Falk

            When our teacher bred his puppies he used his own bitch and used Lego, the school’s dog. As a payment for the use of Lego he gave one of his puppies to the school. Falk is that puppy. As an 8-week little guy he was the runt of the litter and so, obviously, he was given to the school. Unfortunately for our teacher and fortunately for the school Falk turned out to be huge and a very dedicated running dog.

            I might have already said this but he is described as being an arrow, he runs straight ahead in the direction you put him. He isn’t distracted by anything (except if he is running next to his mom.) He is a powerhouse. While he and Maxmanus are almost carbon copies of each other (they have the same coloring) but Falk is the “grown up boy” while Maxmanus is the little one. Another different between the two of them is, obviously, how tall Falk is compared to Maxmanus. But dogs like to jump up to you and hang on but while Max’s head barely reaches my chin Falk is almost taller than I am.

            When moving the dogs from their chains to the lines, we grab the dog by the collar and hold them up, forcibly making the dogs walk on their back legs. Some dogs reject this idea (like Mini) and others hop along surging forward with each jump (like Wolf) and others we can loosely hang onto their collars as they mosey into their spots (like Hedda and the other two old dogs). This little of puppies though is completely difficult. Snasken likes to hug you and since he is so long is very difficult to keep between your legs when putting the harness on. Bolt is always too excited, trying to surge forward. Max, in all his weirdness, is super excited as well, already beginning to bounce and can easily knock you in the jaw. Falk’s issue is his jump. He is so excited to run that he springs forward with so much force and, as the supposed leader, you really have no choice but to go the direction Falk takes you.

            Of all the dogs and the caution of not letting the dogs loose, this year Falk has escaped the most. The great thing about him though is that he has been whistle trained and will come bounding back with a simple whistle. Our teacher taught him that and it is pretty amazing to see. Once a dog realizes he is loose, especially if we are lining the dogs up to go out, they take off, super excited. Eventually they will come back but it can turn into a mad hunt trying to bring them back. Falk, though, at hearing the whistle, will make an immediate U-turn and come bounding back.

            When I was trying to get picture of Falk, he was not cooperating. He was so excited that he was moving every which way and it was impossible to get any good shots. Someone suggested whistling and the result was amazing. He froze on the spot, turn his head to me, and waited to see what was next.

Bolt

            Bolt is named after the Disney movie dog. As I think of him, he is just a mushing dog. He doesn’t have any special talents. When you try to pet him he cannot stay put. He is usually paired up with Snasken when running. However while we were trying to train Falk, Bølla, and Snasken as lead dogs Bolt didn’t do as well.

            The story that goes with Bolt happened while out on a trail run for Pasvik Trail. He was placed in lead with Wolf (Wolf being one of the weird dogs who leans to the right.) Wolf leaned too far over and fell into the loose snow, tripping over himself. Bolt, seizing the opportunity attacked Wolf. The point dogs (dogs in second place) were Lego and Scott, two dogs which are always willing to fight, and they were quick to attacked Bolt.

            In the end Bolt came out the worst with stitches on his butt and a cautious diagnosis for survival. Our teacher had an old dog that had almost the same injury as Bolt and the area got infected and the dog died, so it was not looking like a positive outcome. However, Bolt survived and got to wear and destroy a cone of shame relatively quickly. But due to his injury he did not run Pasvik Trail.

Ami

            Ami is almost an exact replica of Hedda, her mom. She has the same coloring and designs as Hedda. The one difference, which makes her all the more adorable is that Ami has Lego’s (her dad) ears. One sticks straight up while the other one is bent in half.

            As a runner, Ami runs much the same way as Rakken. She crunches up her back and pushes forward. She ran Pasvik Trail this year, for the first time, and was afraid to go out. Her tail was between her legs and she just stood there in shock. There were over 500 barking dogs surrounding her. However, she ran great. At the checkpoints, though, while the other dogs rested and tried to sleep Ami sat there. Not moving seemingly in a daze but she continued to run.

            Another funny story of Pasvik Trail. The dogs were being woken up by Felix to eat before getting read to head out again. All of the dogs were up and following his movements, knowing that they were going to get food. All except Mini. He kept trying to sleep, buried into a ball and trying to keep his eyes closed

Hedda

            Probably the head honcho in the dog yard Hedda is the old female of the group. She can be sweet but is a bitch with the other dogs, if they are misbehaving. The awesome thing about her is that she is the mother of our teacher’s dogs (Snasken, Ami, Falk, Maxmanus, and Bolt) and they are all afraid of her. When she has run lead with Snasken and he is hopping everywhere, excited to go Hedda just sits/stands there waiting to go. Once Snasken’s pulling finally push her off the edge she barks/nips at him and he sits there cowering.

