Well, I did mention training the new generation of sleddogs and leaders, and that has been the focus of our attention at Seppala Kennels in recent weeks. We have added a tremendous challenge to the daily training routine! The necessary re-routing of our exit trail in the fall involved our crossing the broad, windswept flat where the adjacent sod farm cultivates turf. It is bordered by irrigation ditches grown up with willows and alders, dotted with long rolling arrays of irrigation sprinklers, and exposed to howling winds from about three hundred degrees of the compass. Anytime the wind blows, the broken trail simply vanishes in blown and drifted snow. We enter the Sod Flat via two small log bridges that we have constructed over one of the irrigation ditches. Invariably if there has been a south wind (and we've had lots of them this winter), there's a nice three-foot snow berm across the exit to the larger bridge. Our leaders are becoming adept at charging ahead and scrambling "over the top"!
Main leader Tonya of Seppala, now eight years old, was at first the only leader capable of successfully navigating the maze of the Sod Flat. We marked the vanishing trail by sticking spruce boughs upright in the snow six feet to the side of the trail; this gives the driver, at least, a frail and possibly false sense of security. The dogs are now being forced to learn to feel the trail with their feet and the penalty for missing the trail is often to be tumbled arse-over-teakettle as they suddenly punch through the packed drifts on the trailside.
Tonya's last litter, the M-litter sired by "Hank" son Sepalleo, has now become our fastest team. All seven of that litter, plus Tonya their dam, make up an eight-dog team that burns up the trail. At their fast pace, control suffers somewhat. We are trying to train three of the litter as leaders. Mokka, the best female, is becoming rather accomplished. Her brothers Misha and Maraq have the necessary speed and positive attitude -- but they are green males, still only two years old and not fully mature mentally. So off we go with one experienced leader and one greenie, and sometimes the feeling is one of "flying blind." The young leaders know the trail -- vaguely -- but the directional commands that are a leader's special skill are still a closed book to them. Time, experience, and trail miles will eventually polish off the rough edges. Already the "M" litter is starting to run like a real team, that is to say, with real rhythm and co-ordination. But it will still be awhile before they can do it without their momma's help.
The real phenomenon of this season is a callow little yearling named Lizaveta, "Lizard" to her Boss, or "Lizzy" when she is especially good. Little Liz has been co-leading her littermates, Lara, Lissa, Lev and Lenin, in their own little yearling team, with their aunt Tonya as schoolmarm. Apparently little Lizard has been playing close attention, because today she was tested strongly and passed with flying colours. I hooked Lizzy with another young female who is also a lead prospect, but who knows nothing at all about it. Liz navigated the challenging Sod Flat very precisely, only once getting off the trail (pulled off by her bracemate) and taking an immediate tumble. She impeccably negotiated the difficult road crossing that follows the Sod Flat, and ran the entire six-mile course correctly at all the turns but one. Her bracemate pulled several goofy tricks (like stopping cold to examine a pile of poop on the trail) that weren't Lizzy's fault. All six of these little yearlings ran enthusiastically and demonstrated considerable good humour and co-operation in the process. I could really see Lizard's tension and determination to get it all right.
I have to say it -- I think perhaps I have the next super-leader in little Lizaveta, provided that nothing goes wrong this season. It's quite a relief, because the question that has been uppermost in my mind for some time has been, "What shall we do when Tonya has to retire?" The leaders that started our team in the early 1990s are dead now: Kidron of Spirit Wind, Zirconia of Sepp-Alta, River View's Sprite. The leaders who were our mainstays through the late 1990s and the turn of the millennium, Sepalleo, Sepallop, Sepalluna, Markobosco, are all retired. For the last couple years it has been mostly up to Tonya of Seppala and her daughter Happy.
The rest of this winter will continue to emphasise training a new generation of leaders. Mokka, Misha, Maraq, Lizaveta and perhaps Evita will be under sustained pressure to learn the lead dog's craft, to master the vital matters of keeping the gangline tight at all times, learning the directional commands, following pace cues, learning to ignore distractions, to surmount obstacles, to cope with challenging conditions on the trail. We've only just begun laying the foundation, really. But these early results are very gratifying. It's the magic of "seeing the light bulb go on" over the head of a young leader trainee that keeps us doing this difficult stuff all winter, year after year.