Team Ineka

Mushin Down a Dream

dreamchaser leadership

The Future Home of Iditarod Dreams: Mush! You Huskies Radio Show

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The Future Home of Iditarod Dreams: Mush! You Huskies Radio Show

As promised, yesterday, I wanted to showcase the sister show to our highly popular, Dog Doctor Radio Show to my rabid reader, fans and friends– Mush! You Huskies, better yet, MushingRadio.com was brought on board on the Dog Works Radio platform to fill a need for the future followers of Team Ineka and my quest to train for, and run the Iditarod in 2013.

We started the show to coincide with the start of the 2010 Iditarod in March and we followed the progress of the mushers on the trail and gave daily insight and commentary  about the race. Not being a sportscaster, our shows had more of a statistical bent to it but hey, we will get better in the future, right?

This summer, we started our very popular Dog Sledding Legends series and did shows profiling the greats such as Leonhard Seppala, Scotty Allan, Doc Lombard, to name a few.

Our goal is to chronicle the adventures of my training and racing career though the show. I plan in the future of offering interviews of me (by my co-host, wife and business partner, Michele Forto). I hope to have other musher’s interviews as well.

I would also like to showcase our sponsors on the show and allow them the opportunity to take advantage of this unique advertising medium. As any musher knows, in order to get to the “big race” we have to run miles, miles and more miles, and we are often dependent on our generous sponsors in helping us reach our financial goals.

By continuing to use the BlogTalkRadio format we are able to bring the cutting edge technology of the platform and have the ability of adding video, chats, remote interviews, email, call-ins for our guests and of course an international audience. With this perfect marriage of technology and social media it is our hope to bring the sport of mushing and one man’s quest to make his own personal history a reality.

As we always say… Never Forget Your Dreams and we will see you on the trail!

I welcome your comments and suggestions. Please comment below.

Robert Forto | Team Ineka | Alaska Dog Works | Mushing Radio | Dog Doctor Radio | Denver Dog Works

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

Learn from a Dog

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LEARN FROM A DOG

This article was originally published on my blog in September of 2009.

The following story is widely circulated on the Internet. I have no idea who wrote it and I hope the author does not mind if I take the liberty to use it here in this post.

A Dog’s Purpose, from a 4-year-old…Being a veterinarian, I had been called to examine a ten-year-old Irish Wolfhound named Belker. The dog’s owners, Ron, his wife, Lisa, and their little boy, Shane, were all very attached to Belker, and they were hoping for a miracle.

I examined Belker and found he was dying of cancer. I told the family we couldn’t do anything for Belker, and offered to perform the euthanasia procedure for the old dog in their home.

As we made arrangements, Ron and Lisa told me they thought it would be good for four-year-old Shane to observe the procedure. They felt as though Shane might learn something from the experience.

The next day, I felt the familiar catch in my throat as Belker’s family surrounded him. Shane seemed so calm, petting the old dog for the last time, that I wondered if he understood what was going on. Within a few minutes, Belker slipped peacefully away. The little boy seemed to accept Belker’s transition without any difficulty or confusion.

We sat together for a while after Belker’s death, wondering aloud about the sad fact that animal lives are shorter than human lives. Shane, who had been listening quietly, piped up, “I know why.”

Startled, we all turned to him. What came out of his mouth next stunned me. I’d never heard a more comforting explanation.

He said, “People are born so that they can learn how to live a good life, like loving everybody all the time and being nice, right?”

The four-year-old continued, “Well, dogs already know how to do that, so they don’t have to stay as long.”

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

(Robert Forto) I received this story from a colleague the other day and thought I had to share it. While I will always give credit where credit is due, I do not know who wrote this article so I am posting it anonymously. If you do know who wrote it please have them contact me directly at train@denverdogworks.com.

I struggle with this the context of the story every day. My old dog and my best friend is a 12 year old Siberian Husky named Ineka. It is supposed to mean “rescued friend” in a Northern Canadian language. Anyhow, Ineka has been through thick and thin with not only me, but my family, since we adopted him from a Washington shelter in 2000. They told us he was four at the time but I checked the wear patterns on his teeth and he was closer to two.

I have talked about Ineka a lot over the years in my articles, in my blog posts, and in my canine trainers classes at Denver Dog Works. I even dedicated my doctorate dissertation to him- Chasing the Dream: The History of Human-Canine Communication in the Sport of Dog Sledding (Forto 2005).

