Dallas Seavey is one of the best dog mushers in history. He’s won the Iditarod 5x and is getting his dog sled ready for a sixth. We talk dogs, braving 55 degrees below zero, forming a bond with your pet and eating 12,000 calories a day. Then, we countdown the Top 5 Fictional Dogs.
Dallas Seavey: 01:15ish
Pointless: 35:06
Top 5: 45:24ish
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Interview with Champion Dog Musher Dallas Seavey
Nick VinZant 0:11
Hey everyone, welcome to Profoundly Pointless. My name is Nick VinZant Coming up in this episode, dogs, real ones, and fake ones.
Dallas Seavey 0:22
The Iditarod is strung out over such a long period of time. And there's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of like, I don't know if I can actually pull this off or if I can physically do this as, as an individual myself, it's 50 below zero. So on a really good trail, good conditions. You know, we're going to be looking at probably 120 120 miles a day would be a normal, faster rail windy. I know, right? That's exactly what I think the best use of my energy is to recognize my greatest quality for this team is my opposable thumbs right here. Right.
Nick VinZant 0:55
I want to thank you so much for joining us. If you get a chance, please leave a review. We really appreciate it. It really helps us out. So our first guest is one of the best dog mushers in history. This is five time I did Rob champion, Dallas Seavey. So when did you realize that this was something that you wanted to do?
Dallas Seavey 1:18
Um, I grew up mushing sled dogs being around dogs, and they were always a huge part of my life. I would say when I decided that I was going to jump in with both feet and make this my adult lifestyle was after I got done wrestling, I was a wrestler for a long time in Olympic style primarily. And then had my career cut a little short due to too many concussions. And it really I think that's what I've kind of turned my focus. Alright, where's Where's another sport where I can be miserable. And my, my one good trait, which is being really good at being miserable. And keeping a level head through it all and making good decisions. Where does that have value? And then where can I do that in a way that I enjoy it and that's mushing I, I like the challenges it puts on me as a person. But more so I enjoy the connection with the animals, you know, overcoming challenges with your best friends, which are in this case, dogs, you know, getting out there and do something difficult. And it's not always fun in the sense of, Oh, isn't this so much fun sitting on the beach with, you know, a drink in your hand, but it's fulfilling, and it's rewarding.
Nick VinZant 2:22
Okay, so from the complete outside, I know nothing about it perspective, right? Like, alright, you stand there on the back of the sled, you tell the dogs to go.Tell me why it's way harder and more complicated than that,like, what are you really doing?
Dallas Seavey 2:37
Yeah, you know, at some points in time, it is that simple, because we're working with a dog that loves to mush as much as we do, right. And that's really the core of this is the sled dogs. This is their passion. This is what they love to do. Just like if you have a lab, you can throw that ball at me 10,000 times 20,000 times, and they're still going to go running over there and fetch it and bring it back your Border Collie, it doesn't matter if it's sheep, if it's chickens, if it's kids, if it's bicycles, they're gonna try to hurt it and push them all together, because that's what they're programmed to do. And in sled dogs, they're programmed to run to travel to pull. That's what they love doing. So at times, it really is just that simple. At the beautiful times, when you're sitting on the sled, the dogs are cruising down the trail, everything's happy, hunky dory, no problems in the world. The challenge is to try to do it better to try to set the dogs up for more success to understand them to such a level that you see what's going to happen and their physiology three, four or five days from now. And that takes understanding to really master the sport, you have to understand these guys to know the paces that they can run, how much rest do they need after each section of this trail? And what speed should we be traveling in? How is this individual going to react to this different trail condition? Is it going to take more of a toll on their body? Is this an easier trail for them? And then not just as an individual, but as a team? How is it going to affect each of them? So we're monitoring the calories that are going in the attitude amongst the team? How they're acting? Are they having a great day? Are they having a rough day? How am I going to accommodate accommodate their challenges on a day to day basis? How am I going to lift them up when it's you know, just a crappy weather day? And it's maybe not as much fun? How am I going to kind of bring them down later when they're all gung ho and excited and going way too fast? And I know that this isn't a sustainable pace, how do I help monitor them and keep them on that level keel? So it's challenging, primarily because you have to understand, and nowadays it's a 14 dog race, you have to understand all 14 of those dogs individually, so intimately well, and then also as a single unit, how they interconnect. And then finally you add the different species, the human into the equation and you have to understand how you're going to react to eight, nine days of sleeping very little or not sleeping at all, and being in at times down to 54 by 57, below zero temperatures, because our emotions, our feelings, start making effects, oftentimes negative effects on the team when we're sour, and we're miserable, and we think everything's going wrong. And we're only looking at it from our human perspective, you got to kind of get out of your own head out of your own body and look at what the dogs see. And, and always set them up for success. That's really the key to managing any team, right is, is making sure that all your players are having the best day of their life.
