Iditarod Insights: The Husky

The Iditarod is the culmination of years of dreams and planning for a dog musher.
Before attempting the race, a musher needs to acquire the necessary knowledge and understanding to manage and mush a team of 16 dogs 1,000 miles through Alaska.
Dogs need to be raised and carefully brought up in a way to where they trust the musher 100 percent while at the same time the musher can fully trust his or her team.
Nobody and nothing can force a dog or dog team to run. The desire to run is the key trait in a sled dog. This is the main thing mushers look for in a dog when selecting the next breeding. Additionally, sled dogs need to be fast and tough, have good feet, a good coat and a healthy appetite. But above all else they need to have the desire to go – even after several days on the Iditarod trail after having already traveled hundreds of miles across Alaska.
The breed of dog is called the Alaskan Husky. As the name implies this is the original breed of Alaska, the working dog of Alaska. Through careful breeding the best to the best, these dogs have evolved over the years to be extraordinary athletes that happily do 50 mile runs day after day with a smile on their face.
Most modern sled dogs don’t have the heavy-boned built and long hair most people expect, as they’ve been selected for speed, strength and endurance. The modern sled dog requires a lot of specialized care in order to excel at what they’re doing.
They require a well-built dog house with warm and dry straw, a high-calorie diet high in fat to sustain their very active lifestyle. Above all else they need daily mental and physical stimulation from their musher to be happy, content and form that so important team bond with the musher and the rest of the pack.
Sled dogs competing on the trails of Alaska and all around the world are the quintessential athlete, covering the trail at 8-10 mph for 1,000 miles in under eight days for the fastest teams.
Sprint dogs trained to compete in shorter races can cover 20 miles in under one hour for three days in a row. No other animal on earth can do this.
It is the privilege of each musher to be able to go along on this ride with these world-class athletes. The bond between the musher and the dogs is what it’s all about. The first thing new and aspiring mushers learn is to “never let go of the handlebar”. Sure, dogs are bonded to their musher and would do anything for them. One thing they don’t do is stop the team if the musher falls off. There is too much momentum going, too many dogs with the single-minded focus of running down the trail to be worried about the musher that just fell off the back of the sled. So the lesson is – don’t let go of the handlebar.