The other painful possibility is, of course, that sleddogs really do not give a damn about losing their driver, even though drivers are acutely affected by losing their teams. Perhaps they actually think it's more fun without the human element. Or perhaps for them a run in harness is really just an extended hunting party, an activity of theirs into which I have intruded with my harnesses, my ganglines, my dogsled and my silly commands -- a private canine party that I've crashed. In which case, when I fall off and get left behind, to them it may be sheer poetic justice!
You may well say at this point that I'm projecting, that I'm anthropomorphising. That I'm attributing to these sleddogs thoughts, feelings and motivations that I've created out of whole cloth, ideas that are alien to the dogs themselves. You may be right. They may only be behaving according to their instincts and habits, quite mindlessly. But if so, then once again we are headed towards "They do not live in the world,/ Are not in time and space," etc. (Edwin Muir, "The Animals" -- see SledDogBlog 27 October 2003). I don't want to go there!
The whole affair has left two conclusions in my mind. My first conclusion is, no more eight-dog teams with Evita at co-lead. I may have to hook Evita and Happy with two steady strong wheel dogs and do a few 4-dog runs where I have complete control, really getting on their case about going off-trail.
My second conclusion is that this spring, I'm going to set forth with spade, axe, pruning shears, .22 rifle and similar implements of destruction, to wreak total havoc on four or five major squirrel dwellings alongside our training trails -- starting with the one at the edge of the pine woods. And I'm really going to enjoy doing it. Petty? Perhaps. But you know what they say about payback...
Posted by jjeffrey at February 21, 2004 05:09 PM