"Those People are Crazy" Part Two

My story isn't all that profound or inspiring. Many mushers use mushing to overcome some huge personal obstacle,  handicap, or illness. For some mushers, dog mushing is the thing that saved their lives.

I suppose dog mushing is saving my life too, just in a more understated way I guess. I've quit smoking, started exercising, etcetera. 
Maybe I'm just not quite aware of my personal obstacle yet...

I got Ossum at 17 weeks from a guy out in Salcha.

We drove out to meet him on an evening in February.

He had piles and piles of puppies. A yard full of boisterous dogs. Every one was friendly and excited to see new people. Puppies jumped up and begged for attention, cute and silly. Except Ossum. He sat very neatly just outside the group of puppies who were all competing for my attention.

"I want that one." I pointed over the furry heads of his siblings.

Awesome.

Something I say a lot.

It took me three months to find a name that dog would come to. Every name I tried he flat out ignored. People always ask me how he got his name. I always tell them he named himself, because he did.

Like I said, it's something I say a lot.

One day, after exclaiming somewhat loudly "AWESOME!" to something I'd henceforth deemed "awesome.", the dog came trotting into the room from wherever he'd been and whatever he'd been doing  to look me in the eye and say "Yeah? What's up?" 

Fo' shizzle. 

His first trip into a feed store was into Alaska Feed Company. I like to take pups there on their first trip because it's quite often not that crowded. Like many sled dogs born and raised outdoors, Ossum balked at the threshold into new and unfamiliarly textured terrain--linoleum. At that point he was only familiar with, snow, dirt, plywood, and carpet.

He belly crawled through the door of the store and stopped on the rug, refusing to go any further. The gals working there tried to coax him further with treats but no go.

I ended up carrying him to the far end of the store, presenting him with the daunting task of walking back to the rug across the strange shiny surface. When I set him down he looked like he totally thought he might fall through it.

Early on I recognized in him a need to understand, at least vaguely in a dog way, the mechanics of things; the door knob, the water faucet, the TV.

His first adventure into Coldspot Feeds he became spooked by the cart my ex-husband pushed up the aisle behind us. I picked up the pup and took him over to a parked shopping cart off to the side while my ex loaded up on dog food. I knelt on the floor beside the dog and the cart pointing at the cart's wheel. I grabbed the wheel between two fingers and gave it a quarter turn, moving the cart just a few inches. He balked at it slightly, looked at the wheel, looked at the cart, and then totally relaxed.

Wheel moves cart.

He pranced through the store like he owned the place, not afraid of no stinkin' carts.

Dogs, sled dogs in particular, absolutely need to be exposed to all manner of strange and bizarre sights, sounds, and sensations. Just a few weeks ago the internet went crazy with rage over a photo of a very well known and respected musher tossing a puppy into the air like you would a baby.

Katie bar the door, here comes the mob with their torches and pitchforks.

Why isn't that puppy wearing a parachute!?!

Any "mushing fan" who has read a book or two has read stories about dogs being blown up into the air or off the trail by high winds. A dog who is not psychologically prepared for something like that may not want to run in the wind ever again.

Dogs need to be exposed to all kinds of people too. Sometimes it's not enough that you have ten kids and the puppies are always handled. Just because you have ten kids doesn't necessarily mean the dogs will be good with all kids. They are just good with your kids. They need to be exposed to a constant flow of strangers. They need to meet people who move too fast, people who move too slow, people who talk with their hands, people who dance, silly people, serious people, loud people, quiet people, people in weird costumes. You just never know what your dog/dog team might encounter. They need to experience water, wind, ice of all thicknesses, and obstacles of all shapes and sizes. It's hard to fathom everything your dogs need to be mentally prepared for, but that doesn't stop us from trying.

The training starts on day one. Puppies are rolled gently onto their backs. Their legs and feet are massaged lightly to accustom the dogs to a future of being touched and massaged and manipulated not only by their musher, but by veterinarians too. All dogs must be compliant, pliable, and perfectly comfortable...with basically everything.

Ossum was, and still is, incredibly compliant. But our first attempt at harness breaking had me questioning my sanity in this entire endeavor.

I put him in harness and he acted like he was going to fall off the face of the earth. He just wanted to crawl everywhere on his belly. I remember crawling backwards on my hands and knees down the trail, coaxing him forward as he slowly pulled a little sled toting a super dry, light, log, whining all the way.

I thought, gads, I hope the neighbors can't see me...

I hung up the training harness for a week and set my ex-husband about finding me an old snow machine track I could cut into smaller pieces. I'd seen it done before but I didn't have any snow machine track at the time and got impatient, settling on the sled, whose sound might have made Ossum uncomfortable.

The following weekend we tried again. This time I also hooked Squirt to the piece of snow machine track to help Ossum along and give him extra confidence.

That day I started to see little flickers of the possibilities.

When Ossum was 9 months old I decided to breed him to Squirt.

It was a lapse in judgment I hope to never repeat. Again, I was impatient. I wanted a dog team darn it! I wanted to get down the trail as soon as possible.

But I should have waited.

Dog mushing is, if nothing else, an exercise in patience...

(To be concluded in part three.)

(Back to Part One)