Rain Mountain Chinooks -- Work & Play

Many here in the Northwest are attracted to the Chinook primarily as a hiking companion since this is an area where hiking is popular year round (despite the rain). In order for your Chinook to be a good hiking companion though, training and courtesy are required. Courtesy in observing the laws as to where leashes are required; many habitats can be fragile and loose running dogs would cause damage even with no bad intention. For example, some areas of Mount Rainier are so fragile that pedestrians are not allowed off the trails and dogs are not allowed at all outside of parking lots anywhere in the Park.

We start our Chinooks young learning to keep close to their pack so that they will have opportunity to go off leash where feasible. At no time would I risk taking an untrained dog on a hike and trusting it off leash. Though Chinooks are not prone to wander, they still need to learn the basics of staying close on hikes and any sign of wandering out of sight means the party is over and the leash is quickly back in place. If I have a dependable older dog, the youngster may be coupled to the older one so it has no choice but to come when called. This also teaches some of the basics it will use later when the new pup starts running as part of the team.

Many of the areas where we hike and sled are wild which means that there are critters out there bigger than human or Chinook. Bears, elk, moose, and cougars all inhabit the Northwest woods (along with deer, raccoons, and other smaller critters) and are highly capable of injuring even a large mature male Chinook so training has to include a dependable recall. I was so proud the day I called Thunder and he came promptly even though a deer had just bounded out of the brush. Hopefully I won't run into any nasty creatures and need to call my dogs off but until they are reliable, we practice over and over with liberal treats as a reward and incentive.

There is nothing more fun than gliding across the snow on a sled pulled by your own dogs. The only problem is that global warming can readily be seen in the Cascade Mountains east of Seattle and now we have some years of good snow and some years where there is barely enough for more than a couple runs before it melts.

Puppy training starts as soon as the youngsters are old enough to run along with the sled though they probably start going along for the ride to the mountains even younger. At first they just romp around the parking area eating snow and getting in the way then are allowed to chase along, running loose behind the sled for short runs, gradually working up to longer runs until they are big enough to fit into the puppy training harnesses when they are about five months old. The emphasis is on fun and cultivating the natural instinct to run with their packmates.

Just about every Chinook I've had has taken to sledding with glee. The only problem we encounter is that occasionally we'll find a dog who loves to run and pull but doesn't understand the logic of running AWAY from their human. For that reason we try to avoid having the dogs run towards us; when training, we would rather have the dogs chase another sled than simply go down the trail and call them to us. Chasing is fun and eventually the love of running kicks in and they don't even seem to notice that they are passing the other sled. Plus with enough dogs we can usually put together a team that includes some experienced dogs along with some young amateurs. For over ten years Holly was in charge of training the youngsters and since most of them were her pups, grand pups, and later great grand pups, they naturally followed her lead. After she retired from the team in the fall of 2004 it became more of a challenge to get young dogs started but with help from friends (or more correctly, help from dogs owned by friends), the Rain Mountain team is rebuilding.

A natural her first time in harness, PR Bear Creek Riki's Echo of Rain.	Little did I know when this photo was taken that it would be one of my last runs with Holly and Thunder. By the next season both were too old to pull. Taaku runs lead with Holly above.
My niece Sarah running Holly and her granddaughter Klickitat	One of Taga's first times in harness, running him in a fan hitch with his dam Taaku (far left) and Pharaoh (center) during March of 2006. A fan hitch can only be used on wide trails like this logging road near Lake Kachess.

Chinooks are quite strong though not necessarily the fastest sled dogs. Two dogs can easily pull me and I rarely run more than four dogs at a time. A team of Chinooks are faster than Malamutes, Samoyeds, and show lines of Siberians, are nipping at the heels of working lines of Siberians, and eating the proverbial dust of Alaskan Huskies. Remember they are the general purpose sled dog so they are decent at all tasks and masters of none unless you count being a good suburban family sled dog.

Most Chinooks don't need to learn how to pull. They do need to learn how to stop and even with training and experience, "whoa" is still a suggestion or request. Other skills the dogs need to learn is to not play with their teammates while in harness, not to eat their harnesses or the lines, and how to untangle themselves if a foot gets on the wrong side of a gangline. Young dogs are sometimes put off by having something noisy clanking behind them, such as the rig, and I think they learn quicker if they are pulling a sled on snow which is quieter and the cooler temps more invigorating.

