-
Each dog has its own harness and its own
position on the team. The lead dogs are always harnessed and placed on the
gangline (line attached to the sled that goes down the middle of the two lines
of dogs) first otherwise the other dogs fret as they do not have leaders.
-
When you stop for the day a
chain is strung on the ground between two points and from that chain there are
shorter chains spaced along its length on which to clip the dogs. The shorter
chains are just far enough apart so that the dogs cannot get to each other.
-
When you have finished
sledding the dogs come off in the reverse order i.e. the dogs nearest the sled
come off first and the leaders last.
-
Dogs always come first, water
is collected for the dogs' meal before water for the humans. Dogs are fed
first.
-
The dogs don’t drink water so
you have to make up a soup of reindeer meat for them to eat to get water
inside them, although you will sometimes see them putting their face in the
snow as they run as though they were taking snow to eat.
-
Once they have had the soup
they are given a block of reindeer meat. Along the trails there are lodges,
one of the outbuildings will hold a boiler for the water to make the soup.
Beside the boiler are large blocks of frozen reindeer meat which look like
large bars of chocolate. You take an axe and chop off a cube which is 1 kilo,
you then chop this in half and throw that half to the dog. If you hand it to
the dog it will bite your fingers off. The frozen block is gone in a flash.
-
The dogs’ capillaries stop
about half an inch or more from the skin so that they do not lose heat. They
rest during the summer and eat so that come the autumn they are quite plump by
the spring they are quite skinny through running all winter. They do not
enjoy the heat.
-
When sledding if you go
through soft snow you have to get off and run pushing the sled to help the
dogs.
-
When going up hill you have to
get off the sled and run pushing the sled to help the dogs.
-
You mustn’t let the gangline
go slack otherwise the dogs get their paws caught in it and get injured.
-
When you are sledding and the
dogs turn to the left you have to lean to the left and when they turn to the
side you have to lean to the right.
-
If you fall you have to keep
hold of the sled even if it means being dragged along the trail – you must not
let go of the sled. Particularly important if reindeer are near.
-
When you stop the sled you
have to stamp an ‘ice anchor’ (metal double hook) into the ice to hold the
sled and then tie a line to something secure to hold the sled.
