Necessity is the Mother of All Lead Dogs
October 28, 2002

Seavey's Iditarod Racing Team--Sterling, AK
by Jim Gallea

I've just returned from a quick but wonderful trip to Montana.  I really enjoyed being able to see my friends and family 'back home,' and, of course, being able to see my mom and her team at our kennel (Snowcrest Racing Sled Dogs) in Seeley Lake.  I'll have more about my mom and her training in my next update.

Right now, my mind is on lead dogs.  We all want as many lead dogs as we can possibly get, but the really great ones that would run off the end of the earth are few and far between.  The problem is finding and training those rare ones when so many dogs appear to be great leaders.

Tyrell and I are spending a lot of our time working with our two-year-olds in lead.  This time may be better spent smashing our heads into brick walls, but we are certain that our efforts will pay off eventually (although maybe not until the dogs are six or seven years old).  Actually, we are having a fair bit of success working with these leaders, and that is a good thing because we only have two bona fide adult lead dogs for the nearly 60 two-year-olds in training.

We are often asked how we know which dogs are going to be lead dogs.  The honest truth is that we don't--we just watch the way the dogs perform in the team, and try the most "forward oriented" and focused dogs up front.  Sometimes we guess correctly and other times we don't.  With two-year-olds, some dogs show talent in lead immediately while others seem to lose all intelligence as soon as they realize that they don't have another dog to follow.  But keep in mind, a dog that doesn't take to lead immediately may still become a leader--perhaps it just needs to mature a bit more first.

Yonkers

As Tyrell mentioned in an earlier update, he is working with a dog named Yonkers.  Tyrell has been working with Yonkers since he was only a year old, and it is obvious that Yonkers has learned from his experiences.  As for myself, I am working with Yonkers' sister, Harlem.  Harlem has not had as much practice in lead, but, like her brother, she is showing herself to be a very hot prospect.  

Harlem--always looking down the trail

Naturally, we each think that our personal lead dog is the best, which leads to a lot of "civilized" discussion around the dinner table.  I try to remind Tyrell of the times that Yonkers has missed corners and caused huge unruly tangles.  He tries to remind me that Harlem once tried to turn me onto the Sterling Highway rather than the trail toward home.  My reply is usually that Harlem was just curious and really didn't intend to go out onto the highway.  I'm sure that you can imagine how the rest of the conversation goes...

I guess the main point of this whole story is that we actually are having success in training new lead dogs.  Both Harlem and Yonkers are now capable of running alone in lead for entire runs, and, for the most part, they do quite well.  In fact, we are starting to use Yonkers to help train other potential leaders, and both dogs have shown enough ability up front that Tyrell and I already feel confident to use them in races.

In this photograph, two 16-dog teams are passing head-on.  Without well-trained lead dogs, this can easily turn into a "32-dog pile-up."  Harlem is in lead in the team on the right, and Yonkers is in lead in the team on the left.

Creating new lead dogs is a big part of the overall challenge of running a "puppy" team.  First and foremost, we do only have two adult lead dogs, and we know that we will need a much larger pool of lead dogs if both of us are to get to Nome without having to play the part of "lead dog" ourselves.  Secondly, training new leaders is a huge test of our ability to read and understand our dogs, and that makes for good practice.  And finally, we are training these young dogs so that Tyrell's dad, Mitch, can use them in his highly competitive teams in future years.  The success we are enjoying is rewarding.

We are really pleased with how training is going, and we are looking forward to testing Harlem and Yonkers on longer, more demanding runs, and we are also excited to try a number of additional dogs in lead.  At present, Viking, Zeus, Zero, Mozart, Petey, and Caesar are at the top of the list.  We'll keep you posted.

Think cold weather and snow--it's warm and rainy here.

Jim Gallea
10/28/02

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