World of Sled Dogs

The purpose of this post to describe the positions and different roles of dogs in a sled dog team. There are two major types of hitch setup for running sled dogs.  The most common is called a tandem hitch, with the dogs running is sets of 2 stretched out in front of the dog sled itself.  The other type is called a Fan hitch and is used primarily in Northern regions in areas consisting of open terrain well above the tree line. I will focus on the Tandem Hitch because it has the most well defined positions and it's the setup that I am most familiar with. Leaders:   These are the dogs that occupy the two front positions on the team and are responsible for taking commands from the dog driver. The lead dogs will turn the team based purely on voice commands from the driver.  The lead position dogs also hold the team out in a straight manageable line.  This will prevent dogs from turning around and causing tangles in the team. Leaders almost always run in p...

Continuing my discussion on the types of dog sled races I will now introduce Stage Racing and Open Class racing. Stage Race:  These are races that are up to a week long with a stage ran every day from as short as a few mile sprint to a 50-60 mile mountain stage.  The race is setup to be very friendly to dogs and the people involved as well.  Every team will have a pool of dogs from which they may draw a maximum number of dogs to compete each day.  For example many races will have a 16 dog pool size with no more than 12 dogs being run any given day.  It is up to the racer to determine which dogs to run on each stage, when to rest dogs, and to possibly hold dogs in reserve and keep them as fresh as possible to use at the ideal time. Stage races usually travel from town to town in an almost Festival like atmosphere.  Spectators can get up close with the dogs and racers are able to rest properly in a hotel every night.  These races have changed over th...

If you were to ask the average person to name the most famous dog race, they would attempt to answer the Iditarod.  When I say "attempt" to answer it's because most people don't even know the real name and how to pronounce it.  It's some far off event in the middle of nowhere to them, so close enough. The reality is that there are many types of dog sled races ranging from pure Sprint events up to the classic distance race known as the Iditarod.  I hope this article will explain the key differences between the 2 major types of races. Sprint Race: Sprint races generally cover a distance of 4 to 12 miles.  These races are currently being raced by the fastest, hardest charging dogs and are commonly referred to as Limited Class racing.  What does this mean? Limited Class refers to the number of dogs for a set number of miles.  In general, limited classes will be laid out as something like, 4 Dog 4 mile, 6 dog 6 mile and so on.  The most common set of...

World of Sled Dogs Yes that is me, just a quick picture of me racing in 6 dog class at a local race.  I have been involved with sled dogs for over 20 years now.  Racing both distance and sprint races in Western Canada.  I am hoping that I will be able to help people starting out in the world of sled dogs as there really is a ton to learn.  Hopefully you won't make all the same mistakes that I made. Another shot of me blasting out of the starting chute a couple of years back, these dogs were moving. There are many different race types and obviously from my pictures different types of sled dogs. I am going to go into all of this in as much detail as possible from my experiences.  I am also hoping to follow a distance race that takes place in Western Canada.  I find there is very little race coverage on line and sometimes it can be confusing for someone watching from home to really understand what is going on in the race.  I think the bes...