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“I'm sorry. I was just running them. Running the dogs." I swallowed more soup and looked at the sky. The cold air was so clear the stars seemed to be falling to the ground. Like you could walk right. . . over . . . there and pick them up just lying on the snow. "I couldn't come back.”
― Gary Paulsen, Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod

“To me, it’s not that pound dogs don’t have worth, or to be more specific, inherent worth as sled dogs. It’s just that to succeed with them you have to be open to finding their very individualized skill sets, and that’s what we did with all of our rescues.
Pong, while she can’t sustain sprint speeds for very long, can break trail at slightly slower speed for hours. Ping’s digestive processes move at a glacial pace, so much so that I think she could put on a few pounds from just a whiff of the food bucked, and this proved valuable when racing in deep-minus temperatures when dogs with higher metabolisms shiver off too much weight. Six, while small, can remember any trail after having only run it once, which I relied on whenever I grew disoriented or got lost from time to time. Rolo developed into an amazing gee-haw leader, turning left or right with precision whenever we gave the commands, which also helped the other dogs in line behind him learn the meaning of these words and the importance of listening to the musher. Ghost excelled at leading of a different sort, running at the front of a team chasing another which is also useful for not burning out gee-haw leaders. Coolwhip’s character trait of perpetually acting over-caffeinated made her invaluable as a cheerleader, where an always barking dog late in a run can, and does spread enthusiasm to the others. And Old Man, well, he was a bit too decrepit to ever contribute much to the team, but he always made me smile when I came out to feed the yard and saw him excitedly carrying around his food bowl, and that was enough for him to earn his keep.”
― Joseph Robertia, Life with Forty Dogs: Misadventures with Runts, Rejects, Retirees, and Rescues

“All puppies have a reputation for kinetics, but huskies are in a league of their own. They’re like cans of energy drink come to life.”
― Joseph Robertia, Life with Forty Dogs: Misadventures with Runts, Rejects, Retirees, and Rescues

“Basically, the formula for success requires â€� demands, really â€� truly getting to know the dogs on such a personal level that when you look at them, you begin to look past the flaws and see what their strengths are and create success with what you have, not what you wish you had. You don’t see tools that are disposable; you see teammates that are indispensable and irreplaceable.”
― Joseph Robertia, Life with Forty Dogs: Misadventures with Runts, Rejects, Retirees, and Rescues

“The wail of the savage winds devoured all sounds, including any commands to the front of the team, and the snow â€� getting deeper and deeper â€� felt on the verge of swallowing us. Even the dogs had a cupcake-thick icing of white to their fur. I began to feel not just lonely, but very only â€� the only one brave enough, the only one stupid enough, the only one to be mushing on a mountaintop miles from any humans. Even the ptarmigan I had seen hours before had the sense to stick together.”
― Joseph Robertia, Life with Forty Dogs: Misadventures with Runts, Rejects, Retirees, and Rescues

“What I do know for certain is that there are moments in time that resonate, staying with you forever. For me, that infamous training run stands out as one of them. I glimpsed divinity and understood â€� possibly for the first time at that spiritual depth â€� the perfection embodied in Cyber and Zoom. I appreciated, truly, the caliber of athletic performance they emanated. I valued the privilidge of not just knowing a once-in-a-mushers-lifetime lead dog, but knowing two of them.”
― Joseph Robertia, Life with Forty Dogs: Misadventures with Runts, Rejects, Retirees, and Rescues

“We’re kind of like those kids who want to stay kids. We just want to shirk responsibility and stay out there with our dogs. You just want to keep going to the next checkpoint and not have to deal with civilization and reality and all that other stuff.
It’s neat out there, because it’s one of the few places where you can really be yourself, in front of the dogs, and there’s nobody looking at you and judging you.
It’s a perfect world really.â€� (said by Bill Pinkham, Yukon Quest racer)”
― Adam Killick, Racing the White Silence: On the Trail of the Yukon Quest