Nick VinZant 5:28
It is kind of interesting, right? It's kind of like managing 14 people that you can't talk to,
Dallas Seavey 5:32
you're right in the short term, that is exactly what it is. The dogs, you know, they are very much so a pack animal. And they required I should say, demand, good pack structure. And if we're going to insert ourselves as the leader, we have to provide that pack structure. And we have to be aware of everything that's happening, where humans value comfort, the sled dogs value security, and that security comes from a strong pack.
Nick VinZant 5:59
When you look at the people who weigh you know, you've won the I did rod, I think five times, right? That's the that's the race that everybody at least in North America has kind of heard of. When you look at the people who win those races, though, is it like, okay, look, Dallas has the best dogs. We all know he's got the best dogs, he could sit back there and watch TV all day. And like how much of it is just the physical ability of the dog itself?
Dallas Seavey 6:24
That is definitely a factor. But you know, and I've played with this because I love breaking down Why do teams have success? Why is this team winning? Why is this team not winning? And I think at the end of the day, I would always take the great musher with an OK dog team. I would choose that one every single time over the great dog team with an OK musher. Even the best mushers. I think we're leaving a lot on the table. No, we're still learning, we're still getting better at developing and maximizing the sled dogs. So I don't think that the limiting factor at the moment is the raw genetic potential. I think these dogs are still capable of far more than what we're able to, you know, get out of them. And that's going to come through more and better development, more and better nutrition, medical awareness. I mean, I spend most of my day when I'm not mushing, the rest of my day is spent, basically, as a sports medicine professional. I'm massaging dogs. I'm doing a lot of cold laser therapy with these guys. We're maintaining the foot health, we're always looking at the nutrition. Where are we know, where can we improve on this nutrition on the dogs? No. Is it more omega three fatty acids? Is it something over here in the antioxidant range? Are we we have the AST Xanthine at the right levels, vitamin E, you know, we're trying to understand these guys on the whole spectrum. So I would say the coach makes a bigger difference. But also it goes one layer further because in most sports, a coach or a franchise is going to recruit or draft players, right? We do all of that in house it starts with a puppy being born. And it starts even before that when me as a musher decides which dogs are going to breed. So even the raw genetic potential that you have in your kennel is a trait of your mushers knowledge when it comes to breeding and genetics. Right, so we can't use that. Oh, the dogs aren't good enough as an excuse because we have to take ownership of that and recognize that we decided which dogs to breed.
Nick VinZant 8:18
So the particulars like I've never seen a sled dog before like they're this big. They're this breed like kind of fill me in on the particulars. I guess
Dallas Seavey 8:29
the Alaskan Husky that we're racing is a mixed breed dog. Now the mixing primarily happened in the early 19 hundred's during the Gold Rush era in Alaska, when sled dogs were incredibly valuable, because that was the primary mode of transportation to haul, you know hopeful miners and supplies out to these gold mining towns and gold and a lot of discouraged miners out of the gold mining towns. And so during that time, sled dogs are incredibly valuable and this caused people to bring any dog they had to Alaska, and then cross those with the malamutes and Siberians which were the kind of traditional sled dogs of Siberia and Alaska that had been you know, helping humans survive in the Arctic for over 10,000 years. And then the resulting mixed breed puppy was just generically coined the Alaskan husky, and it's smaller than an Alaskan Malamute, smaller than most Siberians, but there are some pretty small Siberians out there as well. So most of the Alaskan Huskies are between 50 and 75 pounds. So it's not like a specific Oh, this is the right size, and they can look like everything. There's all different colorations in there. The one thing that is common amongst all sled dogs is their innate drive and desire to run and more than run to pull. It's really interesting. I've got about a two acre fenced in you know, play pan out here that the dogs go out into and out there they like to trot around and they'll you know, one of them will pick up a stick and run and the other ones will chase them chase them of course, but um, they like to run in that setting, but they go absolutely reserve when you get out the harness, and now they get to be in a team and get to pull. It is so strange that it's not just running, it's actually the act of pulling that they enjoy. Now, how far can they go in a day? In the I did run setting, which is nearly 1000 Miles race. It's not a matter of how far they can go is how far is it smart to go? And how far can they go sustainably sustainably would be the key word here. So on a really good trail, good conditions, you know, we're going to be looking at probably 120, about 120 miles a day would be a normal, faster trail winning pace. Yep, I know, right. That's exactly what I think every time I kidding. And they're doing this. And that. And this is where you get the discrepancy of the