Driving the Dogs

The eleven yelping Siberian Huskies heard the crack of the whip and the encouraging cries of Driver Bill Shearer: "Pick it up! Pick it up!" The dogs were near the end of the third and decisive race of the New England sled-dog championship at Jaffrey, N.H. last week. More important, they were close to chow time. And then, plunk in the middle of the snowy road, Driver Shearer saw a sight that chilled his spine: a cat, lazily sunning itself.

Shearer had visions of a snarling, harness-tangled mass of dogs taking off, pellmell, after the cat. It was much too late to stop the straining team. Shearer could only hope that his lead dog, Shamus, true to sled-dog tradition and training, would stay on the beaten path. Shamus did him proud. At the last minute Shamus saw the cat, but swerved resolutely away from temptation, and carried the heads-down pack with him. Shamus' faithful maneuver saved Driver Shearer the title--by a scant minute and 19 seconds. Elapsed time, for three 19-mile races against twelve other teams: 4 hrs. 22 min. 57 sec.--about 13 m.p.h. over a hill & dale course.

Weil-Bred. Romanticized in the novels of Jack London, sled dogs were immortalized after the epic dash to carry diphtheria serum to Nome in 1925. Since then, though the airplane and bulldozer have displaced the Husky as Arctic freight haulers, the Huskies have served man well. Shearer, president of a Boston furniture store, served in World War II, as did many of the other dogsled racers, with the Arctic search & rescue units of the Air Force.

His dogs, black-backed and white underneath, are pure descendants of Leonard Seppala's Siberian Huskies of Nome fame. Shearer has 40 of them, sells about 20 a year, figures he breaks even after taking prize money into account ($3,000 so far this winter). Few drivers ever try to drive eleven dogs. Five can be handled, seven are barely manageable, nine are too many if they once get out of hand. At 45 (barely 5 ft. 10 in., 200 lbs.), Bill Shearer is no longer up to running beside the sled, helping the dogs uphill. He generally rides, and trusts his own handling skill--and Shamus --to keep the ten other dogs in line.

Gee, Haw, Whoa. Contrary to popular belief, sled dogs, which are not necessarily pure-bred Siberian Huskies, are docile, though a team often gets some ankle nipping from the team it is passing. Once in front, the lead team tends to set a slower pace, but a passed team, in a frenzy of competitive spirit, redoubles its efforts to take the lead. The driver's commands are simple and horsy: "Gee" for right, "Haw" for left, "Whoa" (more hopefully than convincingly) for stop. A steel-toothed prong, controlled by a foot pedal, digs into the snow to make the "Whoa" stick, but most drivers believe that the grinding noise of the brake, rather than its retarding effect, is the only thing that will stop an eager 35-to 85-lb. sled dog.

A lead dog, according to Shearer, is 80% of the team. Even though Shamus does not have to pull, he has to break trail, make turns, buck the wind--and even be ready to ignore cats. But in a race, pace is the important thing. "Driving dogs," says Shearer, "is like drinking a bottle of liquor. There's only so much in it. You can either drink it all at once and it's gone, or you can drink it slowly and make it last. One of the things you have to remember is not to go too fast."

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