Weight Watchers For Dogs

This is the "Little Sausage" at home

In 2001 I was a national team member representing USA in skijoring for the IFSS World Championships. Before the event I had had a pretty good season up until then winning races in Colorado, California and Oregon. I had ramped up my mileage leading up to the event because the worlds was a 20km race for the two dog event. Most of my races up until then were about 3 mile sprints. When I arrived in Alaska I trained for a week in Anchorage with my brother Kit before I went to Fairbanks. It was then that I noticed that one of my dogs was underweight. By then it was too late to get her weight back on. I think that that factor had a lot to do with her performance in the main event. She bonked in the final kilometers. It took about 3 more weeks to a month before she was back to her competitive weight. I was a little naive and was not watching her weight as close as I should have.

Tempo is the tricolor husky on the left that was underweight during the 20k 2 dog event.

Since then I have been a lot more attentive to the weight of my dogs. I learned from my old friend Al Magaw of British Colombia during the limited class sled dog races at the Worlds how to check for your dogs weight . I like what he told me and I use his advice to this day. He said to feel between the pelvic bones for the spine. If your dog is underweight then the bone is prominent. If you can barely feel the spine there then that is about right. If you can't feel it at all then your dog is overweight. If you check frequently enough then you will know before your dog gets a weight problem. With huskies and their thick coat then it is not always so obvious if they are under or over weight. I am using GSPs now and with their thin coats it is easy to see if they are underweight. I like to be able to barely see their ribs. It may depend on the dog. On my little sausage, ( Mojo) I like to keep a little more weight on because he performs better when I can barely see his ribs. My dogs Otto and Seamus are better when their ribs are a little more prominent but not obvious. Because I mainly run short distances I like to keep my dogs a little lighter than someone doing distance mushing.

This is Otto at home. Proof that a 60 lb dog can fit in a little bed made for a chihuahua

More often I see dogs that are overweight. Being overweight is a much more serious and detrimental condition than being underweight. Too much weight is an invitation for joint and heart problems just like in humans. The weight of your dog is so much easier to control than your own weight because you are in control of the food. If your dog doesn't eat what is served in less than five minutes then remove it. Ideally your dog is an eager eater and it should be inhaling it's food. Start with portions recommended on the bag and watch your dogs weight from there. Never let the dog feed itself with a full bowl left to eat at will. Maintain a schedule of feeding that your dog knows and can trust you to stick to. I recommend feeding twice a day.
My dogs love to eat as much as they like to run. If I let them eat all they wanted they would fart all night and gain weight rapidly because they are all neutered. Because they are working dogs they need a high protein and high fat food. The basic formula is 30 percent protein and 20 percent fat or 30/20. You may not be able to find a 30/20 food at the local store that only has pet food. That is the minimum formula that I will feed. Often I supplement that with meat over the winter depending on their activity level.

Seamus at home. All my dogs wear fence collars at home to keep them inside the fence when they go out the dog door.

Dog Scootering

Tim Curley and his levitating dog at the start of the Pacific Northwest Dryland Championships in Roslyn Washington. Photo by Megan Capon

This past year I started to train dryland almost exclusively on a scooter. I
had been using a mountain bike before that. I am about 6'1" tall and about 190 pounds. I had tried several scooters before I decided to buy the Blauwerk/Sidewalker "Downhill". I like the larger 26" wheels because they tend to roll over the rough stuff a little easier than smaller wheels. The steering is not as quick as the riser bars on small wheeled rigs. That is a good thing. The wheelbase is longer than a bike so there is much less tendency to go"endo". "Endo" is when you are thrown over the handlebars, often landing on your face. Compared to a bike, I notice that when standing on the platform of a scooter the rig is much more planted on the ground. A mountain bike has a higher center of gravity and is more likely to "endo" when starting out and when going down hills.
The brakes on the Blauwerk are linear pull V style brakes that are adequate but they need to be
adjusted frequently. The pads are not as easy to change as higher end V-Brakes. The
cable routing to the rear brake is in need of improvement. The front suspension forks are nice and have much more travel than a small wheel fork will allow. The long steel frame is heavy but springy enough to be comfortable and I don't feel the need for rear suspension.
The wheels are also heavy with wide downhill rims. I think I can get away with much
lighter wheels. The bars are also heavy. I would like to replace them with more
conventional mountain bike flat bars.
I haven't had a problem with the rear wheel getting in the way when I pedal. Some users complained that the larger rear wheels did get in the way.
The platform is high enough that I haven't had problems with it bottoming out on rough stuff like I have experienced on some other scooters. There is about 5.25" of ground clearance. The platform is 8"above the ground. The larger wheels allow greater ground clearance.
Here is a photo of me and my second place team on the scooter at the recent Roslyn Rondy. Megan Capon took the photo. The race winner was Ellen Donoghue. She was running Alaskan Huskies from the Streeper Kennel

I am using Mojo in the lead for my 2 dog team. I call him " The Little Sausage" because of the long round shape of his body.

This photo shows my team finishing. There was a strong headwind during the race. I think I managed to shave a few seconds off my time by getting down low on the scooter platform.


This is Ellen Donoghue with Tim Curley along side her finishing the race on the second day.
I expect to see Ellen this next winter at some of the skijor races.

This is Bob Wilson and his two Alaskan Huskies. Bob was the the 3rd place team out of 18 other teams in the scooter class. The bikejoring was mainly a novice class at this race. Bob is also a very competitive skijorer.