• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Team Ineka

Mushin Down a Dream

  • The Dogs
  • Mushers
    • Michele Forto
    • Nicole Forto
    • Robert Forto
  • Blog
  • Contact Us
  • Home

Pacing the Team

January 21, 2010 by teamineka

Pacing the Team

By Robert Forto, PhD

It takes hard training to get a team in top physical and mental condition before race season. By the time the dogs are hardened, they have lost their eagerness and might even be in a slump. Depending on how tired the dogs are, the musher should stop the serious training before race season. The dogs should be allowed to rest. After resting, a few dogs can be taken out on some very short runs. They should be left on the picket line longer then they want to rest, and the musher should not run them as far as the dogs want to go. This will restore the dog’s attitude and they will be eager to run again. If a musher can manipulate the dogs so that they are crazy to go while still in top form and still controllable, then the team will reach it’s peak performance.  With skill and sound judgment a musher can “peak out” the team just in time for the biggest event of the season.

The musher need not be a behavioral scientist or a learning theorist to accomplish this peak. They need not know the nuances of Skinnerian conditioning, Ivan Pavlov, Karen Pryor or Conrad Most. They just need to be able to read their dogs and communicate with them in a way that allows for synchronicity in order to win races and make the sport fun.

Mushing has been termed a blue-collar sport, not a white-coated, scientific endeavor. The idea is to have fun and become one of the team—the musher is the boss/leader, the quarterback if you will, and the dogs are his teammates.

_______________
Dr. Robert Forto a professional musher for Team Ineka and is training for his first Iditarod. Dr. Forto can be reached through his website at https://teamineka.com

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: #dogs, #dogtraining, denver dog works, dog doctor radio, dog sledding, dog training denver, forto, ineka, Mushing, pet training denver, sport racing, team ineka

Primary Sidebar

Join us on Facebook

Join us on Facebook

Dog Training

Dog Training

Trips

Trips

Listen to our Podcast

Listen to our Podcast

Copyright © 2021 First Paw Media