#dog mushing

[akdogdriver]

Happy dogs

Iditarod - Ceremonial Start in Anchorage 3/7/26

[blackseafoam]

Me n my dog leaving the starting line at our local bikejor race in slomo

[zaahrawrites]

[sea-salted-wolverine]

In honor of the moose/Iditarod rule 34 chaos post reaching 1000 notes and then Dallas Seavy winning the Iditarod here are all the unhinged stories and things I know about that race

They changed the rules and schedules so you can't do this anymore, but there was a subset of mushers who would race the Yukon Quest and the Iditarod back to back. That's a 1000-mile race followed by another 1000-mile race through some of the harshest terrain on earth in late winter. And the Yukon quest doesn't even finish where the Iditarod starts. To do this required putting dogs in a plane OR having another team of dogs waiting in anchorage and someone to deal with both teams of dogs.

The first woman to win the Iditarod was Libby Riddles in 1985.

Only to have her finish promptly blown out of the water by Susan Butcher who won the race in 86', 87', 88', and 90' while setting speed records the whole way.

Susan did race in 85' but she ran into a moose early and it killed two of her dogs and hurt the rest so she scratched. Dallas got lucky this year.

She was also the first person to mush a dog team up to the summit of Denali, the tallest mountain in North America. This is not what dog teams are intended to do, I don't know why she even wanted to, other than to prove it was possible. I don't think anyone has since.

The race now requires GPS trackers on all the racers and you would not believe the bitchfit everyone threw over those. Mushers can either hop between checkpoints or camp on the trail and it may surprise you to learn that these are the kind of people who have secret camp spots in the woods that they don't want anyone to know about. So now, everyone has acquiesced to the tracker requirement but you must have an account on the race website if you want to see them.

The race has 2 paths that alternate even and odd years with different checkpoints but every year includes a section of race that crosses the sea ice, approximately 50 miles from Shaktoolik to Koyuk. so forget landmarks. point the sled north and hope you're going the right way.

the race is in honor of the 1925 Serum Run and the diphtheria outbreak, but the trail itself is the old freight route which is almost twice the length. also, it's a freight route for hauling freight which means the the racers are going at more or less lightspeed as compared to the intended use.

the most effective way to avoid frostbite on your face is a fur hood and duct tape on your cheeks and nose. Cold-related injuries are rare but far from unheard of. The average number of toes and fingertips among mushers is lower than that of the general population.

The finish line is a massive burled arch in the middle of main street in Nome. There is not a lot going on in Nome at any given time and this time of year is the exception. Every racer who finishes the race gets the same reception, which is everyone in town crowding into the finish chute to cheer them on and the city fire siren going off. The last racer in gets the Red Lantern Award which means that they finished dead last but didn't scratch.

the 2020 race had started and was fully underway when the pandemic lockdowns came into place. as far as social distancing goes, you really can't do much better than being isolated 100 miles into the middle of frozen nowhere but the checkpoints are itty bitty villages with no medical infrastructure and the finish was reportedly terrifying because instead of a crowd to cheer at the burled arch, it was just the siren going off in a ghost town.

there is no way I can tell this story that doesn't sound like I'm making it up as I go. The sign says no sniveling and they fucking mean it.

no really, click that link. here's the YouTube vid (non-graphic, after-the-fact interviews)

[securityunit-ese]

Researching other dog mushing avenues to take the pressure off my leg.

Current set up is a pretty standard bikejor with a fat hardtail mtb and hydraulic disc breaks:

Works really well I like it because I can peddle to assist on hills or when the dogs are tiring except its a bit of a pain that I have to lay it down on set up (could get a kick stand?) as it can trigger the dogs into an early launch, and also I need to use my legs to stabilise when stopping suddenly and I worry about the strain and twisting on them. Very easy to tip sideways.

Dog sulky:

After looking into this (could NOT remember the name of these fucks thanks @darkwood-sleddog ) decided against as you cannot assist the dog and I'm not a fan of how restricted it is and that I cannot find any evidence of a sulky successfully being used with shorter dogs. I don't think they could full out run in this set up either, plus all those extra straps WILL upset Thorn who is harness-shy.

