dog training denver

Canine Research Continues

August 22, 2010 by teamineka

Canine Research Continues

By Al Magaw

It’s gratifying to see scientific research on our canine friends continuing – in a recent study, reported Aug 10/2010 in Science Now, further research has brought more understanding to how breeds have developed in virtually an evolutionary moment in time. While the report doesn’t deal specifically with sled dogs, the conclusions apply as well to our racing compatriots as it does to great danes, sheep dogs, chows or spaniels. Large or small, short hair or long, the basics are the same for all dogs. A team led by “Carlos Bustamante a comparative geneticist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and Elaine Ostrander, a comparative geneticist with NHGRI, analyzed genetic information from 915 domestic dogs representing 80 different breeds. The researchers compared the dogs’ DNA, looking for sequences that differed by a single base, known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Once they found out where the DNA differed, they compared those differences between dogs with, for example, short versus long legs or perky versus droopy ears.”

The researchers identified “51 regions in the genome that contributed to physical variation among the breeds. These regions can be clumped into larger areas of the genome called quantitative trait loci, which are known to contain genes that produce a specific physical effect, such as shaggy hair” “Depending on which traits are compared, genetic differences in two to six of these regions,can account for about 80% of the variation in physical characteristics among dogs, says Bustamante” most likely the ” selective pressure caused by human-directed breeding, the researchers conclude.

Co-author Heidi Parker, a geneticist at NHGRI, says that because humans initially bred dogs for specific traits—say, smaller body size or calm temperament—selection created a population “bottleneck” that narrowed the genetic variation in offspring, leaving them with just a few specific clusters of variable genetic regions. Variable genes within these clusters, such as those that govern snout length or leg length, were then selected” “by humans to create the dog breeds we recognize today” “The study validates the idea that a relatively small amount of genetic variance can lead to a large degree of physical diversity, says Jeffrey Phillips, a veterinary geneticist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The findings corroborate what many in the field suspected but do so with “a very, very impressive sample size,” he says. “It’s a wealth of information” he concluded. My interest in this aspect of dog breeding continues to grow and I look forward to learning more about it. It certainly helps explain why in less than a century, the alaskan husky, through environmental pressure and selective breeding, has gone from being a cross bred mutt to a super performing specific breed recognisable by it’s DNA.

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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

Feeding Dogs the Best Possible Diet

August 15, 2010 by teamineka

Feeding Dogs the Best Possible Diet

By Al Magaw

Feeding dogs the best diet possible is always a subject that creates controversy. Some people swear by a holistic approach to feeding, more or less paralleling a good human diet, others are as adamant about a raw meat diet. A recent book by Lew Olson, Phd Natural Health, is an interesting read. In an excerpt from his book, he writes –

“We always want our dogs to look great and to perform at their very best. We want our working dogs to have steady endurance and drive. We want our tracking and search and rescue dogs to hold the scent and stay on the trail. We want our agility dogs to have the energy and balance to make the jumps, go through the weaves smoothly and effortlessly, and to handle each obstacle with precision. We need our obedience dogs to stay focused and our Schutzhund dogs to have stamina, courage, and stay on task. We want our conformation dogs to have ground covering side movement and to be happy and confident in the ring. And we all want our dogs to have lean, muscular and fit bodies.

A good diet provides the energy, strength, lean muscle mass and mental focus that is needed to achieve these performance goals. Let’s take a look at the different diet components and how they help with each of these performance goals.”

He goes on to say –

“It takes a lot of energy to digest food, so it is very important to feed foods that are easy to digest, provide the most nutrients, and use the least amounts of energy. For dogs, that food would be fats and protein. The foods to stay away from are carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates are found in plant based foods, which include vegetables, grains and fruit. The two main components in plant based foods are sugar and fiber. Dogs have short and simple digestive tracts which are not designed to ferment high fiber foods and cannot break down the cell walls which are composed of cellulose. The dog’s digestive system struggles to digest these foods which takes greater energy, creates more gas and produces large stools of undigested food matter.”

“Fat and proteins are much easier for the dog to digest and produce smaller stools. Harder to digest foods mean a full colon, which Dr. Kronfeld, DVM equated to an extra 20 pound handicap on a race horse:” “Fat is the most important energy source for dogs. Fats are dense in calories which are needed when dogs are working hard and are burning large amounts of calories. Fat also helps to protect their cells from damage. The fat a dogs needs is animal fat. These fats are found in meat, eggs and dairy. High fat diets have been the secret for successful sled dog racing teams for years:

Another important fat is Omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 3 fatty acids not only help provide energy, they also help the immune system, fight inflammation, help keep the skin and coat healthy and are heart, liver and renal protective. This essential fatty acid is hard to find in foods and breaks down easily when exposed to heat, light or air. I would recommend using fish oil capsules and give one 1000 mg capsule per 10-20 lbs of body weight daily.