human and the dog because I'm getting very little sleep in a day, because I'm the only person that can aid my team, I'm the only one that can prepare their food that can put the booties on their feet to put the jackets on and when it's time to stop and sleep, give them massages, fix my sled repack the sled. So when we stop, that's when I actually go to work. So I might be getting an hour to two hours of sleep a day. Whereas the dogs are getting somewhere between eight and 12 hours of sleep a day, depending on where we are in the race, if it's early in the race, if it's later how tough the traveling conditions are so far, so on and so forth. So when I'm thinking, oh, man, I gotta wake the dogs up, put the booties on him and start going in my heads in a cloud because I haven't slept hardly at all in six or seven or eight days. And I'm getting them hitched up and all of a sudden, these dogs start barking and lunging and hitting the line, just raring to go. And it blows your mind every single time. And you got to remember they're they're getting a little more sleep, but they're also the ones that are actually running down the trail. And that's a pretty phenomenal athlete.
Nick VinZant 11:40
Right? Right. Yeah. I honestly when I asked that question with no knowledge, honestly tell you guys say like 1020 miles. Yeah, that's incredible. 100 ma.
Dallas Seavey 11:50
Yeah. So here's shit. And there's a few things that allow the sled dogs and you know, it's not like they're running on a treadmill? No, no, it's a lot harder than a treadmill run. But in to do that sort of distance on a day, it would require a fairly good trail where the snowmobiles have gone before the race, kind of pack it down. So there might be some light squishy snow, maybe an inch or two of soft snow on the surface. But there's generally a packed base underneath that not always but generally. But what makes the sled dogs or allows them to be able to do these incredible feats are a few things. First of all, the canine in general has the largest heart proportionate to its body mass of any mammal out there. So they're already starting with a heart that's bigger than any other mammal. And surprisingly, mammals heart size is pretty constant relative to their body size. Of course, everywhere from a mouse to a whale, it's a pretty constant heart size. And I think it starts at point oh, six of the animal's body mass can be built to point O eight. Whereas canine start at point O eight and can build it up to 1% of their body mass, so they have a bigger heart, then pretty much any mammal. The second thing that really allows the canine, aka the Alaskan Husky to be such a phenomenal traveler, is their ability to process calories. First of all, a dog system runs on fats, as opposed to a human that we were on more off of sugar, right? So we're looking at carbs, you look at a marathoners diet, and it's very simple sugars, it's those fast carbs that are going to hit their system. And when a marathoner talks about bonking at the end of a marathon, it's when they run out of blood sugar, and now their body's having to convert stored fat into energy. That's a very inefficient process for a human. A dog system is designed to run on fats. And they're incredibly efficient at either consuming fats and instantly turning it into energy or storing that fat and then switching and using stored fat for energy. Lastly, a 55 pound sled dog can easily burn and then also consume and replace 12,000 calories a day. 12,000 calories a day. So we think of a crazy human athlete, let's say Michael Phelps will hit 12,000 calories in a day. But he's not a 55 pound animal either. Right? So when you look at the calories per kilo of animal, their ability to consume and and then process and then utilize those calories makes them the ultimate endurance animal. That is kind of crazy when you think about it, right? Like if you translated that to a normal, average human 150 pound male, that's like 36,000 calories. Yeah, it's just time all day just to plain eat that. I would Yeah, if you could, you know, that would be a real challenge. You'd have to be some sort of professional eager to hit that many calories to get 36,000 calories, you'd be looking at almost 10 pounds of straight fat, because a pound of fat, I think is 3500 calories. And this brings up another really good point as a musher when I'm coaching new mushers or even a do mushing symposium and things like that. We have to recognize our our place as a human in the pecking order here. These dogs are the supreme athlete. So especially for me I was a I was a wrestler I can been at the top level I came out of that went into my And I viewed myself as very physical musher. Right, I was the guy that could run up all the hills could ski pole constantly. And yes, I can do that. But that is not the best use of my energy. The best use of my energy is to recognize my greatest quality for this team is my opposable thumbs right here, right? I can do massages, I can put booties on I can prepare food, I am a caregiver on the trail, I have to recognize the fact that they are the athletes. So me trying to run up the hills, and you know, tiring myself out is not helping the team. The way that I help the team is make sure that they feel 100% Perfect. If I can do that, they can do incredible things they did a rod is about maintaining a healthy team, as you travel a great distance. It's about being a good dog person. And the racing part of it almost happens in a secondary nature. If you do all these base things really well, good results are going to happen.