Sacco Dog Cart:

So I really like the breaks, the four wheels and the portability of the sacco but again it has no way to assist the dogs and while less restrictive than the sulky it still seems pretty restrictive? and I would need to source an entirely new style of harness to work with this in addition to the incredibly expensive cart. what i like about bikejoring is the boys can run to their maximum speed and not have to worry about turning back to me they can just GO and i dont think they could get this with a sacco

The trike rig:

So they would be able to run to their free-ist with this and technically you can assist by kicking the ground but I am trying to reduce the impact and twisting on my leg. Plus the balance requirements when using this...I tried one once, I felt very unstable. Plus heavy and difficult to transport

Kickscooter:

The kickscooter has similar problems to the trike rig in that its going to require a lot of balance and twisting from me and the only way to assist is by kicking the ground. I have used a kickscooter before and I guess the ability to hop off at a run was useful BUT that defeats the purpose of trying to look after my leg some more.

I thought perhaps a Recumbent Bike of somekind:

but nearly all the information i can find on them relates to bike-with-your-dog (dogs to your side or behind you) and not mushing with them (dogs running in front). I keep getting the same guy over and over with really restrictive setups. Although I have found a couple of people on facebook who have adapted a recumbent for proper mushing and it does look promising but I have never ridden a recumbent before and can't find anywhere to test ride them. They're pretty expensive but not much more expensive than getting my fancier mtb. I also wonder if the lower attachment point would impact the harnesses and dogs pulling with a zero dc faster harness...

My ideal would be some kind of combination of the sacco and a recumbent...

[tonichelleak]

Dallas Seavey at the Ceremonial Start and ReStart of Iditarod 52. Dallas. Seavey. The kid that believed he was on a trajectory for an Olympic career and not a dog mushing one. Oh, sure, he was like many others of his generation who not only grew up in the presence of many great mushers - all the while helping his dad build a successful racing kennel - but one who watched Iron Will and tried to recreate many of the scenes from the movie... but as he often told tourists - he had no desire to make it his life like his dad had.

Then injuries sidelined his Olympic wrestling dream (was on his way to making the 2008 USA team) so he came home and continued helping his dad build monster teams.

After a while running the puppy team just wasn't enough. Puppy teams are competitive and if you know Dallas even a little bit you know the dude is extremely competitive.

He studied like he was working on a Masters Degree. No one knows the science and stats of the race more than Dallas. Guarantee it.

He won his first title in 2012, then again in 2014, 2015, 2016... took a break after his second place finish in 2017 (we won't rehash the whys) and came back in 2021 to win it again (granted the shorter "Gold Loop Trail" - thanks Covid - but he battled the Rainy Pass Pony Mafia so it still is a huge accomplishment). His '21 race meant he tied for most wins, sharing that record with the legendary Rick Swenson. Swenson was one of Dallas's childhood heroes... and Dallas had broken or tied just about every record Rick had.

This year, Dallas won number six. He is the winningest Iditarod Champion.

It wasn't easy. In November he and two of his handlers took teams out on a training run. His handler running many of Dallas's top dogs was hit by a snow machine. Dogs were killed, some injured with career ending, life altering injuries. The mushers were physically all fine, but mentally... mentally it took a while to feel "normal" on the runners.

Dallas borrowed dogs from his dad to make a competitive Iditarod team, it wasn't ideal - but he'd done it before. The Ceremonial Start and ReStart seemed to go on without an issue. Crowds cheered the musher on and he quickly slipped into the routine.

Monday of race week rolls around. Dallas' birthday. Early that morning an aggressive moose plowed into Dallas' team, the only thing for the musher to do was dispatch the moose. If you've followed the race you know what happened next. Dallas did not properly gut out the moose, one of his dogs was injured but it wasn't noticeable right away (dog is fine now), he was penelized for the improper dressing out of the moose. Dallas was not going to win.

Then things changed in the second half of the race. Teams who decided to try to outrun Dallas who was already dealing with time penalties pushed too hard, too long, too soon. Dallas caught up. And then Dallas did what Dallas does.

And now Dallas Seavey is the only six time champion in the history of the race.

That's a wild ride. (see what I did there? no, oh, well.... you can find out what I mean here.)

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[darkwood-sleddog]

i do thing it's mighty rich of that recent documentary on joe henderson to call him the "last arctic explorer" in relation to how he works his dogs when there are plenty of indigenous arctic mushers working their dogs in the traditional way without peddling inaccurate and often harmful breed mythology but that's just me.

[punkrocklorax]

As usual my interests are converging and I've been reminded that there's dog mushing in the Frankenstein book