"Do you want me to get you by sled today?"
I’m standing in the middle of our dogyard with harnesses in one hand and the cell phone in the other, while the dogs are watching me, expectantly.
"Yes!" My daughter Tuva has dreamt about this day; be picked up at school, jump on the sled(actually driving it herself, with all her classmates watching) and elegantly take off to everybody’s astonishment. I ask her to be ready in 15 minutes.
The 2 kilometres steep downhill stretch to Tuva’s school should be easy to cover in that time. Our dogs are running loose in the dogyard and are harnessed in a certain order. Balto, a yellowish, polarbear-like, muscular male with a couple of bite marks in his ears from his childhood archrival Biff, bustles like an uncoordinated piece of jelly towards me. He thereby drives his shoulder with little elegance into my hip, so I have to bend over even more, and that was the point, right? The harness is put on in 1/5 of a second before I turn around and snatch Biff’s collar. If I don’t get a hold of him now, he has a tendency to play tag for a while before he lets me come close again. Lømmel, our borrowed –dog-for-the-season is the next in line. He is overwhelmed by joy, but doesn’t know it himself yet. Only when the neckline is about to come on does he realize what is about to happen, and then he expresses himself freely. At the moment, he is a bit paranoid, but he tolerates to get harnessed and starts a careful sort of warm up around the yard. Rime, a Finnish giant who at the moment tries to find his place in the hierarchy makes a couple of moves, before he rolls over and gives himself in. “Do you really have to put that thing on me?”…but when it’s done he is the happiest in the world! Our female leader, Tara, has all the time been watching it all through the opening of her little red doghouse. It really doesn’t look like she wants to do anything at all, but my suspicious mind feels that she queens it. Everybody’s attention is drawn towards her while she nonchalantly drags herself out of the doghouse, saying:” You won’t come far without me!”.
During the two and a half years we have had sleddogs, we have read about an invaluable gadget called Quick release, a sort of handbrake which can come in handy when the dogs really want to get started. As a former Scout with a wide experience in practical and less practical knots, I have felt the need for such an easy solution a bit exaggerated. A good solid knot tied to the tow bar should do the trick,- and off to a good start!
The Collins sisters in Alaska have in one of their books given advice about how to get safely down steep and icy slopes: chains around the runners. My intention is to try this advice out now, because the last time I drove down the hill, I barely survived. After the dogs are hooked up (Lømmel has now realized how lucky he is and screams and jumps like crazy) I walk towards the house to look for a couple of short chains to limit the risk of being killed going downhill. After a couple of minutes I find what I’m looking for, and I’m at the same time pleased since the dogs seem to have settled down. Noisy dogs are a real nuisance. Actually, it’s rather odd that even Lømmel isn’t practicing opera right now, he usually doesn’t give up that easily…..it can’t be……a panicky feeling starts spreading, as I run towards the pick-up to come in visual contact with the dogs. NO,- it can’t be possible! They’re gone! I immediately visualize the team being strangled by necklines, crushed to death by big trucks or luckily hunting the neighbours sheep, hens, horses etc….I’m cursing the stupid Scout knots, while I in fact am trying to catch up with a team of 5 well-rested huskies going downhill with an empty sled behind them.
While I’m running around a bend about 100 metres from our house, I suddenly become the luckiest man on earth. Who else than our leader, Tara is watching me with reproachful eyes. “Where on earth have you been? Isn’t it a bit too much to ask of me to try to control this bunch?” The other dogs are at the moment inventing new knots. The sled had luckily for me turned over and got stuck. The 15 minutes were up already, and I feel a bit stressed.
The next part of the meant-to-be-short-and-easy-trip passes without any problems. With chains around the runners I have complete control,- or at least more control than earlier. Maybe I should invent quick-chains for runners? Pleased with myself and the Collins sisters I slowly pass our neighbour’s two mildly hysterical Setters, greet some neighbours shovelling snow in their driveways before I reach the bottom of the hill. From there on there are one potential danger, the crossing of the county road.