Nick VinZant 15:52
What was that, like when you the first time that you want it?
Dallas Seavey 15:55
That was that was quite the experience? You know, mostly because I didn't know if I could. And I have to admit that's probably part of why I wanted to get into it. I didn't know if I could win the idea, right? My dad had been racing since I was very young. He my dad raised me I did run from 95 to 2020. So all of my childhood was focused around helping my dad prepare his his teams for the Iditarod, things like that. So my life was focused around it. And you know, my dad's a now a three time I did a rock champion, you know, very focused individual very successful running his his businesses and whatnot. So when I saw him try and seemingly failed to win the I did it year after year, it really put I did run champions up on this pedestal for me where I felt like they were superhuman Demi gods that were able to do it. Because if my dad can't do it, and obviously I looked up to him, you know, then what does it take to do this? And finally, on my dad's 11th attempt, he cracked the code one his first I did right in 2004. And that was like, I think the moment that I realized that the people that when they did are are not superhuman, they're not demigods. They're just very persistent. People that continually know, creatively solve problems, continually address things that they have to do this introspective look and say, What am I doing wrong? And take ownership of that. By the time you know, I started racing with my own kennel in 2009. You know, by that point, my dad had run 15 Something I did rods, maybe more and had one, you know, one of them. So I didn't know if I could. And when I won my first I did run every single dog and my team had been purchased from another kennel. And what that means is every one of my dogs had just recently been fired from their previous job. And so it really was kind of the mix match hodgepodge team. And that was the first time that a team one thing I did, that was entirely purchased. So the feeling was definitely a bit of a bit of a shock and surprise, like holy cow, we actually did it. But definitely the overpowering feeling was a sense of pride. You know, in this team and these dogs what they had become, they weren't the best of the best genetically, right? All these were all the the worst dog in their litter, not the best dog in the litter. They were the last round draft picks. And that's really, it really opened my eyes to how much more we can do about development. The focus is about developing these dogs, not better raw genetic material, but better coaching and development of what you have.
Nick VinZant 18:28
So will you look at it? So there's 14? Are they in Rosa two? Yep. So will you look at and say, okay, Steve is great in the middle of the pack on the left side, but he's no right side dog, like do you really put a lot of thought into exactly where in the harness they go?
