alaskan husky

Are Alaskan Huskies a True Breed? By Al Magaw

July 25, 2010 by teamineka

Are Alaskan Huskies a True Breed?

By Al Magaw

A recent study led by graduate student Heather Huson on the genetic makeup of sled dogs has revealed some surprising answers to the question, “Are alaskan huskies a true breed? ” A news write up can be found at the “Fairbanks Daily Miner” (“Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – entry Sled dogs are a breed apart study finds”) and the complete study at http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2156-11-71.pdf

In brief, Heather Huson says that the alaskan husky, no matter the heritage, has developed genetic markers that define it as a unique breed of it’s own, “essentially a breed of their own, as unique as poodles or corgis”. “Alaskan sled dogs are selected to be fast, tough, and hard working. That’s been enough to make them a distinct breed, according to a new genetic study” This surprising, to many, result has developed not because of common ancestry, but by breeding for purpose. The genetic markers are more consistent than those found in siberians or malemutes, which often show identical markers. The markers in alaskan huskies do show their genetic makeup, be it german shorthair pointers or siberians or malemutes, eskimos or elkhounds, but the markers that make it an alaskan husky are the same. The study also showed whether the alaskan type was better for distance or sprint and it showed the ancestry that was best for “speed, endurance, or work ethic”. (I find that grouping of ratings amazingly coincidental as that is the same groupings I used when rating the dogs in my kennel as I started the attempt to establish my own bloodlines over 30 years ago and still use today).

“Alaskan sled dogs seem like they shouldn’t have much in common genetically. They look different—they can be long-haired or short-haired, floppy-eared or perky-eared, 13 or 30 kilograms. And though breeders of distance dogs tend to stick to other Alaskan sled dogs, sprint-dog breeders mix in other breeds, like English pointers, shorthaired pointers, and even greyhounds. But Huson found much more commonality than she anticipated”

I have to compare this emergence of a unique breed brought about through breeding for usage to Darwin’s brilliant study of evolutionary development. Darwin showed that how species developed was caused by environmental pressures, as well as mutations, over millions of years. Man has shortened this time frame dramatically in the development of different breeds of dogs to just a few hundred years and the Alaskan Husky may be the latest in this process. So now, all you alaskan husky fans, you can claim that you really are running a true breed of husky, and perhaps, due to this remarkable study, the use of alaskans in some previously prohibiting countries will now be allowed. Please excuse me as I’m on the way out the door now to give my purebred alaskans a big hug!

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Al Magaw is a musher from Salmo, BC. Al keeps a medium sized kennel of 20 – 45 alaskan huskies as well as several pet dogs of various breeds. Al has been training and racing for the last 33 years. Before becoming involved with sled dogs, Al, along with his family, kept and competed with horses for many years. Al can be reached through his website athttp://www.spiritofthenorthkennels.com Al is a guest blogger for Denver Dog Works and can be reached through our website athttp://www.denverdogworks.com

Intuition vs. Images

May 30, 2010 by teamineka

Intuition vs. Images

By Al Magaw

We have all met those people, often women, who have an uncanny intuition for reading other people, developing trust or reservations almost instantly. It’s uncanny how often people who have a good intuition make a correct assessment. After making many mistakes in my life, some serious, some not so serious, I’ve learned to trust my own faint semblance of intuition more than I used to. I realise now that the slight feeling of apprehension that I had felt in various situations was closer to the truth than what my brain, while weighing the more obvious evidence, evidence gained through the normal senses, had figured it was. How this works, I have no idea, but there are few arguments that would dispute that there is such a thing as intuition.

Dogs, and other animals, have developed a method of communication that uses no sounds, no motions, and no visible clues as to how it works. It’s very mysterious, and there is very little hard scientific evidence available to confirm it, yet virtually every pet owner that is close to their pet has stories of how their dog, cat, horse, etc, has shown a remarkable ability to know what it’s owner, with no apparent signal being given, is going to be doing or wants from his pet. There are some, including this author, that believe dogs communicate through their ability to read and send images – a question that presents itself to me is this, “Is our intuition linked in some way to an animal’s ability to communicate through images”? There are certainly some demonstrable comparisons.

“Gramma” insists that someone is a bad person after meeting them for the first time and only for a few moments at that. It’s a scenario that is common enough and accurate enough to get a laugh.

We’ve all seen or heard of the normally friendly dog that all of it’s life had greeted everyone with a wagging tail, that suddenly wouldn’t let a stranger out of their vehicle. One of my own dogs was normally a wuss in his day to day life, friendly to everyone, yet one day when a pickup drove into the yard with two men in it, he objected to one of the men in the truck. “Ozzie” didn’t mind that the driver got out of the truck and came to the door, but he insisted the passenger not set foot on the ground. “Ozzie” was a Shropshire terrier, all black, with large, very white teeth, and with teeth showing and the hair on his back all bristled up, no one was going to argue with him. Why did Ozzie object to the passenger and not the driver? It couldn’t have been the truck or he would have objected to both men. Was the man in the truck imaging some sort of harm?

