Dog sled driver

Usage examples of musher.

In his youth, Bandit had belonged to Ted Thomas, a musher from Ontario.

No musher looking at him would have believed that under that blanket of fur and fat lay the heart of anything other than a house pet.

He recalled the late 1950S when Roland Lombard, a veterinarian and musher from Massachusetts, stunned the racing community by becoming the first man from outside to win a major Alaskan race.

Aside from the hands-on things one learns about dogs, dog care, dog gear, racing strategy, and the like, there is also a body of knowledge that comes to the musher seconthand, by-products of the life dogs have caused the musher to lead.

When selecting future team dogs from a litter, a musher looks for pups with thick pad leather and strong, well- arched, and closely spaced toes.

A few days later, George was buying some supplies at Iceman Feeds when a musher approached the counter and asked the clerk if he could have a little advice on booties.

Our dinner guests were Jeffry and Robin Peters, a graduate student and recreational musher who had befriended us early that fall.

Turning them right side out in advance of the race saves time for the musher, whose dogs will use eight hundred to twelve hundred booties in the course of a thousand-mile trail.

The wise musher cuts corners by carrying dehydrated and calorie-dense foods instead of less food.

Snow placed in the hot chamber melts, and when the resulting water boils a musher can use it to drink, feed his dogs, fill his trail thermos, and thaw prepared, vacuum-sealed frozen meals.

When a musher begins a rest cycle, he boils water, feeds his dogs, removes their booties, and checks each dog for injury or illness.

If it is very cold, the musher beds the dogs down in straw when it is available or blankets them in dog coats.

The musher may sleep only two or three hours in each twenty-four- hour period.

Because dogs may fail the physical examination, and because accidents, injuries, and plain old bad luck can happen between the examination day and the start of the race, each musher may bring up to fifteen dogs to the veterinary check.

At the start of the race, the musher must declare which twelve of those fifteen he will actually run.