What I don’t know is that there is another obstacle waiting; the catechetical class has just ended in our local church meaning: a group of nearly adults are probably for the first time being cornered by a galloping dog team while they turn out the church gate. They spread quickly and a bit shocked (the hysterical laughter gave them away), before I stood in front of the biggest obstacle,- the county road. A big truck is passing at great speed while I try the eeeaassyy command. And the team actually takes it easy, in a split second, before they follow the truck….away from the schoolyard! I observe in some sort of panicky relief that the county road is empty of other motorized vehicles while I see the schoolyard disappearing behind me. I use the brake, while I shout (a bit loud, maybe) Gee….and to my great relief… Tara slows down and turns …left! This introduces me to a totally new way of turning around, namely the zig-zag method. Tara walks literally through the whole team, while I in the corner of my eye can see the school-bus approaching. I let go of the sled and goes full throttle into the knot of lines to drag the whole team off the road. By the time I reach the lawn beside the road the pupils from the church have caught up with us. One of the girls who seems to be scared of dogs makes an attempt to avoid us, but manages instead to end up in the middle of the team and the knotted lines. “They are very kind,- just move slowly backwards!”. I try to convince her that everything is just fine while Balto, who has been tied closer to Lømmel than he desires, starts to growl at him to make him back off. Meanwhile, the school-bus has stopped right beside me. The girl is totally paralyzed, but after some seconds(it felt like years) she backs away from the knot of dogs and lines hopefully without any everlasting psychologically wounds. The rest of the pupils have in the meantime been watching what I by the time consider to be the work of the devil himself.
“Hi, Dad! About time!” My daughter has been waiting nearly half an hour. “Can you drive over here, so Rikke(one of her friends) can look at the dogs?”. I realize that Tuva hasn’t quite understood that I at that moment had reached the bottom of my dogdriver career and needed a short break from any challenges connected to driving dogs. “Not today, I’m afraid!” She comes over. A lot of parents arriving by car make the turn around of the team somewhat difficult. Tuva takes a seat and then we dash elegantly out of the parking lot. At least were her expectations fulfilled.
The next stop is the kindergarten where my son is waiting. The trip down to the kindergarten goes well, since this is part of the trail for cart training. I tie the sled to the fence outside the kindergarten with a real “killer-knot”. Tuva goes in with me but is placed by the window to keep an eye on the dogs, if something should happen (why so cautious, well need I say more….) In the kindergarten all the children were excited because of the dogs, and my son, nearly 3 years old, has never voluntarily get dressed any faster. With both children in the sled, I find out that the couple of minutes of rest the dogs have had outside the fence have given them new energy, and the “killer-knot” doesn’t seem like a good idea any longer. Have you tried to untie a knot with 5 eager dogs in the other end of the rope? To make the matter worse,- the rope was too long for me to get a hold of the sled as I tried to untie the knot. I therefore decided to wrap one part of the rope around my left hand while I tried to untie the rope with my right hand. People inside and outside the kindergarten witnessed a peculiar take off since the knot suddenly decided to untie itself, and Hein’s dad was turned around and dragged on his stomach after the sled, possibly interested in studying the snow in the parking lot, but after a while able to get up on his feet. With more weight in the sled and familiar ground to cover the rest of the trip must be described as a more or less success. “The dogs look fit!”, my wife commented when we stopped in front of the house. “Yes”…..
After letting the whole experience sink in I have found out that I’m glad to have experienced such a nightmare. It was the shortest and most difficult sled-trip I had ever experienced, and I learned more from it then from all the other training runs I had had during the rest of the season. I will even recommend it! BUT more than 5-just-a-tiny-bit-obedient-dogs in a populated area, is not a good idea,- at least not from my point of view. Another thing,- remember to practice good knots or buy yourself a quick release!
Ulf