“By February 15 we will spread the empty sacks in the driveway in a big circle. In the middle we’ll pile provisions for the trail. I know from experience that the quantity of dog supplies will be shocking: seven hundred pounds of beef, six hundred of kibble, twenty-five hundred booties, to name a few. Everything will be bundled in small usable parcels. There will be 55 one-gallon bags of frozen beef sliced thin like pieces of bread. Thirty-five bags of salmon slices. A hundred and ten quart-sized bags holding five sets of booties in each. My musher supplies will also be plentiful. I’ll have packed thirty gallon-sized bags with my own food, and another thirty with personal items such as glove liners, heat packs, batteries, neck gaiters, and socks.”
― Debbie Clarke Moderow, Fast into the Night: A Woman, Her Dogs, and Their Journey North on the Iditarod Trail

“So step up on the foot boards of your dog sled, mon ami, grab the handle, yell “Mush!â€� to your team of huskies and prepare to hit the long snowy trail.”
― Brian Alan Burhoe

“So step up on the foot boards of your dog sled, mon ami, grab the handle, yell 'Mush!' to your team of huskies and prepare to hit the long snowy trail.”
― Brian Alan Burhoe

“I put my nose down and sniffed the ice thoughtfully. Sepp knew I had good ice sense. Having ice sense meant I could smell the water beneath the ice. If the smell was too strong, I knew that the ice was thin and probably not strong enough to hold us. Quite ice was solid and steady. but if it groaned or hissed, that meant it was breaking apart and dangerous. It was talking to me. It was saying, Watch out, little dog! Stay away! I could also feel the ice beneath my paw pads. I knew that if it was damp, it was probably not frozen through.”
― Kate Klimo, Togo

“Kyle had not paired King with another dog, and he stood alone as a single lead. Single leads in a race like the Yukon Quest were rare because it was an instant handicap to start with one less dog.

Unless that dog was King.”
― Wesley Banks, Faith In Every Footstep

“Hauling the dogs up to the Artic at the beginning of every season was hectic to say the least. Most mushersâ€� trucks are equipped with two story dog boxes that slide nicely into the bed of the truck. They can fit a whole team comfortably in individual cubbies. That might work for 45 lb racing dogs, but dog boxes make no sense for a team of 25 burly malamutes. Not only would it require a five story box, but I’d also have to lift dogs in excess of 100 lbs up over my head to get them in. That’s just unreasonable. So, instead I tethered 11 dogs in the back of the truck, and 11 in the trailer and off we went up the Dalton Highway looking like some insane combination of the Beverly Hillbillies and a clown car with the dogs drooling on each other and their bushy tails waving in the breeze.”
― Joe G Henderson, Malamute Man: Crossing Alaska's Badlands

“Memories of the dogs I’d lost to wolves in the past tormented me all night—the pup’s collar lying on the snow, torn in two, and a trail of blood leading away.”
― Joe G Henderson, Malamute Man: Crossing Alaska's Badlands

“The team hesitated at first and then slowly began ascending the pass. There wasn’t a trail and I knew there were some deep crevasses ahead. But I trusted Bear. The wind was increasing in velocity, and to make matters worse, it was getting dark. We were bucking hurricane force gusts that seemed to tear right through me. Several long hours went by and the ground started to level. We were almost on the summit. When I dragged my watch out of my pocket, I was stunned. We had been struggling for six hours.

Finally, the wind died a little as we crested the pass and I stopped the team. I quickly limped up to Bear. His face was covered with snow and ice and his eyes were completely closed. I peeled his ice mask off and his eyes opened. He seemed to smile. He had led us up that mountain pass and through the blizzard with his eyes closed.”
― Joe G Henderson, Malamute Man: Crossing Alaska's Badlands

“From Files: (Desirable Sled Dog Traits, 1965)
I. Above all others, must be genetically forward-oriented. Self-driven, trail aggressive. 2. Medium size, males 50 -75 Ibs; females 50-60 lbs. Good body conformation. Well furred. 3. Good feet. 4, Siberian husky appearance. 5. People-oriented (friendly). 6. Trail endurance, capable of a long day’s work.”
― Dan Seavey, The First Great Race: Alaska's 1973 Iditarod