            The same with Falk. A huge dog who knows and takes pride in his power. He is described at an arrow, running straight ahead. However, when he is placed next to Hedda he runs as far away from her as possible, almost running sideways.

            Hedda is a lead dog. I’m not sure if we ever had her run in any other position. She is in lead. She isn’t as excitable as the younger dogs but when she gets ready to run she is all in, mind body and soul. Some of the most entertaining pictures of the dogs are of Hedda getting read to run. She had an extremely long tongue, and like Maxmanus will jump up in preparation for running.

Bølla

            Bølla is the last of the three puppies. This group was on their second winter when we were there and so they were still new. They came from Ravna and Mini and were an accident. All of them really like to chew sticks. They are almost the only dogs in the dog yard that will chew on things, the other being Rakken (the old man).

            Of these three puppies Bølla is the youngest. She still plays like a puppy and will try to play bite you. She is fun and rambunctious. The school is babysitting a few dogs, like I mentioned with Theo and Dekal. Two more dogs, which I forgot to mention are also being babysat. Previous students own them. One of them is Iglo and the second one is Bølla. While there is a very slight chance Iglo will ever “go home” Bølla probably will. She is owned by a student who was a second-year and who then became a paid teacher for a year. She is interested in teaching and dogsledding. She came a visited the school at least 4 or 5 times this year.

            As a runner though, Bølla is great. (I’m writing this now on July 12, so it’s getting hard for me to remember). She is the only puppy in this litter that we have began to train as a leader dog and she is good at it.

            Ami, the other young female, cannot have puppies anymore and so Bølla is the only young female left in the schools dog clan. Because of this, she is a hot commodity when in heat. The males try really hard to get to her and the older females are bitches to her. When my sled team fought amongst each other they were fighting to get to she.

            If you were to find any dogs playing with each other in the dog yard chances were it would be Bølla with another dog. Because she looks so similar to Rambo, they would usually run together and be placed next to each other in the dog yard. They would always play and Rambo gets jealous when other dogs are placed near her (especially when she is in heat.) With Rocky, though, there is no connection, he is just another dog who is running next to Bølla.

Rocky

            Rocky is more human than dog. Last year he was finally able to go on a trip at the end of the year although reluctantly. This year, we worked on getting rid of that stress. Rocky is a good puller but never wants to go out. He hates the harness being put on him. Usually, you stand over the dog, throw the harness over the head and lift the paws into the proper holes. Rocky however needs two people to do this. It must be done at his house, otherwise he will freak out. He doesn’t want to be stood over and he will not stand up.

            If you do stand over him he freaks out, sits down, and tries to back his head out through your legs. But other than this weirdness Rocky is a ham. He adores attention and gets jealous if you pay attention to other dogs. He is the sibling you don’t really like to talk about and Bølla and Rambo basically have no type of relationship with him (or at least compared to the relationship they have to each other.

            One of the reasons Rocky is so cuddly is that as a semi-puppy (so last year) he got sick and got to spend a lot of time inside. While some sled dogs don’t like this, they will pace and pace, Rocky loved it. And so he is more an indoor sled dog than an outdoor sled dog. He is also a very adorable dog, which means he was a super adorable puppy and received a lot of attention from al the students. He was probably coddled too much and still expects to be treated that way, even now.

Rambo

            Rambo is one of the three youngest “puppies.” This was there second winter out. Rambo is a good puller except he can get easily distracted. If he spots something in the forest, he will perk up and trot along trying to get to the animal rather than pulling forward.

            On our way up from the river and back to the school we would have to pass Max/Macs (our rector’s funny looking sled dog) who would bark and try to get at the team. A good sled dog would run forward but not Rambo. He would strive to reach Max and then, after we passed him, would not be able to pull the rest of the way, his head too focused on the barking dog.

            Originally Rambo was not going to run the Pasvik Trail but due to Pjokken’s injury and Bolt’s bite in the butt he was substituted in. He did a great job, paired with Bølla. This is the pairing that we usually ran with. While Rocky, Bølla, and Rambo are all siblings Rocky is overly protective of Bølla and cannot stand when other dogs are near her.  

Lego

            Lego is the school’s resident “old man.” He is the father to Thor-Atle’s dogs (Ami, Falk, Maxmanus, Bolt, and Snasken) and he is the brother to Ravna. They both came from the same place but while Ravna is burned out, Lego is still going strong.

            He is a solid-ish leader dog. But many times he takes the road he wants to take. At the beginning of the year his nail was almost torn out of his foot and so he had to be sedated and given medication for about a week. It was when he returned from the vet, all drugged out, that most of us fell in love with him.

