BEGINNER BASICS: STARTER STORIES FOR THE NEW MUSHER
By Miki & Julie Collins
"Today, nearly 35 years after getting our first sled dog, we are still learning. After all the mistakes we made in those first few years, one of the most important lessons we learned was that problems have answers. You just have to know where to look for them!" Read more ›
BEGINNER BASICS: LESSONS LEARNED: THE REVISION OF DOG DRIVER: A GUIDE FOR THE SERIOUS MUSHER
By Miki & Julie Collins
"The monumental changes in mushing since the 1991 edition of our book ‘Dog Driver’ appeared made the job of revising it both exciting and challenging. Countless additional miles on the runners and our ongoing research had increased our knowledge, but to ensure depth and accuracy we spent hours interviewing top racers, veterinarians and other experts, constantly marveling at their knowledge and generosity." Read more ›
STUDYING THE HUMAN-SLED DOG RELATIONSHIP
By Gail Kuhl
“The relationship you have with the dogs, individually and as a team, is far away the most critical element to everything about the whole dog sledding experience.” Read more ›
THE REAL COST OF RUNNING THE IDITAROD AND YUKON QUEST
By John Schandelmeier
"What are the real costs of the Quest and the Iditarod and where do we spend it? Here they are; in way everyone can understand." Read more ›
SLED RX: THE DEADLIEST CARGO
By Dave Klumb
"It is so important for us in the mushing community to show people just how much fun mushing is and how happy the dogs are doing it. But at the same time we need to make sure that we do it safely." Read more ›
Meet the Sled Dogs
“Each year, Denali aims to breed or adopt one litter of sled dogs.” Read more ›
Life of a Sled Dog
“The pups spend their first two months of life nursing and sleeping, gaining more than a pound per week.” Read more ›
Learning About Dog Behavior
“Dogs have long been called man’s (and woman’s) best friend for a reason. There are studies showing that dogs possess the emotion to love us back; which is truly incredible. In addition, the social benefits of human and dog interaction can be long-term and rewarding.” Read more ›
Why Mush? The Denali Park Dogs in Winter
“In a modern world filled with high tech solutions for everything it can be hard to comprehend why we would still actively choose to use traditional dog team travel rather than any of the modern alternatives. In fact, there are many reasons to choose sled dogs.” Read more ›
How We Train Our Canine Athletes
“Training includes teaching the dogs commands and challenging them by giving these commands frequently and in unexpected places.” Read more ›
Sled Dogs ~ Truly Amazing Athletes
“I think it is so important to share what makes my dogs so uniquely capable of doing what they do; explaining how something that seems so daunting and impossible to so many is, in reality, something these dogs excel at.” Read more ›
“Where are your retired dogs?”
“They ask after seeing the puppies, they ask dropping the tone of their voice, they ask because they care about dogs. I get it.” Read more ›
Anatomy of Drop Bags –
A photo dissection of what goes into planning for 1000 miles
“Think about it: every item you will need, kibble you will feed, piece of clean clothing you have access to, and anything else you have thought of needs to be gathered together. Then it is counted or measured and organized to be packaged up and shipped out for your race.” Read more ›
Naming Dogs
“There are some logical rules to naming Dew Claw dogs, “2 syllables, can’t rhyme with NO”. But there is also the emotional side, how does the name ‘feel’? is it fun to yell? does it fit the dog?” Read more ›
Top 10 reasons I LOVE my Dogs!!!
“All working sled dogs are beautiful, and their beauty derives from the amazing athletic feats they are capable of and the special nature of our relationship with them.” Read more ›
Hero image by Toni Reitter