A lady I know, had one of her Alaskan Huskies chained in the back of her pickup when she stopped to give a hitchhiker a ride. The man was no sooner in the pickup than the woman realized there was something wrong with him, an intuition that the man could be a threat. The sliding rear window was open, and somehow the big dog, “Zeus”, hampered by being tied in the back of the pickup, was able to wiggle in through the open sliding rear window and plant himself firmly between passenger and driver.

In all of the above cases there was no reasonable, no discernible, reason to come to the conclusion that they came to, dog, Gramma or lady driver, yet we have to assume there was some sort of communication before any of them could come to the conclusion that they did. Does intuition and silent, image based communication come from the same source, the same instinct? Does the evidence of other inherited instincts from our animal fore-bearers also include the ability, though faded, to understand images coming from a fellow human or some other creature? Is the dog’s heightened awareness a super strong intuition? I don’t have the answers to these questions, but the evidence causes me to ask them.

We rely so much on eyesight, hearing, and touch, that we’ve lost much of what it takes to understand other possible ways of communicating. Because we don’t understand something, or can’t see, hear, or feel it, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t so.

Do you have a remarkable story about one of your dogs? Contact us at live@dogdoctorradio.com We would love to hear from you.

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Al Magaw is a musher from Salmo, BC. Al keeps a medium sized kennel of 20 – 45 alaskan huskies as well as several pet dogs of various breeds. Al has been training and racing for the last 33 years. Before becoming involved with sled dogs, Al, along with his family, kept and competed with horses for many years. Al can be reached through his website at http://www.spiritofthenorthkennels.com Al is a guest blogger for Denver Dog Works and can be reached through our website at http://www.denverdogworks.com

K-9 Communication by Al Magaw

April 25, 2010 by teamineka

K-9 Communication

by Al Magaw

I think every dog owner has experienced incidents when their dog seems to know, without being told, when the owner is going to be doing something that the pet will be involved in. Much of this recognition can be put down to clues like a break in routine, body language, verbalization, etc. There are times, though, when none of the above apply. Times like a Saturday morning when the owner gets up at the same hour as normal, puts on the same clothes as normal, goes through the same routine as they do the rest of the week, yet the dog is filled with excitement because they “know” they are going too. There has been no verbalization, no change in routine, yet the dog knows. How is this possible? I’ve always wondered about this phenomena. I didn’t pursue this line of thought though, even when I was demonstrating how my dog would do tricks as I silently read a list of tricks scribbled on a scrap of paper. I did my best to not move my body, nor give any clue, even avoiding eye contact, but “Cylus” would reliably roll over, sit up, speak, etc., as I read what ever trick was written on the list. It made a great parlour trick to show off to friends and family, but it wasn’t until I got my little border collie, “Quick” that it dawned on me that this phenomenon of silent communication went much further than a parlour trick.

Many mushers have experienced having leaders that would go down the wrong trail, perhaps a dangerous one, no matter what command was being given. The common advice given is to keep your thoughts on the trail you want to be on, rather than the one you don’t. I’ve heard mushers claim that all they have to do is to picture in their mind what trail they want to travel without giving a command, and that’s where their “in tune” leader will go. Many obedience trainers will advise “picturing” the behavior you want from your dog, rather than fearing the behavior you don’t want.

To get back to “Quick”. Quick was a rescue from the pound. I’ve always admired the intelligence of the border collie, the dedication to the job they have, their alertness and awareness of what’s going on, but I had no expectations of what was going to happen with Quick. Quick assumed the job as caretaker of the kennel, a self imposed job that she has dutifully fulfilled for the past 13-years. She treats the kennel dogs as her charges, much as a dog like her would be expected to treat a herd of sheep. Not only does Quick do her best to keep order in the kennel, and does her best to help bring dogs from the kennel to the hook-up area, she has brought loose dogs back to the truck when we were traveling. Quick never leaves the kennel to follow a team when we’re training at home. When we return from a run, she goes up the side of the team with me as I give each dog a pet and a “good dog” for a job well done. Quick will nuzzle an ear as I give each dog a pet, as if she too was saying “good dog”. That is until we come to a dog that screwed up on the run. To me, once we are home, every dog is a “good dog” and they all get their pet, yet Quick will start to scold and nag that dog with a series of sharp yips and barks. How she knows what a dog did on the trail, I could only surmise. It took a friend of mine to point out the most remarkable thing about Quick and the sled dogs though. Occasionally, Quick will scold a dog on it’s way from the kennel to the hook-up area, and sure enough THAT dog will screw up during the run! That’s when I realized that dogs have a way of communicating well beyond mere words. Not only are they able to silently communicate complex things, they have an awareness of the future, and can make plans and follow through with those plans.

Some humans have admirable intuitions about people or events. Watching my dogs for all these years has made me wonder if what is commonly called “intuition” is a vestige of what animals do all the time, much as our tail bone is a vestige of a tail.

