There are so many
stories I could tell you about Nakota (the name means ‘my friend’). An
extremely shy dog, she also had severe separation anxiety and tried to dig out
of my room if I left her alone (that was after she chewed or, rather, tore, open
the crate – we went through several).
Before I got
Nakota I had seen the local fair book which said there was a 4-H Dog project. I was intrigued and wanted to do it. Nakota was a great project dog, with her shyness she was a challenge and taught me perseverance. Come to think of it, though, I don't recall any regrets or ever thinking she was "incurable". Perhaps that’s why I enjoy taking on
project dogs and turning them into lead dogs…with that said, it’s much
easier to start with a well brought up dog. I wouldn't train my super-friendly puppies for anything!
We brought Nakota home in
the fall and over the winter my mom and I took a dog training class with a
German Shepherd trainer named Kat. I will always have a special place in my
heart for her. She taught me so much more than how to
train a dog: she trained me! She taught us about feeding and dog psychology.
She drilled the importance of body language into my head. To this day there are
things I do naturally to communicate with my dogs which have become
subconscious...sometimes I accidentally treat people like dogs. To stress the importance of body language, Kat would say that the
dogs feel everything through the leash – I now know the dog team can feel
everything through the gangline. I've not seen her for years, but if or when I run into her again all I can say is: THANK YOU!
Perhaps one of the
most important lessons I learned from Nakota is not to care so much about what
people think. With such a shy dog, you were never the “cool” kid at dog
training…rather than the prim, well mannered Aussies who seemed to do everything perfect (in my perspective), she would try to bolt when the lady with big hair (to Nakota it was
frightening when it blew in the wind) came to do an examination for fitting and
showing.
I don't know how many obedience stays she broke...but I learned to focus 100% on her, rather than those around me. It didn’t
matter how ridiculous I looked when I was praising her or that I had to modify
most training methods to be extremely gentle. I can’t thank the 4-H leaders,
Vicki and her daughter Sarah and everyone else for being so supportive and
putting up with the little girl and her nervous husky (the only husky in the
4-H training class at the time, or since that I know of).
And, more importantly, through 4-H that I began to learn about dog
sledding through the "new" adventure project: Dogsledding. I’d already started reading about
mushing, but the project jump-started my interest. We visited kennels and went
to the Priest Lake sled dog races to watch. My older brother did the
project and he built me a sled with my Grandpa’s help (the first one - it was glued together and scarcely safe for 1 dog...but fueled my passion nonetheless). We trained
Sable and Nakota to pull us on rollerblades on the bike paths in town.
After about two
years, I decided I really wanted to do this dog
sledding thing or get into showing. I wanted to get another dog and, as many
dog owners, thought about breeding Nakota. With that idea, I consulted with a Washington
show kennel who also happened to do little mushing. What a visit!
We saw their dogs
and talked for a long time. The result was that the older man told me if he was
to do it over again he would race sled dogs and not do showing. He did not
discourage me from breeding Nakota, but told me to get her checked out for good
hips and eyes first. I came away with a shaken desire to show dogs and still a desire to run dogs. I think I forgot to mention, Nakota had a split ear from a puppy-hood fight so
was not able to be shown…I’d have had to get a new dog to do confirmation
showing.
My studies of mushing taught me about the different breeds of dogs, but I had no desire to
run the crazy Alaskan Huskies (funny how things change, huh?!!). One musher told me
bluntly that you could never be competitive with Sib’s. I later learned he
had been beaten many times by purebred Siberian teams. I got off the phone crying and told my mom that if
show Siberian’s couldn’t race well that I would find dogs that went back to
Leonard Seppala’s original dogs. There had to be a working husky line out there
that wasn’t just a pretty show dog.
I took Nakota in
to get her OFA (eye) check and on the way out ran into a lady holding a cute
Siberian puppy. We got talking and she told me it was a Seppala line Siberian –
a dog with easily traceable lines back to Leonard Seppala’s dogs and they raced them. Exactly the
dog I was searching for!