I will be sad when his time comes to pass over the rainbow bridge. Who am I kidding, it will devastate me for a long while. But I will pull through and his legacy and what he taught me will live on. As the young boy says in the story, dogs already know how to live the good life, like loving everybody all the time so they don’t have to stay long.

Ineka, well all dogs for that matter, share a special place in most people’s hearts don’t they? They are just the right fix when something is wrong, just the right size to hug when you are feeling blue, listen just long enough when you have a secret, have just enough energy to finish that hike, just enough strength to pull you through the day, just enough courage to keep you motivated, just enough tail wags to make you smile, just enough wisdom to teach the new pup the rules, and just enough love to keep you sane in the worst of time.

So I encourage all of you to get out and do something with your dog today, everyday for the matter. Dogs were put on this earth to teach us something about ourselves. Is that a way to learn or what?

Update: As many of you know our dear friend, Ineka, passed over the Rainbow Bridge on July 13, 2010. I re-read this story from my blog and thought I should re-post it. I don’t know how most of you feel about the passing of a beloved pet, but it is one of the hardest things I have ever went through. It just seems different when a pet passes compared to a person. I do’nt know why. Maybe its because pets show us such unconditional love. Maybe its because we are allowed to make the decision when it is time for them to go. Maybe it is because they can not tell us its time or they hurt or they simply can not continue.

I have had many pets over the years. They were all special. But none quite like Ineka. He was my inspiration for everything I do with dogs and in the worst of times he was my strength. Some say, he was just a dog. Hardly, my friends, hardly–Ineka was my Dreamchaser.

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Dr. Robert Forto is the training director of Denver Dog Works and the host of a weekly radio program, The Dog Doctor Radio Show. Dr. Forto can be reached through his website at http://www.denverdogworks.com/

The Future of Iditarod Dreams: Team Ineka-Part 3

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The Future of Iditarod Dreams- Team Ineka Part 3

“Congratulations!! You own a home in Alaska! The Deed was just recorded”

Text from Dave S. realtor and friend  on July 20, 2010

So now the journey begins. Only just one week after the passing of our dear friend, our dog Ineka, and the inspiration for Team Ineka and the future of our Iditarod dreams, Michele and I are now officially the proud owners of a home (or is it just a musher’s cabin?) in the great state of Alaska.

I have thought about this day almost every day since I was about 19 years old, almost 20 years to the day. That was when I drove from Oregon to the Georgia mountains to look at a couple Siberian Huskies. It was a 72 hour drive in my 1975 Datsun 280z and I thought I owned the world. When I arrived in Georgia, I didn’t know the first thing about sled dogs or the sport of dog sledding but I did knew about Siberians, having owned one since 1987, his name was Axl (yes, after Guns and Roses lead singer Axl Rose, who was my favorite band at the time).

When I arrived at the breeder’s home, strung out from the road (wait… isn’t that a lyric from  a Bob Seger/Metallica cover song?) I was just expecting to take a look a a couple dogs. As a matter of fact I had no real intentions of purchasing them. I was heading to Florida to bask in the sun, not be a teenager held down by a couple sled dogs.

I  drove up and looked the pack of dogs over and one caught my eye. He was a red and white male with what I would call yellow eyes and then I saw his brother, a typical black and white Siberian Husky with a brown eye and a blue eye. I had money in my pocket but still not ready to buy until the lady said, “Do you want to go for a ride?”

“Sure,” I said and she and her son began hooking up a team of Siberians to a cart. After the dogs where hooked up and banging at the harnesses the lady could barely contain the feisty dogs that I thought were possessed! She jumped in the seat and told me to jump on the back and her son let go of the quick release. Away we went down a steep curve and almost toppling over (funny that same thing happened just about a month ago when I was visiting April Wood of Jaraw Siberians in California when we took her dogs out for a run).

After a couple miles the dogs settled into their gait and were pulling in sync and the lady asked if I would like to give it a try. I said of course and to my dismay (and soon to be pleasure) she jumped off the cart and we took off again. I had listened to her commands and as soon as I started barking out orders to the team they quickly responded. I have no idea how long I spent driving those dogs through the mountains of Georgia but something changed in me that day. Something primal, something connecting. Some call it the Musher’s Bug. It is true once it is in your veins it is hard to shake.

