for a fun and safe summer in the kennel.

I found that my dogs loved the obstacles you find at agility classes so I designed a simple dog ramp for the kennel. It is tough and sturdy enough to keep in the kennel year 'round and it doubles as a big dog house. There are two ramps on either side of a long and wide platform. On the ramps are 2x2 pieces of wood for traction. One of the triangle pieces formed by the ramp and the base is a perfect pass through hide-a-way. There is a full pass though in the middle and the other side is a deep dog house or "den" that a couple of my dogs like to hang out in together.

Custom dog ramp. Fence panels in rear of photo for shade.	The Luxury dog ramp model.

Shade is always another issue in the dog yard, especially if you turn your very large garden into a dog kennel! I bought some shade cloth from a local landscape supply company and had them custom make different sizes and shapes to attach to the top rails on the kennels. They installed grommets every foot so I can tie the cloth to the top rails. The question was how to deal with the side that has no top rail. I had the landscape company put a sleeve in that end. I ran a rope through the sleeve attaching it at one end to the top rail. At the other end, I used a rope ratchet to tighten the rope so the cloth doesn't flap and tear in the wind.

I had a corner area that really needed some shade and instead of having a sleeve put into that side I just had them make a rectangular piece of shade cloth as I described above and then I folded it over in a triangle shape. The rope runs through the folded portion, attaches on one end to the top rail with a rope ratchet at the other end to tighten it.

Shade cloth	Corner shade cloth
Rope ratchet

If your dogs like the water, I have found that a heavy plastic stock tank in each kennel acts as a water bucket and a wading pool. So far none of my dogs have been able to chew into the plastic. Sheep tanks are best because they are lower to the ground and can be found at your local farm supply store. Cleaning them can be a chore because the algae builds up on warm days. A steel scrubbing pad takes care of the algae.

Isis enjoying her wading pool.	Dog condo with ramp and pool. The concrete chimney block in the foreground is the perfect size to set a plastic horse water bucket in.

Safety in and outside of individual kennels for rescue or vulnerable dogs was a concern. I have some dogs with an "edge" that can have a bit of an attitude about the neighbors next door. I also have house dogs, one being a very small dog, and wanted to make sure that if they ever got out unattended that they wouldn't be in any danger if they ended up near the kennels.

While visiting a local wildlife science center that allows dogs I noticed that they had hardware cloth attached with hog rings to the chain link fencing. What a great idea! It comes in varying heights and can be installed on just the bottom portion of kennels or on both the bottom and top by installing a second section of the hardwire cloth above the first. Gates can also be safe guarded by attaching this hardware cloth to some rigid welded cattle fencing. The finished product is then clipped with brass clips on to the gate so they are removable.

Adja checking out the job I did on the hardware cloth.	Removable gate panel.
Close up of the hardware cloth, top of gate panel and gate latch clip	Exterior hardware cloth. Smaller size than interior.
Hog rings and tool.

If anyone else has any ideas that they have found perfect for the dog yard we would love to hear about them!

Remember, this newsletter was created for you. We encourage your input on any sporting dog related topic. If you have tips, questions, or suggestions, please send them to us.

Training Tips: training@redpawfeed.com

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