If your dog is having a seizure right now: start a timer, clear hazards, dim lights, and do not put your hands near their mouth. Call an emergency vet immediately if the seizure lasts
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!
TPLO surgery for dogs is a procedure that stabilizes the knee joint after a cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) tear. It has a success rate of 90% to 95% and costs between $3,500 and $7,000
Dog cremation costs between $30 and $500 or more depending on the type of cremation, the size of the dog, and the location. There are 3 main types: communal, individual (partitioned), and private. This
Old dog vestibular disease is one of the most common neurological conditions in senior dogs and is not a stroke. It causes a sudden onset of head tilt, loss of balance, and rapid eye
White foam vomit in dogs consists of saliva and gastric juices from the upper digestive tract. It appears most often when a dog has an empty stomach. It can range from a mild, self
Kidney disease affects an estimated 5.8% of dogs, according to a review of medical histories conducted at Michigan State University. The earliest signs are increased water consumption and increased urination. Symptoms remain subtle until
Excessive dog panting has 8 main causes: overheating, anxiety, pain, Cushing’s disease, heart disease, respiratory conditions, medication side effects, and cognitive dysfunction. Panting is normal after exercise, in heat, or during excitement. Panting at
The Year the Industry Started Watching Itself I had a handler here in February who arrived with a GPS tracking collar, a heart rate monitor, and a spreadsheet template for logging daily training load. She had never correctly fitted a harness in her life. The collar data was excellent. The dog was developing a pressure sore behind the left shoulder that she had not noticed for six days. This is 2026 in the working dog world. The technology is ahead of the knowledge. The accountability conversation is real and necessary and missing about half of what actually matters. The Mat-Su…
The permit system for Dog Mountain went live at six in the morning on a Tuesday. By six-oh-three, weekend slots for the next month were gone. That is not a trail management success story. That is a reservation system doing the administrative work while the actual problem goes unaddressed. Dog Mountain in the Columbia River Gorge is a genuinely good trail. The U.S. Forest Service permit requirement during wildflower season is a reasonable response to real damage. What it does not address is why several thousand people with dogs are all trying to reach the same ridge on the same…
A two-year-old was bitten at a sled dog excursion in Alaska in May 2026. The child had been brought within contact distance of an adult working dog immediately after a run. The dog was not aggressive by any standard assessment. It was overstimulated, tired, and had nowhere to go. Working dogs are not aggressive by default. They are, however, large, strong, fast to react, and completely unpredictable to people who do not read them. A Malamute coming off a run at minus ten is not the same animal as a Malamute in a staged photo with a child in a…