Dallas Seavey 18:45
Mm hmm. And that changes on a, you know, on an hourly basis, honestly. So I do have dogs that are right and left sided, there are dogs that were on way better on the right or the left than they do the other side. And that's less common than dogs that will run better forward or back in the team. You know, as you get into the front of the team, it's, it is the most difficult position in the lead position, both physically and mentally, physically, because they're the ones having to drive the pace, there's no visual reference of how hard they need to go. The only input they have is from how hard they're pulling on the line behind them. So they're always having to put an extra 10% on the line to keep that line tight. If the team's going down a hill and then up the next tail it's like a dog team is a long item. So while half the team is still going down this hill at a greater speed, the front half of the team is having to sprint up the next hill at a much faster speed so it is harder for the lead dogs physically. Also, if you've run at all if you draft off of another runner they provide a windbreak right and humans run more racked. Obviously we have more surface area we create more wind resistance. But look at Tour de France cyclist they line up because it is easier to be in that space. slipstream have the cycles ahead of you. And it's the same with a dog team, they kind of have that decreased wind resistance. And then finally, if there's any soft snow on the trail, the dogs in the front are the ones having to put those first tracks in the snow and it gets easier for each pair of dogs behind them. Now when you get to the back of the team, the dogs right in front of the sled, they oftentimes have to be a little bit more agile, particularly on twisty windy trails, as we're going around these turns, those back, dogs will often have to jump over the center line and get over on the same side as their buddy to avoid an obstacle or the soft snow on the trail. And then as soon as we've completed that turn, they have to get back on their own side so that they can allow their partner to do the same thing, you know, jump over the line when we take a sweeping left hand turn. So those back dogs, not only are they having to pull forward, but they're having to be quick on their feet and jumping side to side and a little more activity there. So now that we understand that there are easier positions, generally in the middle of the team and harder positions, generally at the ends of the team. I'm constantly rotating dogs, so that nobody gets stuck in the hardest position for too long of a period of time. And this is also where you're judging attitude, how they're doing. And it's like, Man, this dog, they need to have an easy day to day. So I'm going to put them in the middle of the team, I may not even clip up their harness, you know, just put them on their collar so that they can jog along and not actually feel like they need to be pulling anything or not allowing them to pull because if that harness is hooked up, they will be leaning and pulling. So it's essentially putting them in neutral so that they can have a recovery run versus you know, actually working hard. Other dogs, man, they're, they're on it today. They're all perky and lively. And you know they've got that extra energy. Go ahead and take on that harder position in the lead today. So we're constantly moving dogs around in the team.
Nick VinZant 21:39
Are you ready for some harder slash listener submitted questions? Oh, yeah. What is your favorite dog name?
Dallas Seavey 21:47
It's hard to separate the name from the dog because when I mean I'm sure just like human names. There's got to be human names like Man, I hate people that are not people but I hate this name. Because it reminds me of this total Jackass I knew back in college. Right. But I would say both the one that popped into my head I'm just gonna go with that is clutch. Clutch. Awesome dog. He was on my first my early racing team though the winning teams back in the very first one. And he was the biggest heart a dog I've ever seen an insane appetite. He's one that I would have to feed him. Like just one quart of food at a time. I couldn't put all his food in his bowl because he would just smash his head in there and eat it and all the water would squirt out on the side of his face. So and it didn't matter how much you give him. He would feed him until he just be this big old barrel basically like the lab attitude where if you spill the bag of dog food, he'll eat the entire thing. Right? And just a huge hard on him. Yeah. Awesome, fun dog to be around. He wasn't the smartest. He wasn't the best athlete. But he had the biggest heart.
Nick VinZant 22:46
What about the worst?
Dallas Seavey 22:48
I'm not a fan of human names for dogs. I don't know why. It's just, I don't know. So most of my names are not human names.
Nick VinZant 22:58
Do you ever just mush to like the store? Or like, Hey, I'm gonna take a quick trip and just take the dogs.
Dallas Seavey 23:05
Yeah, yeah, no, I love doing trips like that because it breaks the cycle of mushing is just for training or just for the Iditarod No, mushing is what I love to do. Right. I like traveling by dog team. And I like doing it for fun. And sometimes when you really get serious into the race, and you've got to say, Hey, am I still enjoying this? Are we just so focused on the race that I'm taking the fun out of it by making it a job? And so I really make a point to do fun runs, you know, we're just going out to have a good time. It's not about conditioning. It's not about training a new lead dog. It's not about anything. It's just about having a good time. When I think back to my most fun, mushing, it's when I was six and seven and I had one or two dogs tied to the front of a sled that used to slide down like a kid sled just for sliding down the snowbanks know, having one or two dogs on that just just traveling. It's the most pure simple joy if you were just bouncing through the forest, a kitten some dogs having fun. So I checked my mail regularly by dog team in the mailbox is about four miles away.
