More on dogsledding
Just caught this article that looks at how sled dogs are so amazing, and wanted to point it out as I’ve had some first-hand contact with these very awesome animals. Last winter, I had the opportunity to do some dogsledding [photos here] while out in North Dakota with musher Nancy Yoshida, who is all set to run up to Alaska this week to do the Iditarod next year. You can check out Nancy’s fairly new blog here for more, and catch more about her dogs here.
Most of us have come in contact with a number of different types of dogs in their lives, but I really haven’t seen anything like these dogs. The closest comparison I could make for you right now is that they run pretty much like all the stories we heard about Michael Phelps this past Olympics season - here’s a quote from that Discovery article on MSNBC that sums it up pretty well.
Finally, each approximately 55-pound sled dog can burn up to 12,000 kilocalories per day, which is the equivalent of 24 McDonald’s Big Macs. A human would have to consume and efficiently process the equivalent of 72 Big Macs to fuel a day’s Iditarod run.
It’s not so much that they *can* consume enough calories to get their run on, but that they *do* it, on a regular basis. Upon seeing them get lined up for the sled, it’s pretty clear that they’re ready to go and that they want to run like it’s nobody’s business. Stop for two seconds and dig in the brake, and they sit there and wait for you to hop back on, and will turn it on the moment you give them any inkling it’s time to go.
In any case, it’s kind of an offbeat thing for most people, but if you’re looking to learn a bit more about sled dogs and what makes them tick, this article’s a pretty interesting start.
Dogsledding details
Just wanted to close the loop on the dogsledding that I had gotten to do over Christmas week while I was in North Dakota. The big stack of photos are still up here, and there are almost 150 more photos to come.
For those of you who were interested in knowing, I’d been taken out by Nancy Yoshida, who runs Reach For The Sky Kennel. She’s currently training for the 2009 Iditarod, and has about 25 dogs, of which she can run 16 for the event. She’s doing fundraising online, and if you’re interested in sponsoring her efforts, it’s $50 a “mile,” of which there are about 1,100 on the route. More information here, and you can see her donation progress here.
Thanks for your interest - it was a really great time, and I can’t wait to get back out and do it again.
More dogsledding
Did some more dogsledding today, had an awesome time out there for about 90 minutes or so. The dogs are just crazy awesome. Will post some more photos later. So wishing I had a video camera to use the whole time I’m out there cruising along. More soon!
Dogsledding photos
Dogsledding photos are up on Flickr. More later.