            He is really cuddly and adores attention. The bad thing about him is that he can be a fighter. In my rough cabin sledding trip, he was the one that started the fight with the other dogs. He believes he is in charge and the leader of the pack, which makes sense with he age. Also, when Bolt attacked Wolf, Lego and Scott were the two who attached Bolt.

            The easiest was to tell Ravna and Lego apart is their ears. One of Lego’s ears is half floppy and while none of his puppies really have the same coloration of Lego, Ami has the half floppy ear.

            As a runner, Lego doesn’t really like to run away from home. But as soon as you begin the journey home, he is the best puller you can get. During Pasvik Trail, in the last “run” into Kirkenes, Lego was placed as lead and pulled the team into Kirkenes happy to be “home.” During the race, especially the last part from Neiden to Kirkenes, he lost a lot of weight. A (maybe) good thing about Alaskan Huskies is that they will always store a little bit of energy, much like the wolf, until they receive their next meal. During this run “home” the dogs were willing to use all their “normal energy” saving only to extra, emergency energy.

            After the race it took the dogs, especially the ones like Lego who were almost just skin and bones at least 1.5 weeks to return to an almost normal weight. They really are dedicated to doing what they love and Lego is one of the great examples of this.

            When we were on one of our camping trips a musher drove by that have two puppies that Lego sired. It’s pretty cool that his genes are being passed through many different mushers throughout Finnmark :D

Pjokken

            Pjokken is the final nervous dog. He also has the typical sled dog look. Around February, he paw began to hurt him. The vet looked at him and couldn’t determine anything wrong but just to be cautious we took him out for the rest of the season. Pjokken is one of the dogs that also is almost always underweight (no matter how much you feed him) and once he was out of the season, only going on short walks if someone remembered, he gained weight. He looked chubby and it made him all the more adorable.

            Pjokken was going to run the Pasvik Trail but once he was taken out he was replaced with Bølla. As a dog Pjokken is very nervous, as I already said. It took a while to gain his trust and if nothing interesting (such as food or running) is happening it is very difficult to get Pjokken out of his house. His nervous habit is to run in circles. He is really good at it. He never trips on his chain and he can make two different types of circles. He can either, circle around the tree he is attached to or, if he is focused on something going on, he can make small little circles around that area.

            Even when taking Pjokken on a walk, he will circle. Which, as the walker can get really frustrating cause you are constantly having to go in a circle to untangle yourself.

            When you pet Pjokken, he curls into you. He pushes his head into your chest and just stands there before running off to do a few circles and then returning for another pet. Pjokken almost always ran with Scott. They were buddies and Pjokken could tolerate Scott’s obsessive left running.

            The dogs, when sledding, will bend down and scoop up snow for the water. Scott, in particular, will constantly be eating snow. He’s odd. Pjokken, on the other hand, will not bend down. He waits until he sees a mound of snow that is at his head height and then he will gracefully scoop off a little snow. One time, in the most adorable action ever, he went to do this and fell into the deeper snow. He sprang back up, as if nothing happened, and kept on running. Adorable!

Rakken

            Rakken is the old man in the family. I think he has buggy eyes that stick a little to far out of his head but he really is quite cute. He also has huge K9’s. Personality wise Rakken is sweet and if given the opportunity he will chew. This year alone, for sure, he destroyed 1.5 doghouses. And if you were ever to stay out in the dog yard by yourself, while most dogs fall asleep, Rakken would go to work on the doghouse or any branch he could fine.

            Rakken was also really silent. As I have said, most dogs bark when we are leaving the yard for a trip. In all the times we took Rakken out I can only recall hearing his bark once. Most of the times he stood there shaking but not in a bad way.

            As a runner Rakken was great. He was usually a leader and knew his directions spot on. The only problem was that he grew tired/bored of running which is understandable considering he has been doing the same trails for probably 10 years. And he would sometimes give up. In particular, our teachers old house was on the river, along the path that we sledded, Rakken was used to going home at that point, but the house is still 3-4 km away from the school, our final resting point. Once we would pass Thor-Atle’s house, however, Rakken would keep trying to turn the team around, he couldn’t understand that we were going to school. At that point either a new team needed to take the lead or Rakken needed to be moved out of the leader position.

            Also, family wise, Rakken is the brother to Hedda and while there are no dogs in the yard with direct connections (father-son/daughter) to Rakken many of Hedda’s puppies have Rakken’s running style, which is pretty unique. Rakken runs with his back arched as if to reduce the distance between his front and back paws. It looks pretty strange but also makes him look like he is pulling twice as much as the other dogs, which maybe he is. Falk and Ami both run this way although Ami is more pronounced in it.