I picked up the breeder a short distance from her dog yard and she guided the team into the kennel with expert grace and we all chipped in on un-harnessing the team, watering them and just spending time with them in the yard.

I left that day with two pups, that I would soon call Rutgrr (the red one) and Ryche. Their full AKC names would soon be Rutgrr the Grreat (like the old Tony the Tiger cereal commercials) and King Ryche (named after another big rock band of the time, Queensryche). I soon bought a bicycle designed for the elderly and began training my pups. Very soon two dogs became four and four became eight. If you are a musher you know just how quickly they multiply, something like they taught us in high school biology class…

In the mid 1990’s I moved to Minnesota and began mushing with a team of thirty five Siberians with hopes of one day running the Iditarod. I ran on the snowmobile trails in the middle of the night so I wouldn’t get run over by the snow machines” running up to 45 miles most nights. During the day I was dabbling in the stock market as a day trader. The Internet was becoming really hot and just about anyone could make money in the market. What a perfect life, right?

Then I met Michele who lived in Denver and I had to “grow up” fast. I ended up moving to Colorado and put my sled dog dreams on hold for what I like to call, “life getting in the way”.

Fast forward to 2010. Michele and I are now married for almost a decade, we have a successful business and the kids are getting older. I got a chance to go to Alaska for a conference and the ceremonial start of the Iditarod and that changed our lives forever. Soon, we were talking to realtors and making plans to head to Alaska to look at a property that used to be an Iditarod kennel. We signed the purchase agreement sight unseen with the provision that we would approve after we looked at the place.

On July 4th weekend, my daughter and I (she had never been on a plane) flew to Alaska and looked at the place. I needed Nicole there because she was the lone hold-out in committing to move up North. She approved of the place and the cool high  school she will be attending and we sent word by text message to mom that we were buying the place.

Within sixteen days, the purchase was finalized and I was making plans of heading up at the end of the month to start work on the place (it needs remodeling really bad!) while Michele and the kids stay in Denver for a year to make sure that our business will have a successful transition when all all move to Alaska part-time (six months in Alaska and six months in Denver) in 2011.

During the next year I will be attempting something I am not good at all, construction, and begin to build our dog team. My goal is to qualify in 2012 for the 2013 Iditarod and run the race under the Team Ineka banner, named after our dear friend. I don’t know if I will have my own team by then or will lease a team from a friend of mine, but either way I am on track for something I have thought about since I was 19 years old. Some may call this my mid-life crisis. I don’t think so. and I don’t care if I ever have a corvette. I am chasing my dream and I will see where the trail leads. Hopefully to Nome…

Never Forget Your Dreams!

Next segment: Way Up North to Alaska

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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 radio program, Mush! You Huskies.

Achieving Success Using Mental Performance Training Part 1

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Achieving Success Using Mental Performance Training Part 1

By Robert Forto, PhD

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

Japanese Proverb

Many competitive human/canine teams, whether in the ring, on the trail, or on the field, are so busy preparing and being busy that they have no idea where their busy-ness is taking them. In contrast, some teams have expressed their visions, but do not appear to be directing much of their activity to achieving them.

After a human/canine team (hereafter just referred to as ‘team’), has a well defined vision, they need to move on to making that vision happen.

Ask yourself these questions:

  1. What needs t happen for [vision]?
  1. Is there anything else that needs to happen for [vision]?

Repeat the second question until no further actions emerge, and then ask:

  1. What is the first thing that needs to happen?

After you answer this question the seeds are sown, and your team’s attention is on the vision and the steps you need to take to start to move towards it.

This is just the first installment in a series that I am working on for my first book, Run With Poodles. The book is about creating success in your business and personal life through the eyes of a dog team. I am a professional musher and I am training for my first Iditarod in 2013. I am also a practitioner of Neuro-Linguistics (NLP) and I am using my training to harness the power of my team and teaching others leadership through empowerment.

If you would like to learn more about leadership through empowerment please feel free to contact me a leaddog@teamineka.com

Tags: NLP | Denver Dog Training Examiner | Robert Forto | Michele Forto | Iditarod | Team Ineka | Dog Training Denver | Dog Doctor Radio | Denver Dog Works | Mushing Radio | Duluth Dog Works | Minnesota Dog Works

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