We would love to hear your comments regarding this article. Please let us know at live@dogdoctorradio.com

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Al Magaw is a musher from Salmo BC. Al keeps a medium sized kennel of 20 – 45 alaskan huskies as well as several pet dogs of various breeds. Al has been training and racing for the last 33 years. Before becoming involved with sled dogs, Al, along with his family, kept and competed with horses for many years. Al can be reached through his website at http://www.spiritofthenorthkennels.com Al is a guest blogger for Denver Dog Works and can be reached through our website at http://www.denverdogworks.com

Who Are These Dogs That Pull Sleds? The Alaskan Husky and Village Dog

April 20, 2010 by teamineka

Who Are These Dogs That Pull Sleds? The Alaskan Husky and Village Dog

By Robert Forto, PhD

Are they purebreds or mongrels? What sets them apart from other dogs and enables them to work with man under brutal weather conditions? What sort of strange dog is it that yammers and yowls to be a part of a team, preferring to work or race than rest in a warm kennel?

Written pedigrees are not required to enter a sled dog race, nor does the dog have to be a northern breed, although a majority of dogs on the racing trail are related to working dogs of the North. These dogs have a strong instinct to pull. These dogs can be everything from an American Kennel Club registered Siberian Husky, a “one-quarter husky” mixed breed, or any variety in between. These dogs can be Irish Setters, Walker Coonhounds or even a Border Collie. In search of an unbeatable dog team, dozens and dozens of cross-breedings, in-breedings and line breedings have been tried. Some breeders work within a recognized breed, seeking to refine that breed’s natural talents; others select the fastest and strongest or whatever dogs come to their attention, caring more about performance than good looks or a fancy pedigree.

Alaskan Husky and Village Dog

Mixed breeds ran the first sled dog races in Nome, Alaska, and today’s best teams are still made up of mixed breeds, although of a vastly different genetic composition. The first racing sled dogs were “working animals first and racers second.” The Eskimos and Indians of Alaska had their natural breeds of sled dogs when the gold “stampeders” arrived in the last years of the 1800’s, but there were not enough dogs to support the thousands of men and women traveling around the territory. As a result, large, strong dogs were brought from the lower 48 states, mixed in with the northern dogs, and the result was mongrel sled dogs like those of Scotty Allan. These were the dogs that won the early All-Alaska Sweepstakes races, but were rapidly replaced by the fast, more intelligent and more eager to please Siberian Huskies on the racing trails. Then as sled dog racing became popular and profitable in Alaska, drivers bred their working stock with the fastest native dogs they could find. These tough hybrids provided a speedy tenacity, and when interbred with the bigger Alaskan Malamute or the Mackenzie River Husky (the biggest of the natural sled dog breeds from Canada) produced a racing sled dog to suit most early competitors.

The most frequent canine winners of sled dog races today are Alaskan Huskies and another indigenous Alaskan marvel called the Village Dog. Neither of these types are purebreds but they are recognized as distinct nevertheless. The Alaskan Husky is essentially a mixture of northern dogs, and would be called simply “husky” in Alaska. The Village or Indian Dog is the chief racing dog in Alaska and has been for many years. Basically a northern dog, but in his background is anything from domestic stock, to wolf, to whatever the interior villages of Alaska had around.

Alaskan Huskies, bred mainly by white men in the north, reveal their dominant arctic genes in their appearance; a nicely marked face, curled tail, pricked ears, and perhaps blue eyes. The larger of this type have been bred from Malamutes or Mackenzie River Huskies or even wolves. The smaller ones reflect their Siberian Husky or Samoyed background. Siberian-Malamute cross-breedings yield the most common Alaskan Huskies, but there can also be Eskimo or Greenland Husky, or any other northern breed mixed in. The average Alaskan Husky stands from 24 to 26 inches high, weighs between 50 and 70 pounds, and can be quite handsome. This breed is taller than the Siberian, lighter and rangier than the Malamute and stronger than almost any other bred on the snowy racing trail.

Ever since the mid-fifties when John Huntington surprised the racing world by winning the Dual Championship with a dog team from Huslia, Alaska, the dogs from that area have been deservedly famous for their racing abilities. Neither Huntington or George Attla can definitely pin down the origin of this village dog, but they are aware of variations from village to village. According to Attla, “the average production of good dogs in Huslia is much higher than any place I have been to. I have gone to a lot of places and gone through a lot of dogs, just buying dogs generally, but I still get my best percentage right in Huslia.” The Huslia strain shared with other Koyukuk River villages of Allakaket and Hughes, contains some hound, collie and Labrador Retriever, since that is what is in the village. They are fast, strong sled dogs and have earned the title of “Huslia Hustler” for several of the local racers.

Efforts to keep track of sled dogs in their own registry are more popular in the lower 48 states than in Alaska. The Alaskan Husky Club provides a registry for the non-pedigreed Alaskan Husky and the International Sled Dog Racing Association has developed guidelines for registering sled dogs. Qualifications for dogs on these registries are based on performance, similar to the Border Collie registries for herding, and not on appearance. A dog’s ancestry becomes significant and valuable only when it can prove itself on the trail or as a producer of other good sled dogs.

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Robert Forto is the training director of Denver Dog Works and a musher racing under the banner Team Ineka. Dr. Forto can be reached through his website at https://teamineka.com