Proteins

The second most important energy source for dogs is animal protein. Animal proteins contain amino acids, which when fed in high quality and quantity, produce glucose in dogs. This keeps their energy level on a stable plane. There no energy crash and it will keep the dog focused without mood swings. Feeding a good variety of animal proteins such as beef, lamb, pork, chicken, eggs, dairy and fish provides a wide swath of amino acids and offers better balance to the diet. Each protein varies somewhat in amino acids so providing a good variety of proteins insures the dog will get all the amino acids needed. Amino acids help repair tissue, keep the organs healthy and help build muscle mass. When your dog is on a diet rich in protein sources, and fresh sources offer better quality, there is no need to ever add synthetic amino acids to its diet.

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The Serum Run: Sled Dogs Save the Day-Part 3

August 12, 2010 by teamineka

The Serum Run: Sled Dogs Save the Day-Part 3

At three o’clock Charlie Olson left Golovin for the 25-mile run to Bluff. He fought his way through a blizzard with a gale wind of fifty miles an hour throwing him and his team of seven dogs from the trail time and time again. The thermometer read thirty below zero, Olson’s hands froze, his dogs froze and stumbled, but they fought on through the night. His vision obscured by the raging blizzard, Olson had to trust his lead dog to stay on the trail. At 7:30 P.M., only four hours and fifteen minutes after leaving Golovin, he reached Bluff and passed the serum over to Gunnar Kasson.

Kasson ran the last 55-miles to Nome, to honor and fame, with 13 dogs in harness. Somewhere along the trail he bypassed the next relay driver, Ed Rohn, who was waiting at Safety to take the serum on the final lap into Nome. “Intentionally bypassed,” chuckled the old-timers many years later.

But, for Kasson, leaving Bluff at 10 o’clock in total darkness and an eighty-mile-an-hour wind-driven snowstorm, no landmark was familiar and he could have easily missed the roadhouse. Dressed in seal mukluks that reached to his hips, sealskin pants, a reindeer parka and hood with a windbreaker over that, Kasson could still feel the sting of the wind. Two of his dogs, longhaired veteran trail huskies, began to succumb to the weather and Kasson had to stop and buckle on their rabbit skins. The sled kept tipping over in the soft snow; he couldn’t see; he didn’t really know where he was.

The only way for Kasson to survive, the only way he could even attempt to get the serum through the storm, was to give direction of the team to the leader, Balto. Balto, one of Seppala’s Siberians, was a powerful, experienced leader, but Seppala had not taken him for this run because the six-year-old dog’s speed wasn’t as fast as it had been. Kasson needed the leadership, however, and borrowed Balto from Seppala’s kennel. Given his head in the worst weather, Balto put his nose down and sniffed and felt his way along the buried, invisible trail. All Kasson could do was trust the dog’s instincts and experience. The efforts of over one hundred and fifty other sled dogs and nineteen other drivers depended solely now on Balto. The lives of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of Alaskans depended on the doughty little sled dog and his team.

In the tradition of the great lead dogs, Balto, ears flattened against his head to keep out of the storm, nose working to pick out the trail, guided the team and the serum directly to Nome.

When they got there, at 5:30 in the morning on February 2, the half frozen Kasson collapsed beside battered, depleted dog team and began pulling ice from Balto’s feet.

“Balto,” he was heard to mumble… “Damn fine dog!”

In New York City’s Central Park a statue of Balto stands vigilant watch, keeping the accomplishments of sled dogs alive. The inscription reads: “Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the winter of 1925. Endurance. Fidelity. Intelligence.” R. Coppinger

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Dr. Robert Forto is the Dog Sledding Examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the popular, Mush! You Huskies Radio Show

Dog Sledding Legend Jean Bryar on Mushing Radio

August 2, 2010 by teamineka

Dog Sledding Legend Jean Bryar on Mushing Radio

On the popular Mush! You Huskies Radio Show we are continuing our summer series on the dog sledding legends and those people that made this sport what it is today. This week we will profile one of the greatest women mushers during the 1960’s and 70’s which so many great mushers followed her lead such as Libby Riddles, Susan Butcher and Dee Dee Jonrowe just to name a few.

In the coming weeks we have a very special series airing on the show. We are in the initial talks with a true sled dog historian, Nancy Cowan and she will be joining us for a couple of shows to talk about ‘Doc’ Lombard and others that influenced this sport and made it what it is today.

