Woman's Best Friend
25 June 2006
Catarina Eggleston

     The dogs bark eagerly as they see the sled being pulled out, and the harnesses attached. They jump in anticipation as they wait to see if they get to run. The crowd looks toward the kennels as the barking grows louder. The ranger stands on the back of the sled and yells, ”Let’s Go!”
      Erin Bruckner is twenty-four years old and works at Denali National Park as a park ranger. At the park, Erin works with the dogs at Denali’s sled dog kennel. Denali’s kennel has about thirty dogs, some of these dogs include Carlo, Aspen, Blue, Orca, Beluga, Jenny, Muddy, Willow, Keta, Aurora, and Sesu. When asked who her favorite dog was Erin immediately said Sesu. Erin explained Sesu was her favorite because she gets to spend the most time with her walking and brushing her.
      All these dogs were trained from a young age to be a sled dog. They are trained to be comfortable with people from the beginning. The commands they use for pulling the sleds are “gee” for right and “ha” for left. Pushing down on the break and saying “whoa” stops the dogs. Erin tells us that they don’t really say “mush” to get the sled going. The say “Let’s go,” but you can really use anything. As long as you say it in an excited tone, they’ll know it’s time to go. The dogs can start at a sprint of about fifteen miles per hour, but they settle down into a comfortable pace of about eight miles per hour for the rest of the run.
      Erin has worked at Denali National Park for a month and a half. She’ll be there until September, which is when the season is over. Erin has worked at two other National parks, both in Virginia. She doesn’t know if she’ll come back again next year. “I want to work at a whole bunch of parks. That way I can find just the right one for me, but I think it will be pretty hard to beat Denali.”

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