Husky News

Eight Alaskan sled dogs were straining at their harness and barking up a storm until their owner, Lyle Wendland, who was standing on the back of the sled, yelled “Hike!”

The dogs immediately got down to business. They took off and didn’t make a sound as the sled disappeared over the horizon on Wendland’s rural Charles City acreage.

When the sled came back to its starting point and stopped, the dogs began to bark and whine again.

“Stop arguing,” Wendland said.

He then went down the line to pat each dog on the head.

“Good dog,” he said.

Jessica Heitz (seated on the sled) of East Lansing, Mich., but formerly of Charles City, enjoys a ride with Lyle Wendland and his dog team Wednesday. (Globe Gazette photo by Sarah Aronsen)

Wendland, 59, took up dog sledding a year ago.

He said he always used to watch the TV show “Sergeant Preston of the Yukon” when he was a kid. The series was about a Canadian Mountie who traveled via dog sled during the winter. The co-star of the show was Preston’s lead sled dog, Yukon King.

In January 2007, Wendland began training with Merv Hilpipre of Cedar Falls.

During the 1970s, Hilpipre was “one of the top mushers in the world,” Wendland said.

Hilpipre gave Wendland some sled dogs to get started.

“I started with a couple of them pulling a bicycle,” he said. “That was suicide.”

Wendland later tried having the dogs pull a four-wheeler before he finally was ready to try a real dog sled.

He also bought some of his own dogs.

Wendland now has eight adult dogs, two pups and four sleds.

The dogs are all hounds from Alaska, but one of them, Demon, “has a little wolf in him,” Wendland said.

One of the dogs is named Speedy, but “she was misnamed,” Wendland said.

Fortunately, lead dog Roxie is very fast.

The dogs can pull the sled as fast as 25 mph in open country. They have to slow down if they are running through the woods.

Wendland, who works for Farm Bureau Insurance, lives on 45 acres of land, which gives him plenty of room to go sledding.

He said the neighbors have been very good about letting him go onto their land with his dogs and sled.

They also have to put up with a lot of barking, according to Wendland.

When asked if he has taken a lot of spills, Wendland replied, “I’m seeing a chiropractor now.”

Wendland would love to enter a dog sled race someday, even though people tell him it isn’t a good idea because of the danger and the cost.

Wendland’s son, Isaac Wendland, is a track and cross country standout at Charles City High School.

The dogs were used in this year’s Charles City High School cross country poster, which featured the slogan “Leader of the Pack.”

“I think my dogs can beat Isaac,” Wendland said.

Source: Globe Gazette