Sled dogs running on the streets?!

What exactly is "urban mushing”?

When I (Riley) did a Google search asking that exact question, the first result stated that it’s similar to traditional dog sledding, except it’s done on dry land, not snow. While I’m not sure if there’s an exact definition, urban mushing means more than simply not running on snow.

For us, it means running anywhere we can find space to do so. Which a majority of the time is the streets around our house. That’s right.. Not only are we not running the dogs on snow, we’re not able to run them on dirt or grass very often. So I think a better definition of urban mushing is exactly what we do. Running through neighborhoods, avoiding cars parked on the street, slowing down at every intersection to make sure there are no cars coming and trying to keep the dogs from getting distracted by everything happening around them.

The “not snow” part of urban mushing more accurately and broadly describes dryland mushing in general. Urban mushing falls into that broader category.

Speaking of distractions though…

In my opinion, one of the hardest parts for the dogs adjusting to running through neighborhoods has been the distractions of literally every small thing happening on the street and in the yards around them. And it’s not only the mailboxes and fire hydrants.

It’s literally anything that moves or makes a noise at all. We’re talking a car door closing down the road, emergency sirens from off in the distance, people talking on their front porch as we run by. It’s an entirely different running environment than what they’ve been used to their entire lives.

At first, we thought maybe it was just Boo being Boo… (he has a history of being a bit odd and skittish of everything since the very first meteorology camp). So we brought Pence onto the team to help Boo because she’s more of a leader. More focused and experienced at staying on task while running.

Well… turns out she’s not much better than Boo lol.

Yes, you read that caption correctly. On one of our early walks after first bringing Pence home (it was still too warm here to run), Pence got spooked out by the tiny dog barking in the front yard as we walked by. Really, Pence? You’re at least four times her size…

So what’d she do on the next walk? As soon as she spotted the dog/house in question, she turned to me and immediately jumped up into my arms out of nowhere. So I carried her down the street about 50 yards until we were clear of the house of doom.

Running Boo and Pence down that road hasn’t been much better either. Pence still gets nervous and slows down nearly every time we approach that house. And Boo feeds off the nervous energy from Pence and starts to slow down too. Which is unfortunate because that house is on the route we’d prefer to run every day because it makes a big loop around our house.

Now I’m not saying they don’t like to run in the neighborhood, but there is a noticeable difference when we take certain routes and pass “danger areas” for the dogs. The little house on the loop (that sounds like a good name for a TV show…) is the most notorious “danger area” for the two of them, but they each have their favorite street sign or mailbox they like to stop at and urinate on as well.

We hope that this winter we’ll see more improvement on the distractions front as they continue to get acclimated to running together on the streets. We had Boo last year at this time, but he didn’t do great pulling on his own. Which is why we really wanted to have a leader to help him.

I still have faith that Pence will get past her nervous tendencies and her lead dog mentality will shine through the more we run them. We’ve only recently been able to start running them more consistently since the temperatures have cooled down.

It’s very strange, but we’ve picked up on the fact that when we’re running away from the house, they’re way more distracted and less willing to run hard. But the second we turn back towards home, they kick it into another gear and no little dog barking is going to stop them from getting back home.

But we’ll save that discussion for a later newsletter.

So our version of urban mushing is definitely an adjustment for the dogs. However, we know they still love running just as much as before. Now they just get to come back from a run and crash on the couch for hours… because that’s the best life of a semi-retired sled dog!

[Video] Behind-the-scenes look at how we store all of our mushing equipment with limited space

Subscribe to The Urban Mushers + to read the rest.