Sled dogs: at home in the snow

Updated

After being dumped in Australian animal shelters, many of these alpine canines have been given a second chance to thrive where they belong.

Madness is the best word to describe the scene of the sled dog race start line.

Howls echo off Mount Buller as eager huskies struggle to contain their excitement.

This is what they were born to do.

After a demo last year, this is the first official race event on the mountain in Victoria's alpine region, and its competitors are from all over Australia. A couple are from overseas.

Huskies tend not to bark, but many of them have learnt to make the noise from other dogs in their household.

Before the race, there's plenty of chatter.

"They're probably all excited about going for a run and telling each other how much they'd love to go now rather than wait 50 minutes," Markus Israng from Western Australia says.

Rescue dogs turned athletes

Markus and his wife Ursi have travelled from the Perth Hills with six of their pets.

All of them are rescue dogs.

"We know some of them are very submissive, so they must've been abused, we know one of them was dumped in the pound because she had a special illness and people didn't want to look after it," Markus says.

"The main reason they end up in the pound is because they look really fluffy and like a teddy bear when they're little, and then they grow into big athlete dogs. If you don't exercise them and mentally stimulate them, they will start to be very destructive."

These devoted dog lovers who left Switzerland to flee the cold are currently on the sled dog snow circuit.

Mount Buller is followed by Dinner Plain and Falls Creek.

The environment is vastly different from the red dirt roads that they train on around their WA property.

One competitor came from Toowoomba in Queensland.

But like ducks to water, when the dogs hit the snow, they're home.

"As soon as they see the snow, they jump for joy, they jump into the snow, they burrow,"

"It's really nice to see them in their natural environment and how they react to the snowfields."

Among these alpine natives, there are some four-legged rescue animals that weren't born wearing natural snow coats.

But clad in jackets and booties, some of them are just as keen to get running on the ice.

In this sport, having the right team dynamic is crucial.

The pack follows the lead dog, and the lead dog is trained to follow the command of the sled driver, known as the musher.

Brett Hadden and Neisha Gschwend have a troupe of 37 Siberian huskies at their property in Cobungra near Mount Hotham.

They race teams of up to 16 dogs, which means carefully matching personalities both on and off the track.

"The passive ones run together and the active ones run together.

"You've got to work out who's faster and slower, and who's going to get on with who within the ranks of the gang line.

"They've all got different personalities. Some get on with others and some don't, just like human beings."

Brett has little to do in the way of convincing his huskies to run.

When they're not racing, they run sled dog tours around the alpine national park.

In the off-season he says they lie around and chase rabbits on the property.

Come race time, no amount of massaging or softly spoken words can calm them.

These dogs have been around for thousands of years and were bred by nomadic tribes to pull sleds.

Brett and his team spend countless hours training unwanted alpine dogs into skilled athletes. "You as the musher have to be experienced to be able to control the team, you can't let them dictate to you as the driver," Brett says.

"You want to get endurance out of them and train them to keep in their positions and look for young leaders coming up in the ranks."

And with a four-month old litter joining the pack, there are seven potential candidates.

More than a sport

Sled dog racing here may not be as advanced as places like Alaska or Austria.

But it's continuing to grow in the Australian Alps.

Competitor Courtney Persson, who is in the country on a working visa from Canada, brought her dogs over in cargo.

While there is a long way to go before the popularity and prize money matches that of her home country, she says the sled dog circuit here has crucial elements of the global winter sport.

"The dogs that are winning at home are nothing like this — they're speed demons, they're incredible athletes," she says.

"The sportsmanship's great here, the people love their dogs as much as we do back home.

"Really that's what the sport's about — the dogs and the people."

And for many of these dogs, this sport has provided a lifeline.

Topics: animals, winter-sports, mount-buller-3723

First posted