Listen to Mush You Huskies: Jean Bryar

Jean Bryar became the foremost woman sled dog driver in the world during the sixties and seventies. Although her husband, Keith, is remembered as the third factor in the Lombard-Belford-Bryar hegemony, Jean was no backseat member of the Bryar team. She worked her way through the New England racing circuit, usually finishing near the top against some of the toughest competition New England has ever had. Having developed one of the best Siberian Husky racing teams in the Northeast, the Bryar’s made the big jump to Alaska with the other New England competitors in the early sixties. They, too, were entranced by the abilities of the Alaskan dogs, and in 1962 they bought a superb example of this racing husky, a leader named Brandy. They paid $1001.00 for him.

During the next four seasons Keith and Jean both drove Brandy at the head of the team that won several of the most important sled dog races in North America. In 1963 they captured the Eastern International at Quebec, the World Championship at Laconia and the Women’s North American Championship at Fairbanks. In Alaska in 1962, 1963 and 1964, Jean paralleled “Doc” Lombard’s wins in the men’s North American with wins of her own in the women’s.

Following Keith Bryar’s successful bid for the Men’s North American Championship in 1965 and his subsequent retirement from racing, Jean Bryar maintained the Norvik Kennels in Center Harbor, New Hampshire and expanded her racing schedule. Coordinating her training and racing talents with those of another champion driver and dog musher, Dick Moulton, Jean went on to secure her own reputation in the sporting world, selecting only the most challenging professional races for their teams. Bryar and Moulton left well-defined tracks wherever they competed.

Bryar had the determination and flexibility of an all-time great sled dog driver. In her first try at the North American, for example, Bryar’s lead dog was of a breed never before known to qualify for such a position, a small longhaired Border Collie. She tended to pamper her dogs a little more than some of her colleague’s thought was necessary, but her achievement as a racer and trainer justified her techniques. Energetic and personable, Bryar was completely dedicated to her dogs. During the off-season she managed her kennel and worked as a real estate agent. When the cool mornings of fall arrived it was back to the business of training puppies and stretching the veteran’s muscles for a new racing season, leaving her work as a realtor to the warmer weather.

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Dr. Robert Forto is the Dog Sledding Examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the popular, Mush You Huskies Radio Show

Should You Spay Your Dog? By Al Magaw

August 1, 2010 by teamineka

Should you Spay Your Dog?

By Al Magaw

There are problems associated with spaying your female that every dog owner should be aware of – there is no apparent or well known harmful effect involved in neutering male dogs, but there is a potential and common serious harm associated with spaying the females. The lack of estrogen production brought about by spaying FREQUENTLY (“commonly” is the word used in the veterinarian community) brings on the loss of bladder control in older females and frequently, uncomfortable skin problems. Earlier than normal death can also occur. It is such a simple thing to confine a female twice a year to prevent pregnancy that the risky alternative of spaying is not one I would recommend – one of the reasons given for spaying, beyond birth control, is the prevention of breast cancer. Breast cancer in un-spayed dogs is a rarity compared to the commonality of problems caused by spaying and the resulting hormonal imbalance. There are drugs that Veterinarians will prescribe to treat the hormone imbalance, but the drugs pass into the environment and are environmentally damaging, staying in the environment for many years, ( DES (diethylstilbestrol) exposure is often viewed as a health issue unique to those exposed to the drug and an issue that is no longer relevant. This is far from the truth. DES exposure and long-term exposure to any synthetic hormone concerns a much broader population than those directly exposed to DES. In fact, the entire population is exposed to synthetic hormones like DES from sources such as chemical pollution, medicines, plastics, paints and pesticides on food. Many synthetic chemicals in the environment are harmful to our health. Some are so-called “hormone disrupters” like DES”) ( “There is some evidence that DES-exposed sons may have testicular abnormalities, such as undescended testicles or abnormally small testicles.” “Professor Niels Skakkeback, a Danish scientist, first alerted the world to the possibility of a substantial fall in male fertility levels in 1992. He did this by showing that sperm counts in healthy men appeared to have dropped by more than half in 50 years” “Subsequent studies have confirmed and strengthened Skakkebaek’s findings) These hormones can and do upset and delay the development of prepubescent males and bring on early sexual development in females – be responsible with your dogs, don’t bring unwanted puppies into the world and don’t be so foolish to believe that having “just one” litter will improve your dog – think twice about the long term health of your female and the long term effect to the environment. You can be a responsible dog owner without resorting to spaying and the use of environmentally damaging drugs.

