Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers by Gary Paulsen

Puppies, Dogs, and Blue Northers by Gary Paulsen

Author:Gary Paulsen [Paulsen, Gary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt


Young Run

THE PUPPIES GREW, became a year then a year and a half old, and then, finally, became dogs.

We trained by "logging," starting them at four months to get used to the feel of weight pulling behind them. First they get a plain harness to wear around for half an hour each day, just loose and running. Then a four-foot piece of rope is attached to the harness for another few days, and finally a short, light piece of firewood—the "log"—is tied to the rope and they run with that bouncing and skidding along behind them.

They genetically know how to pull, want to run and pull, but going at it slowly lets them build confidence and have more fun in the process.

The first runs with Cookie's last litter were chaotic. I put Cookie on the front, because she is so solid, and then King and William, who are steady and big and do not suffer nonsense.

Then three pups. The pups know what it's all about, had watched us harness a thousand times, and knew what was coming. There was a new four-inch layer of snow on the old snow pack for a cushion and I hooked them all up to a light—fourteen-pound—racing sled with new plastic on the runners.

When I popped the quick-release it felt like the sled left the ground. They flew, the puppies firing up the adult dogs as we roared out the back of the kennel into the woods.

The trick is keeping the puppies running with the sled. They have lived in the kennel, never been out of sight of the adult dogs except to run in the house and wake Ruth, and suddenly they are allowed to run into the forest with the big guys.

There is a whole world to see, to learn, and like all young they want to see and do it all at once. A hundred yards into the woods we spooked a snowshoe rabbit that shot off the trail to the right into a thick stand of red willow.

The pups went after him. And they went with such boundless enthusiasm that they infected the team and we all went after the rabbit, even Cookie.

We didn't catch him. We caught willows and trees and brush and deep snow but we didn't catch the rabbit and it didn't matter.

I pulled everybody back on the trail and we took off again and hadn't gone sixty yards when a red squirrel jumped from the base of a small tree and with the speed of light snaked up a balsam next to the trail.

We went after him. We caught brush and tree limbs and more deep snow and tangled harnesses and our own feet—by this time I was laughing out loud—but we didn't catch the squirrel and it didn't matter.

A quarter mile farther on a mouse blew out of the snow in a small clearing and skittered across the surface before diving back in.

We went after him. The snow was easily three feet deep and the team,



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