Care and Training

Our dog care philosophy

Our first priority is excellent and humane dog care. We try to give our dogs the best possible care from birth throughout their lives. For example, we use a top quality food all year round, not just seasonally.

 

Due to our commitment to humane treatment of our dogs we do not offer cart rides in summer. Depending on the temperatures, pulling a cart could cause severe problems for the dogs such as heat-stress (just imagine yourself doing hard work outside on a warm summer day wearing parkas, skipants and bunny boots!). Instead we prefer to take them on walks and let them run free in groups, play around and swim in the Takhini River (guests are welcome to join!).


We also do our best to provide quality medical care for all our dogs, including our older dogs. They work hard for us in their younger years so we look after them well in retirement. Our senior dogs get special care and special food...treated like royalty.

 

We never 'cull' our kennel and very seldom sell or place dogs, but we do occasionally adopt retired dogs to good homes. We provide palliative care to our older dogs. As long as a dog is eating, drinking, mobile and not in discomfort, we believe they deserve to be well looked after in their retirement.

 

Putting our dog care beliefs into practice involves increased costs for vet care, food and medication. However, we wouldn't have dogs if we couldn't look after them well and we believe the guests who want to come to Muktuk are people who support this philosophy.

 

Breeding

When people hear the term 'sled-dog' they often picture the classic purebred Samoyed, Malamute or Siberian huskies. In reality very few mushers use purebred huskies for long distance touring or sled dog racing. And some sled dogs do not resemble traditional huskies at all.

Sled dogs are bred for performance - strength, endurance, speed and attitude. It is much more important to have a dog from a line of fast, strong champions than a purebred dog. When breeding you try to get the best qualities from different lines.

Attitude is the first thing we look for in a dog. Our dogs are really well-known for strength, will-power and determination as well as for their friendliness.

 

 

Training sled dogs

Sled dogs are run in many different arrangements, depending on terrain and the type of trip.

In the high Arctic and Siberia for example mushers run their dogs in a sort of fan, each dog on a separate line.

Elsewhere dogs are run in pairs on a single gangline. Teams can be from 4 to 20 dogs in size. There is an awful lot of power in a twenty-dog team and you have to deal with a very long gangline!

Sometimes dogs are run in single file on a gangline. And these days dogs are also hooked up to skiers, bicycles, four-wheelers, and carts - who knows what they will be pulling next!

For the Yukon Quest and wilderness touring we run our dogs in pairs on a single gangline. We use 14 dogs for the Quest, which is the maximum allowed. For touring we use 6 to 10 dogs.

 

As in any sports team, each dog has a particular job. Dogs are placed in positions that suit their individual strengths and we also try to place them next to their best buddy.

The dogs at the front of the team are the LEAD dogs and they are the ones who set the pace (run fastest), follow commands really well and read trail markers and trails in general.

Dogs immediately behind the leaders are SWING dogs. They can usually also run in the lead position and they back up the main leaders meaning that there's plenty of forward momentum.

The dogs immediately in front of the sled are WHEEL dogs. Their position is more physically demanding so they are almost always the biggest, strongest dogs in the team.

 

The rest of the dogs take turns in lead, swing or wheel positions, although dogs that run in lead seldom run in wheel.

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