Nick VinZant 24:04
I forgot that's what Alaska is kind of like, right? Yeah. I kind of like this question. Besides dogs, what other animal do you feel like you could mush? Like, could you do like an elephant? The first
Dallas Seavey 24:17
one that pops into my head is reindeer. I've spent a fair bit of time yeah, in Norway and Scandinavia. I did the longest race in Europe, which is in the way far north of Norway. Twice. Back in 18 and 19. And they I mean, mushing or, I'm sure it's not called mushing, but driving reindeer is actually a thing. Russians do it. I've seen some videos they look a little bit sketchy to say the least. But um you know, they're Russians mushing are driving these reindeer teens and I don't know how well the reindeer are trained but it's it looks pretty rudimentary to me. And obviously appear there's a history with or elsewhere also, but you know, horse drawn carriages and things like that. But I saw There's one really cool picture in one of the local restaurants around here, and it's actually back in the early 1900s. And there is a moose that they had trained to pull a sleigh or carriage of some sort, which really surprised me, but they actually had like this moose pole and stuff. And that would be, that would be a challenge because that is very much a wild animal. And big, very large
Nick VinZant 25:24
for people who maybe haven't encountered moose is like those are, though that you do not fuck with a moose. No, that is way. It's basically like a small school bus. On like, every time I've seen one. Yep,
Dallas Seavey 25:39
they're shockingly large. But I will say there's few things as majestic in the wilderness as a big bowl most. There's one because I've grown up eating most right now. That's the meat I have in my freezer is is most. And the last one I got about the last one, one of the ones I got was about seven and a half feet tall to the shoulders. Just a standard doorway is six foot eight inches. So seven and a half feet tall. That's the shoulder of this thing. Yeah, they're massively large animal and they are our biggest concern, while mushing in, in the wintertime, that's the one animal that can give you problems and actually be aggressive towards the dog team. especially late in the winter, when there's deep snow, the moose, I feel for them, they've got a very rough life. But if the snow is deepest covered up all their food, if it's a really cold weather, or cold winter, they have no fat reserves left and they can be just running out of energy. And it's easy for them to, you know, Miss misinterpret a dog team for a pack of wolves, which is their main predator that time of year. So if they don't feel like they can run away, their next instinct is to turn and charge. So we're always on the watch out for most, and making sure that our team and moose don't have a bad interaction.
Nick VinZant 26:51
Okay, I don't know how to quantify this necessarily. But I've always heard that the I did rod is basically like one of the hardest things in the world, is it? Or is that kind of like, it's a little bit of media propaganda kind of stuff, I would have
Dallas Seavey 27:04
a hard time saying that's the hardest thing in the world. I mean, that's a pretty dang bold statement, look at the things that humans have survived, or done right. And in most of the most extreme things humans have done, they have not done it by choice, or they've done it in a situation where the other choice was death. But yeah, it is physically challenging. In a way that's different than let's say, like an Ironman Triathlon, which is a common thing that humans do electively that would probably be more difficult in an acute way, in a short term, or in the next 12, or 14 or 18 hours, I don't know how long it takes, is going to be absolutely brutal. But the other thing that they do in that time frame is you put your head down, you don't think you just go right. And you know that that and his insight is all done in less than a day, the dinner rod is strong out over such a long period of time. And there's a lot of uncertainty, there's a lot of like, I don't know, if I can actually pull this off. Or if I can physically do this as as an individual myself, it's 50 below zero. And while the dogs have good hair, and they're designed for this, and they're burning all these calories, which produces a lot of heat, I am not developed to live in 55, below zero temperatures, so your feet are freezing. And there's this uncertainty and probably one of the more similar settings to put it in, in that case, would be more like special forces training, let's take you know hell week for seals, that would probably be a more similar setting where it's like, I don't know if I can complete this. And there's the real fear not that you would necessarily die. Of course, that is an option. But that you might not pass, it's more of a pride thing. You know, I may fail here, you're there's the uncertainty of I have to make decisions. And I don't know, even though I think I made the best decision, I don't know if that'll be enough to accomplish what I have in front of me. And then also there's the tactical decisions that we have to deal with. And you're getting hit with one decision after the next step to the next step to the next. And it starts to play well with you on a kind of an emotional level, especially when you're on low sleep very, very low sleep. And sleep deprivation has to be one of the most, you know, painful things or it is the most painful thing about this. And it is it hits humans very, very hard when you're on day seven and not sleeping. You're not yourself and all your facade and ego even the stuff you didn't think you had a facade or an ego or an image that you project all of that comes away and you were down to just you. And if you're not comfortable with who you are at the very core. It's a terrifying situation for a lot of people. And that's something that's really important with mushing and dogs. You have to be comfortable with who you are at the very base because it will be exposed and that's something that a lot of people don't ever turn and face. Secondly, the dogs see right through those facades, right you can do all the pump up hype for your humans because they understand the words you're saying the dogs don't understand the words they see the intent behind it. That
Nick VinZant 29:50
is true. You can't fool them. What's your favorite piece of musher lingo?
