KASILOF, Alaska — Note: For a lot of reasons, I am reluctant to write too much about my own dog team and the limited success I’ve had racing Alaskan huskies. I’m not that interested in writing about myself, unless it helps illustrate something about the sport from an insider’s point of view. But I recently was preparing notes for a talk at a sled dog symposium about how I race with a small kennel of dogs, and I thought those notes might be interesting to readers.
I came off the ice-cold Kuskokwim 300 last year thrilled with my team. We’d held together nicely and chased Jeff King, Mitch Seavey and Ramy Brooks hard to the finish. Once again, I was fourth place in a sled dog race. I have a way of finishing fourth or fifth in most races. When I groused a little about that to DeeDee Jonrowe at the 2007 Iditarod signup picnic, she barely paused before replying, “There’s a whole lot of mushers who wish they had that ‘problem.’”
She made a good point, and it set me thinking. For the past few years, I have been reasonably competitive with some of the best distance mushers in the world while maintaining a kennel that rarely has more than 24 dogs in harness. Things change year to year, especially with a kennel as small as mine. But there has got to be a reason for the “success” of being consistently in the hunt, even if I don’t win. So I jotted down a list of things that I believe make my kennel tick.
Focus
The first word I thought of was focus. When I began rounding up a few dogs and hooking them to a sled in the early 1990s, I borrowed a large, old paperback book from the public library that profiled some of Alaska’s successful sprint mushers from the 1970s. Something said by Joee Redington, who is still racing, stuck with me. He noted that one key to success is being able to think about dogs morning, noon and night. I don’t advocate that exactly. I think a musher can have broader interests than simply racing, but my dogs are never far from my thoughts. It doesn’t take much to make me think of them. They’re just barely submerged in my consciousness no matter what I’m doing. I’ve found myself being “taught” about mushing while at football games, baseball games (any sporting event), school, church, movies and lately, especially, whenever we’re learning about raising children.
Next on the list is discipline. I set goals for training and stick to them. I don’t get lazy about it if the weather isn’t cooperating. And I expect the dogs to work hard and be happy about it, too. My goal is to teach them to direct their energy into simply running forward down the trail. They have to obey me at all times, and I had better behave in a way that inspires their obedience.
Expectations
That brings up expectations. A book on early childhood learning (see what I mean about focus on the dogs?) notes that “achievement in the student is most directly related to teacher expectations.” That sounds a bit dry, but if you read it over, it is important. I expect my dogs to perform at a high level. That doesn’t mean I expect to win or place in a certain position (then again, maybe I should), but I expect them to give me 100 percent. I don’t fear disaster, just like I don’t worry about falling off the sled. It simply isn’t on my mind while I’m racing. I am solely focused positively on the dogs and what I need to do next so they can be their best.
Jon Little’s team lunges to start the Yukon Quest.
Little’s team mushes on the Yukon Quest trail.
Motivation
Connected with all that is motivation. I try to get inside their heads, to learn what makes each dog work hard. Some need a gentle touch and a lot of encouragement, while others need the proverbial “two-by-four upside the head.” And, no, I do not mean that literally. It is just that I can roughhouse with some dogs, and they actually enjoy it, while others are just more delicate but still excellent athletes.
Selection
Then there’s selection. I do sell and give away dogs that I believe are redundant. That’s how I keep my kennel small. If I have a litter, or two, which I typically do each summer, I will aim to sell the same number of dogs the following March as the season winds down. If I have eight puppies in the summer, I will sell eight dogs that spring. My goal is to keep the best team of 24 race-able dogs that I can. It’s like a college football team or high school basketball team: I have young dogs moving up into key positions and good veterans moving on. If I have a very good dog that is 4 or 5 years old, I ask myself if it can be replaced with an up-and-coming 2-year-old. If the answer is not even “yes,” but merely “probably,” then I take a risk and sell the older dog, generally.
One of the most frequent questions I’m asked by people visiting the kennel is, “So, how many dogs have you got now?” The answer is 24. It is always 24. (There are a few retirees and puppies that spike the numbers a bit, but there are only 24 race-able dogs.) That makes 12 for me, and 12 more for my handler. I run the entire kennel all at once, with my handler following along behind me with the second set of 12 dogs, then we take a day off to do other things.
My 24 dogs include youngsters – yearlings and 2-year-olds – that usually don’t make it to the tougher races. Yearlings get lighter treatment. And two-year-olds are watched carefully during races to make sure they are still with the program mentally. So I end up with a team that’s perpetually a little thin on experience, and that fact might partially explain the string of fourth-place finishes. The whole team rarely is up to hitting that extra-high gear – at least not enough of them.
Risk
I mentioned risk briefly, but it is important. I take risks, selling very good dogs to other mushers, and banking that an unproven, younger dog will step up to the plate.
Genetics
Genetics is also important. I’m lucky to have a talented, enthusiastic and athletic bloodline, thanks to hard work, some good investments and lucky guesses.
Communications
Communication is huge in distance racing. By that I mean telling the dogs what we’re going to be doing so they come to rely on me and run hard, knowing I’ll take care of them. I can’t just tell them, “Hey, guys, we’re going to run for about six hours, then we’ll pull over and rest for about as long.” They don’t understand English. So I tell them by simple physical repetition. If I expect to race by running four, six or eight hours at a time, then I do that in training. And for sure, I start the Iditarod with the same predictable distances that I trained with.
One other piece of advice for small kennel owners is that I don’t panic if one of my dogs paces or isn’t pulling super hard in training. I evaluate each dog. If a four-time Iditarod finishing dog isn’t giving it 100 percent on an October training run, I couldn’t care less. That dog has seen a lot and is being pretty smart by conserving its energy. That dog will be there for me in February or March, especially late in the race.
There’s a lot more that goes into turning a bunch of dogs into a coherent team, and I don’t pretend to understand it all. And there are basics that I haven’t mentioned, such as feeding the best food you can afford, and having sleds that don’t slow you down, and gear that lets you stay warm and focused on your task. But if there’s any one thing that I think is most important, to be taken away after reading this far, it is summed up in one word: Relationship. A bond built on trust is going to make a big difference late in a distance sled dog race, whether 300 miles or 1,000.
This column has been backward looking. It is just a quick glimpse into what has worked for me over the past five years or so, but every winter is different. I never know what is going to happen in the coming year, and I always say that’s the fun of racing: It gives you a chance to find out how good your team is.
I took a bigger risk than usual last spring and sold a few excellent dogs, and now have a larger-than-normal pool of under-aged, high-energy, foam-at-the-mouth freaks to deal with this winter. I will have to work harder than ever to teach them the fundamentals and to relax a little if we’re ever going to perform well in a race. The 2007 racing season could turn out to be a “training year” where we have to figure it all out on the race trail. Or they may rise up, gel into a unified pack and get serious so we can race to win. Time will tell.