How do you harness up and put 12-14 dogs on a gang-line without them turning and playing up?
GR:
I don’t race dogs. I run big teams because sometimes I’m away for three months with my dogs pulling half-tonne payloads. I harness up alone and most of the time it’s cold. By cold I mean minus forty. I live in Greenland and run Greenland Dogs, the only breed allowed above the Arctic Circle here. From November to June/July and I train, condition and travel with my dogs. My house is on a hill and when the sea freezes over I run my dogs from right outside my house, down a track and on to the ocean ice.
If you run dogs, one thing you and I have in common is we all hope for a good start getting our dogs out. On a journey when I break camp and pack my sled, my dogs know to rest. The action starts when I harness my leaders. But from home even as I position one of my sleds, secure a load and pack a firearm before harnessing, my dogs are already going frantic to be one of those chosen to go run.
The dogs’ thunderous full-throttle din continues as I drop and heel in a snow hook before tying off a painter/snub line – call it what you want – to one of my shipping containers and tie off with a quick release knot. The line is 10 metres of black static climbing rope and always trails from behind my sled. It’s a rope that is there to be grabbed in the event that dogs and sled head off without their driver. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. We’ve all been there. I’ve had rope go through my gripped gloved hands so fast it burnt holes through leather and left me with blistered fingers.
One last thing I do to my sled before harnessing up is to throw a snowmobile fan-belt over the prow of each runner when going out on hard packed snow to create drag or in deep snow I use ship rope for the loops. The idea of all the drag is to slow down my sled and be in total control of my dogs before we get on to flat sea ice. I have rolled a sled 360 degrees without letting go and I don’t recommend it. On a journey going down very steep river glare ice – ice without snow cover – I use large chain loops to slow everything down.
Next I layout my gangline and begin by harnessing lead dogs first, behind these come leaders in training, next team dogs and wheel dogs at the back nearest to my sled. On journeys I always harness up my dogs at right angles to my sled and parallel to my stakeout chain. This is always ninety degrees from the direction my dogs know we are heading for and gives me another breaking tactic as I harness my entire team. They will not go back on themselves and will be cursed if they dare go through dogs still on the overnight stakeout chain.
Harnessing a big team requires experienced leaders. My leaders, Loads and Vital set the whole tone of my team. Bigness and Girly are learning to lead. I have the attitude that every dog is talented. Sometimes this talent is obvious, sometimes not. Either way it’s my job to determine each dog’s motivation and to foster it in order for every dog to thrive to a point where they are confident in absolutely everything they do.
I give all my dogs a chance at leading, some dogs live to lead, others do not. They’re like people. Sometimes it’s just plain obvious a dog wants to be up front, Bigness was like that. One day I gave Loads the command ili-ili and there was Bigness yanking over to the right from the middle of the team. Hence promotion.
If you have a leader you can teach it to teach another. It’s easy for me to experiment with a potential leader by running him beside one who knows what he’s doing. Starting from scratch without leaders and you’ll have to think small and lessons learnt must be perfected before moving on to the next. If you run tandem, first lay out a gang-line, secure at the sled end and harness your leader.
Stand in front of him and have him stay. Perfect that. Walk circles around him. Perfect that. Walk away and walk back to him. All the while he must not budge from keeping forward. If he does put him back and give your command. Drill word association into him. Perfect that. Harness a pair behind him and perfect the no budge rule. It doesn’t matter if he sits or stands there’s no getting away with it, he must not budge. In a nutshell: be consistent: hard but fair, keep the training short and never move on to the next without perfecting the previous. A command is a command and not a request. This is your building block.
I only ever introduce one new dog or youngster into a run at a time. He’ll be the one most likely to mess around and the others won’t tolerate it. If the youngster is smart he learns very fast. If he’s not smart I remain patient and watch.
I head my team’s hierarchy. Next comes Knuckle, my boss dog. He’s no bully. He’s anvil-hard but fair with the knack of knowing when to apply severity. When I introduce youngsters to harnessing they don’t always get it. Paired alongside Knuckle if they fool around he has a go at them and I leave them to it, generally a smart youngster will submit and lay down. I do not interfere. Bigness was smart and submitted but bounced back up with a lesson learnt. If he wasn’t so smart I’d have remained patient. It’s worth mentioning that I keep these youngster training teams to what I consider small: no more than eight dogs in a team.
Loads pulls a gangline into a steel rod. He does not tolerate being budged and will dish out fanged threats for learning leaders like Bigness moving from the spot as I continue harnessing. Running tandem hitch and leaders who don’t budge while you’re harnessing will potentially keep a team on the straight especially with two good swing dogs. With two pairs behind doing the same it makes for a solid foundation. Wheel dogs aren’t looking anywhere but to go forward so that leaves four dogs to work on in the middle.
Harnessing big teams is no time to dither. Greenland Dogs generate and maintain colossal power in harness and I’ve known human digits to be lost when they were still in ropes or sled parts at the start of a run. With the entire team harnessed and on the cusp of getting going they bang and bang forward for all they’re worth into their harnesses, slathering and possessed to get going. At the critical moment I’m on the lookout for something that tries to swing that motivation elsewhere like a dog deciding it’s a great idea to chew a neck or tug line to instigate a dogfight from hell. If it happens with a youngster I remember all this and later give him a chain neckline to try and chew. I lift the snow hook, slip the knot and then I give it to them, the command to go. The exhilaration never fades. The power in that moment is at exploding point as my dogs’ immense instinctive desire to pull is unfurled in one massive crescendo of power. It always gives me goose bumps.
Lead dogs set the pace while breaking trail, all the time they’re alert for my voice commands. There’s no such thing as a groomed trail where I live and quality lead dogs not only determine where they are going they also make for sure-footing ice and packed snow to maintain momentum. They feel for the best conditions through their feet. I refrain from saying anything to my leaders unless it’s a command.
Of course there are many variations to doing what I’ve said. All hunting here is done with dogs. A lot of full-time hunters never take their dogs out of harness the idea being, if there’s a bear, seal, whale, walrus or musk-ox seen, it’s straight out with dogs to hunt for food, family and home. I always take harnesses off, I want my dogs to know that’s the end of business and time to relax. I’ve seen Greenlanders run their leaders loose. They also use the word aqui for dogs to hit the deck. And if you think harnessing up 12 or 14 dogs is frantic, you want to try doing it with six or more other dog teams harnessing up at the same time. This is the scene here when we travel together. Whips are used, not as some would have you believe for beating dogs to a pulp but for cracking on the opposite side of where you want a moving team to go. I favour voice commands, especially when harnessing up. If I’m harnessing my twelfth dog and ready to go and a leader turns, I give a word that sets him out dead straight again.
I hope there are some points here that might help you but it’s a good idea to remember that just because I can get dogs to do all this for me doesn’t mean they’d perform the same for you. What I’ve shared with you here is the way I do things. You might apply some of the things I do but ultimately you must know your dogs inside out and apply all you can give to dogs you believe in. One thing I can guarantee you though, we all have leaders that have the potential to have us eating our fists.