Weight Pull

Susan Fletcher and Tamanawas Dakota at a UKC pull on rails

Weight pull competitions are sponsored by the International Weight Pull Association (IWPA) and the United Kennel Club. (I understand that AKC may add a weight pull program someday but it would be restricted to only certain breeds with a drafting heritage.) Rules are very similar. The dog competes against itself for the most part. The goal is to pull so-many times the dog's body weight. For example, in UKC competition, the dog qualifies for a leg towards its basic "UWP" (UKC Weight Puller) title when it can pull three times its body weight on snow, eight times its body weight on wheels, or ten times its body weight on a rail system. Rules for UKC weight pulls are located here and rules for IWPA weight pulls are here.

Weight pull is fun. First off, it's a lazy sport for the human. All you need to do is stand around and call your dog to come to you. Second, most Chinooks are naturally pretty strong and do well at weight pulling. I would love to say that I train for weight pulling all year round but to be honest, all I do is teach the dog to wear the harness and to have something heavy behind it then wing it from there. I have found that the dogs learn how to do it by doing it. With almost no exception, as the dog practices, I see it fine tune its body positioning so that it gradually seems to figure out what stances give it the most power.

One of the foundation sires of the Rain Mountain line is North Wind Riki of Bear Creek who was a three-time world weight pull champion for his weight class. The first Chinooks I tried weight pulling with were Hurricane Cheechako and Northdown Skykomish, my first Chinooks. We hung around IWPA pulls until the end of the day when a Novice Class was offered. IWPA Novice Classes are just for fun. Using borrowed harnesses, I found that Sky and Chako had diverse pulling styles. Chako liked to bounce around and dance and sing a bit before settling down to pull where Sky dug right in and got to work. When Thunder was about a year and a half old, I began competing with him and did well. However, our progress was interrupted by me being laid up with medical problems for a few years. When I heard that UKC was beginning to offer weight pulls, Susan Fletcher of Frontier Chinooks and I were there right from the start thanks to the local Cascade APBT Club being one of the first in the country to host UKC pulls.

The first Chinooks to earn UKC Weight Puller titles include Susan Fletcher's Tamanawas Dakota followed closely by her Frontier Finnegan and my Rain Mountain Tonasket Thunder. Thunder was able to achieve best efforts of over 2,000 pounds. Since the early days of UKC weight pulls, many other Chinooks have earned their UWP titles and more are competing every year. Many of the UKC pulls are sponsored by the pit bull clubs. Pound for pound, a pit bull can usually out pull a Chinook on wheels or rails but Chinooks are very competitive on snow; pit bulls are not known for liking cold weather.

The best way to start and practice for weight pulling is with your basic car tire. Dogs wear a freighting harness that has a spreader bar in the back and comes off the dog below the tail. Pulling the tire on walks around the block gets your dog used to having the weight behind him or her and pulling it over rough surfaces such as grass and dirt (like in the photo here where Taataga practices with baby Ruby looking on) gives them experience in jerking it to start or when it gets hung up.

Dogs competing in wieght pulls should be in good health and must be over one year old. I tend to limit how much my dogs pull the first season and until I have their hips checked.

Herding at Ewe-Topia

Probably due to their German and Belgian Shepherd ancestors, Chinooks love to herd sheep and are very good at it. We discovered this by accident one day when I took Holly along for the ride when I took my Sheltie mix, Sarah Susan, to Ewe-Topia, a herding dog training facility in Roy, Washington. Holly went berserk at the sight of the sheep and other dogs herding them. Joe Kapelos, owner of Ewe-Topia along with Linda Leeman, decided to give her an audition. Holly took to it like a pig in mud. We tested more Chinooks and they all had the instinct to herd as well. The American Herding Breeds Association (AHBA) was kind enough to include Chinooks as a breed with herding instinct, and now Chinooks can participate in AHBA herding trials. Holly went on to be the first Chinook to earn her Herding Instinct Capability and Herding Capability Tested titles; many other Chinooks have also earned these titles since.

Holly working with Joe Kapelos of Ewe-Topia

Bannack can't believe that he is actually allowed and encouraged to chase the sheep!

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