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Quest for the South Pole

July 29, 2010 by teamineka

Quest For the South Pole

Discovered in 1840, Antarctica lies almost concentrically about the South Pole. Fittingly enough its name means “opposite to the arctic”, and this fifth largest continent would be essentially circular except for the Antarctica Peninsula. It was here, in this unforgiving environment that two different men chose two different paths, and two different aides in their quests to reach the South Pole. Both made it to their destinations, only one however made it back. There is not any doubt that the difference was the dogs, or lack thereof.

Robert F. Scott (1868-1912) was a British explorer who made several attempts to reach the South Pole. From their base camp on Ross Island, Scott, accompanied by Earnest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922), and E.A. Wilson penetrated as close as 82º 17’ S. to the pole at the Ross Ice Shelf on December 30, 1902. Scott believed that the use of sled dogs was somehow disreputable. “No journey made with dogs,” Captain Scott wrote, “can approach the height of that fine conception which is realized when a party of men go forth to face hardships, dangers, and difficulties by their own unaided efforts.”

Later, Shackleton and another party of five men reached 88º 23’ S. on January 9, 1909, a point a mere 97-miles from the pole. “The successful experimental use of hardy Manchurian ponies, and the pioneering of a route up the great Beardmore Glacier to the polar plateau by Shackleton, paved the way for the epic trip of Scott in 1911-12 to the South Pole.”

The second participant in the epic race was Roald Amundsen (1872-1928). Amundsen was the Norwegian explorer that ultimately discovered the South Pole, but just as with Peary on the other side of the world, his triumph came with a price.

Amundsen began his history-making journey by first studying medicine. In 1897, he joined a Belgian Antarctica expedition as a mate, and was assigned to the “Belgica”. The “Belgica”, under the command of Captain Adrien de Gerlache, became trapped in the pack ice in March of 1898. The ship drifted with the ice of the Bellingshausen Sea until the following March; proving conclusively that one could winter the Antarctic.

It is noteworthy to mention that Amundsen was accompanied to Antarctica by the American physician-explorer F.A. Cook. Amundsen and Cook were largely responsible for bringing the “Belgica’s” crew through severe attacks of scurvy.

A few years later Amundsen made plans to conquer the Northwest Passage. With a crew of only six he sailed secretly on the “Gjöa”, a forty seven-ton sloop, in order to avoid creditors. He was the first man to take a ship through the fabled passage. He then began to focus his attention on accomplishing spectacular polar achievements.

Amundsen planned to drift across the North Pole in a ship called the “Fram”. This plan was secretly altered when the news that Robert E. Peary had reached the North Pole assaulted the wires. He continued his preparations and in June of 1910 Amundsen left Norway; no one save his brother knew that he sailed for the South Pole instead of the already conquered North Pole. Amundsen sailed to the Ross Sea and set up a base camp some sixty-miles closer to the pole than his adversary Captain Scott. As a matter of personal, and nationalistic pride it was vital to him that he reach the pole first.

Unlike Scott’s party who chose to rely primarily on horses and the Beardmore Glacier route, Amundsen and his party chose to travel with sledges pulled by dogs and to take the Axel Heiberg Glacier route. He reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911, beating Captain Scott by thirty-four days. Appley Cherry-Garrard was a member of Scott’s previous excursions, he described the vast differences between the canines’ and ponies’ ability to adapt to the polar environment in the following account:

“The animals suffer the most, and during the this first blizzard all our ponies were weakened, and two of them became practically useless…Nothing was left undone for them which we could manage, but necessarily the Antarctic is a grim place for ponies. I think Scott felt the sufferings of the ponies more than the animals themselves. It was different with the dogs. These fairly warm blizzards were only a rest for them. Snugly curled up in [a] hole in the snow they allowed themselves to be drifted over. Bieleglas and Vaida, two half-brothers who pulled side by side, always insisted upon sharing one hole, and for greater warmth one would lie on top of the other. At intervals of two hours or so they fraternally changed places.”

Amundsen’s team arrived safely back at Franheim Station at the Bay of Whales with very little difficulty. On January 17, 1912, seventy-eight days after leaving camp, Captain Scott’s final assault team achieved the South Pole. The despair of coming so far just to find the Norwegian flag must have been nearly overwhelming. Their return trek was aggravatingly slow as men succumbed to the environment. Scott’s party was caught in a blizzard on the Ross Ice Shelf. There they pitched their tents, and their food and fuel dwindled, then finally ran out. Only eleven-miles from their One Ton Camp, Scott and his companions perished.

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Dr. Robert Forto is the Dog Sledding Examiner, a musher training for his first Iditarod under the Team Ineka banner and the host of the popular, Mush! You Huskies radio show.