On the flight from Dubai to Melbourne, the good old TV came into its own…
In flight activities consisted of either sleeping, walking around or watching the TV. I decided a good mix of all 3 would be best. The sleeping just happens doesn’t it. It unbelievable really how tiring doing nothing is. But I suppose for me, busy as I am, the opportunity for sleep with such abundance doesn’t come along regularly, so sleeping was the first thing that was ticked off the inflight list!
Walking around happened too and a lot of butt clenching and leg stretching happening too (I had to correct my auto correct there as it typed cleaning. Butt clenching and butt cleaning are not to be confused!)
That left TV. With about 5000 things to watch, I wasn’t going to be bored. Naturally, I orientated toward the subject of dogs and ended up coming across Gordon Buchanan’s Snow Dogs. Gordon has always found sled dogs fascinating since he read Jack London’s novel The Call of the Wild. It has been Gordon’s childhood dream to command a team of huskies out in the Yukon, Canada and follow in the footsteps of the Klondike Gold Rush explorers who used this trail. Gordon now had the opportunity to conquer (as his early readings lead him to believe) his own sled dog team.
The documentary follows his preparation to take on one of the worlds hardest sled dogs courses, the Burn. With a team of 5 and then 7 experienced sled dogs. Gordon spent day 1 with the owner of the sled dog team, and was shown how to look after the dogs, which order to feed them in (most important) and how to ask them to go left, right and faster/slower. He then had 7 days to sort it
After a couple of days Gordon was despairing, he had failed, he couldn’t instruct the dogs, they just did what they wanted. Gordon realised that he had to bond with the dogs in order to work with them. There was no conquering as his early readings had led him to believe.
Gordon had to be part of their team then and only then, would they together reach their potential as a team of 8, 7 dogs and 1 man.
Gordon is world famous for his wildlife camera work and so, he went back to basics, he took out his camera and took still shots of all the dogs. That simple action of getting down to their level (I will explore that more in another blog connected to another lifetime hero of mine, Temple Grandin, she explains that it is so important to see the world from the animals point of view and that includes the world from their level!) was all it took.
Gordon got down with the dogs and took their pictures, he lay in the snow and rolled around with the dogs. He took some astonishing beautiful pictures, close up head shots that showed the soul within.
Gordon learnt that to become part of the team, he had to be a team member.
Working with dogs to their best potential, isn’t about “breaking them” nor “conquering them”, its about earning their respect, becoming part of their team.
I don’t think we yet have the science to fully understand how, if we truly let them into our lives how our dogs can enable us to reach our potential too.
Gordon went into this project expecting to conquer the dogs, expecting to know more than the dogs, expecting the dogs to follow his lead. He was mistaken. The lead dog would not work for him simply because Gordon had not fed him first. Gordon had fed the others first and the lead dog last, not on just one but 2 occasions. The lead dog wouldn’t engage with Gordon and certainly wouldn’t listen him to him when out on the sled. The dog knew that Gordon had disrespected him. The dog held the most important role within their team but Gordon hadn’t recognised this, Gordon had fed him last. The dog repaid the compliment by ignoring Gordon’s every word.
We can apply this basic principle to our life with dogs. We need to think of our dogs as members of our team, they have a role to play within our lives which is as equal and as important as we do in theirs…
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