The kennel smelled of hay and dog and the diesel tang of a generator running four days in minus-fifteen air. I was checking feet on my lead pair when the first news out of Mat-Su came through on my phone. I read the number twice before I believed it. Twenty-five dogs dead at a kennel north of Willow, and mushers in the area had been calling borough animal control for months. The Mat-Su case is not a surprise to anyone who works in this community. Mushers near Willow had been raising the alarm with Mat-Su Borough officials for months with…
Author: Helen Corlew
Helen Corlew
Helen L. Corlew runs a team of Samoyeds, Alaskan malamutes and Alaskan huskies. I am a Tellington TTouch practitioner and use this mode of work with training and living with my dogs. Helen Corlew founded Prairie Isle Dog Trekking in Petersburg, North Dakota in 2010, and has spent the fifteen years since doing something most people only read about: teaching real dog sledding on real prairie terrain, at the edge of a landscape that doesn't apologize for being difficult. She is not a weekend enthusiast. She harnesses working dogs in January cold, trains handlers who have never touched a sled, and has built one of the only hands-on mushing education programs on the Northern Great Plains — from a single address on Highway 2, with no marketing budget and no shortcuts. Her writing on Prairie Isle Dog Trekking reflects the same philosophy. Whether she is covering trail safety across the Rockies, breed behavior in extreme conditions, or what it actually takes to trek with a dog in the Alps, Helen writes from the position of someone who has done the work before writing the sentence. She lives and runs dogs in Nelson County, North Dakota. Kindly follow me on Social Media!
Hiking delivers 10 measurable benefits for dogs across 3 core health categories: physical conditioning, mental wellbeing, and behavioural stability. These benefits apply to most breeds when hiking frequency, terrain, and distance are matched to the dog’s age, size, and fitness level.What Are the Benefits of Hiking for Dogs?The 10 key benefits of hiking for dogs are cardiovascular fitness, weight management, muscle development, joint mobility, anxiety reduction, mental stimulation, improved sleep quality, reduced destructive behaviour, stronger owner bonding, and socialization. For the previous guide in this series, see Dog Hiking Paw Care: 7 Proven Methods to Protect and Condition Your Dog’s…
Dog hiking paw care covers 7 methods: paw wax application, protective boots, pre-hike conditioning, mid-hike inspection, hot surface avoidance, post-hike cleaning, and pad crack treatment. Dogs without paw protection sustain pad injuries on 1 in 4 hikes exceeding 5 miles on rocky or asphalt terrain (American Kennel Club, 2021).What Is Dog Hiking Paw Care?Dog hiking paw care is a set of protective and restorative practices applied before, during, and after trail activity to prevent pad burns, cuts, abrasions, and infections. A dog’s paw pad is composed of thick keratinized skin over a fat layer that absorbs impact. This layer tears,…
The dog came back from the tree line with a tick behind her left ear and three more along her collar line. She had been off leash for maybe four minutes while I adjusted the gangline. Four minutes was enough, and this was Petersburg in early May, not deep woods. That particular spring I started checking every dog twice after any run that took us near standing grass or brush edges. The TTouch work made that easier because my hands already knew their bodies in detail. A tick embedded behind the ear of a dog you have not been handling…
What to feed a dog on a hike depends on the dog’s body weight, trail distance, and ambient temperature. Dogs expend 30% to 50% more calories during hiking than during rest, according to data published by the Merck Veterinary Manual. The 6 best foods for dogs on hikes are regular kibble, freeze-dried dog food, high-protein training treats, dehydrated meat chews, dog-specific energy bars, and fresh vegetables such as carrots and cucumber slices.What Do Dogs Eat on a Hike?Dogs eat their regular diet supplemented with portable, high-protein snacks on a hike. Maintain the dog’s standard food type to prevent digestive upset.…
The dogs were lined out in the dark at five-thirty, and I was checking tuglines by headlamp when the radio caught Jessie Holmes finishing in Nome. My lead dog Sable turned her head at the sound of the announcer’s voice. She does that sometimes, as if human tone carries information worth weighing. Nine days, seven hours, thirty-two minutes on a roughly thousand-mile course is what the performance report says. Back-to-back wins, sixth musher in the race’s history to do it. The coverage since has focused heavily on Holmes himself, which is understandable and also not the most instructive part of…
Dog trekking photography is the practice of capturing a dog in motion, at rest, and in environmental context on hiking trails using camera settings, composition techniques, and lighting conditions specific to outdoor action and nature photography. A 2022 survey by the Photography and Imaging Manufacturers Association confirms that pet photography on trail represents the fastest-growing outdoor photography category, with a 54% increase in dedicated trail pet photography content published across major platforms between 2020 and 2023.Effective dog trekking photography requires managing 5 technical variables simultaneously: shutter speed for motion capture, aperture for depth separation, ISO for variable trail light, autofocus…
Bikejoring is a dog sport where 1 or 2 harnessed dogs are attached to a bicycle via a bungee tow line and pull the rider along a trail. It originates from sled dog mushing and is practiced across North America, Europe, and Australia. Bikejoring combines cardiovascular training for both dog and rider across 5 core disciplines: equipment setup, obedience commands, conditioning, trail selection, and safety management.What Is Bikejoring with Dogs?Bikejoring is a non-motorised dog sport where a dog is attached to a bicycle via a bungee line and harness and pulls the cyclist forward while the rider pedals to assist.…
A dog named Kestrel showed me the difference between cold tolerance and cold preparedness. She was a young Alaskan Husky, and she shivered through her first serious prairie run at minus twenty-two. I pulled her from the line after four miles. That was the right call, and I knew it only because I had been watching her ears. The Yle investigation out of Finnish Lapland documented welfare violations in roughly three-quarters of kennels inspected this April. That is not a rounding error. It is a structural condition, and anyone who has spent time around commercial tourism mushing knows exactly how…
Canicross is a cross-country running sport where a human and dog run together connected by a bungee line attached to a waist belt and a dog harness. A beginner canicross team covers 2–5 km (1.2–3.1 miles) per session and builds to competitive 5–10 km (3.1–6.2 miles) race distances over 8–12 weeks of structured training.What Is Canicross?Canicross is an off-road running discipline in which a runner is attached to one or more dogs via a bungee towline and a padded waist belt, with the dog running in front and providing forward pull assistance. The sport originated in Europe as an off-season…