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How to Put Together a Dog Sled Team

Putting together a dog sled team may sound as easy as buying a few trained sled dogs but in all actuality putting together a team that can work together takes an incredible amount of time and effort. You can’t just pick a handful of dogs and throw them together and expect them to gel into a highly trained dog sled team. A dog led team is composed of all different types of dogs, with different strengths and weaknesses and you need to identify those before you try to put your team together.
Whenever you put multiple dogs together in any situation they naturally resort to the pack mentality and in a pack there has to be a leader. The most important thing that your dog sled team needs is a leader, or an Alpha dog. Not only is the leader the head of the pack but he will also almost always be the lead dog on the sled team. It is possible for a sled team to have two leader dogs but there must be a clear cut leader of the pack. Although the Musher is the actual leader of the pack one dog must still hold a position of dominance over the others in order for the dogs to be able to work together. Without a clear cut leader dog the other dogs will fight among themselves until one asserts their dominance over the others. In addition to the leader dogs there are point dogs, swing dogs, team dogs and wheel dogs, all of which have a specific purpose on a sled team and should be picked with care. The wheel dogs, which are the two dogs closest to the sled, tends to be the strongest dogs on the team because they are required to pull more of the sled’s weight to get it going.
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