Dallas Seavey 29:55
It's simple. Well, when we're I'd say we're, we always end up like that. I'm gonna go broody, the dogs, because we're putting little shoes on their feet. That's a constant project, right, we put a each dog has four feet, and we got 14 of them in the team. So, though that's something we do before every run taking the booties off after the run, so probably booting dogs Wait, if
Nick VinZant 30:16
you got 10 dogs, it's 40 feet. Man, that's a lot. A lot of work.
Dallas Seavey 30:21
Yep. And, and that's, that's almost always what causes a little bit of frostbite for your for your hands, because again, our hands aren't designed to be, you know, uncovered at those temperatures. So especially if it's windy, even if it's only five or 10, below zero, which is reasonably reasonably warm here. The wind is the worst. So when I have to put those boots on and a stiff wind in any sort of cold temperatures, you feel your hands like dry out start to almost Yeah, basically start to freeze and your skin gets to be like real thin papery almost so any little nick on them will instantly become a cut as they become very brittle. And then you'll actually see on the backs of your hands kind of at this level below this knuckle and also above it. On each finger, you'll get a little football shaped welt where the wind is hitting the back of your hand as you're putting those boots on and create a welt across there. Just from basically frostbite that happens in a matter of seconds. You know it one particular year I'm thinking of 2009 we had a horrific storm on the Bering Sea coast. And it was both very, very cold and super strong winds. It effectively shut down the race for 18 hours until the wind started to lead up. But I was out there caring for the dogs I built like little snow forts around them to create a wind block. And I think the windchill factor in that was like 115, below zero, and exposed skin freezes basically instantly in those temperatures. And that's why we weren't moving or stopped down because it's just not safe to travel or move in those type of conditions. Despite the dogs. No the being evolved to live in these conditions. You know, they went from being wolves in Alaska to being domesticated wolves, aka the Alaskan Malamute to being modern day Alaskan Huskies and they never became a house dog they never left last, the traits and qualities that allowed them to be successful article Arctic survivors as wolves. So they are very well developed for these conditions. As humans. We didn't develop in these conditions. And so we're the ones who have to adapt and get better clothing and gear. And you know, wash your hands freeze the dogs, they're incredibly tough, and incredibly well adapted for this refer to this lifestyle. This is what they've been doing for 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of years.
Nick VinZant 32:30
That's pretty much all the questions I had man. Is there anything you think we missed? Or what's kind of coming up next for you?
Dallas Seavey 32:36
Yeah, I would say the only thing that's left out there is you know, mushing is definitely not your mainstream sport. It's not on you know, ESPN every every Sunday. And you know, so this one if you do want to follow mushing and watch dog races, doing it online is definitely the best way and, and now that that's become more common, it's, it's, I guess, a little easier and more accessible for people. But you know, go to I did rod.com. That's the official, I did her on webpage, you know, and the I did, Ron is the World Championships. It is the biggest dog sled race out there, you're gonna see the best of the best teams show up at that race. It starts the first Saturday in March, and then leading up to the race all winter long. You know, social media is a great way to follow mushers in the process and learn more about it, you know, start to understand the individual dogs and what goes into developing them. And there's a lot of information like us, particularly that we try to put out, that helps people become a better steward to their dog or their pet. At the bottom of all of this, it's about the human animal connection, which I think is an awesome and sacred thing that you humans would not have developed in so many places around the world without the aid of animals. And that even just 100, definitely 200 years ago, your connection with animals was much closer, we depended on them, we relied on them. And that builds that really close tight bond. Nowadays, our relationship with pets is a convenience. It's a luxury item, we like to have a pet. But we don't have that super close bond as you would if you relied on that pet. So take for example, somebody who has a nice fluffy dog, it's a great dog, they come home from work, they patted on the head, say Good Dog, take it for a walk. There's a friendship, there's a relationship, but there's not a connection like there would be for somebody with their seeing eye dog. They rely on each other, that's going to be a much closer bond. So I guess what I would just say is, you know, check out the social media, Dallas CV on Facebook, and we'll get all the other platforms as well. The information is on the Facebook to go on YouTube and Instagram and Twitter and those ones. We have great fluffy Husky pictures, Puppy pictures, all that good stuff, but also information about you know, trying to develop that closer relationship with your pet to enhance that experience of the human animal connection, enhance the quality of life, your dog and your enjoyment of that pet as a human.