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Meet Distance Racer Mark May
A Thoughtful Look at Raising & Racing Sled Dogs

[click on any photo on this page to see a larger version]

Introduction

We live a low impact Alaskan lifestyle 20 miles outside of Fairbanks. I am what I term a serious recreational musher. My first priority is my wife and family, second is work and business, third is my racing kennel. That’s not to imply that we neglect the dogs. As you can see from this article we are aggressive and progressive with respect to animal health care and husbandry, training, nutrition and technology as it applies to racing.

Our home is on the Chena river 25 miles from the back parking lot of my veterinary clinic. My wife and I alternate driving our kids to school in town, so Tuesday and Thursday mornings I have until noon to train the dogs.

We have 3 children: Sophie (9), Gus (6), Margaret (2). We’re interested in showing the kids the compassionate side of animal sports and use the human-animal bond to teach them about stewardship, responsibility and sportsmanship. We want our kids to be safe in our doglot, so we won’t sacrifice trustworthiness for racability in our dogs. As a result, we tend to have calm friendly dogs.

We view mushing as a community event. We don’t have a paying position for handlers or trainers, but we do have volunteer positions in the kennel. I have a typical 2 year lifespan for the average kennel volunteer, at which time I graduate them to their own dog yard or they find other pursuits more rewarding.

We are currently blessed by association with my old college roommate Phil Streeter, Bob McAlpin, and the Blevins family. The Blevins are led by Carol (mom); Kristina, Michelle, and Kathy do the racing. Bob has a real way with animals and helps with as much training and racing as he can.

Background

What is your primary sled dog activity or area of interest?
My primary activity is distance racing, but our goal is to have North American caliber dogs in the lot to take to our races. We race mid-distance and send 20 dogs to the junior races here in Fairbanks during the racing season in addition to our annual 1000 mile race.

How long have you been involved with sled dogs?
I ran my first dogs 27 years ago. I’ve missed some long segments while I was in school and the Navy, but my heart was always in Alaska racing dogs.

What sparked your initial interest in sled dogs?
I lived in a rural community called Trapper Creek when I first came to Alaska. We had the son of an old time musher as a mentor, and the whole community revolved around sled dog racing.

I took 2 dogs down a rutty dirt road behind a bike during the height of the Alaskan summer. That’s how I was hooked.

Who have been your mentors?
When I first became involved there was a fiercely competitive and secretive attitude pervading distance mushing. At this point in time the world community of racers can appreciate the need to communicate and I can list any one I have ever talked to about dogs or raced with as a mentor.

Living in Fairbanks and working as a veterinarian, I have had the indescribable honor of having living legends like Harvey Drake, Gareth Wright, and George Attla as clients. I tend to get cerebral when I talk with racers like Tim White about dogs, but I don’t think those lessons are any more valuable to a racer than the tips that someone like Pat Moore or Marvin Kokrine will share with you.

To summarize regarding mentors, whether they’re infamous, or famous, American or Scandinavian, if you find yourself talking to a knowledgeable dog person, listen, evaluate and assimilate what they are saying..

Kennel Management

What size kennel do you operate?
35-50 dogs including pups and seniors.

What type of tether/bowl system do you use?
Converting over to adjustable house on a post this season. I have a small dog barn and a large heat pen complex that is roofed over.

What are the most important considerations in housing sled dogs?
Clean environment with lots of space. Surface must be changed out regularly to avoid buildup of parasites and pathogens.

Give us an overview of your feeding program.
High quality kibble as a mainstay. During October and November we must add meat race diet mix to maintain body condition. In December we begin adding vitamin, amino acid, and mineral supplements to bring the racing dogs to peak performance. During the race, we rely on freeze dried race diet and tripe to get us over the trail with a light load.

Summarize your basic kennel management style.
My basic management principle is to do it right, right now. We try to put all of our talent to focus on a project in the planning stages, so that we are proficient and efficient. We utilize the 7 habits of highly effective mushers to make our dog operation a community event.

The Dogs

What breed(s) do you work with?
This is where I go into extra innings. I could write a book, but I will try to summarize. I once detailed my program to a friend and before I was halfway through she was snoring.

My dad was blessed in the 70’s with traditional Alaskan racing dogs from Bobby Lee. These dogs were maintained through the 80’s and I took over upon my return to Fairbanks. I would have to credit the Redingtons, Donna Gentry, Orville Lee, and many other folks.

When I bought some of the May family stock back from Harry Sutherland I began crossing them out with Fairbanks sprint dogs. Eddie Dayton gave me a brood bitch that whelped out most of the dogs that I have raced the last 5 years. Recently I have begun a 2nd and 3rd direction in my program. I have a bitch from Sailor and a bitch from Marvin Kokrine that are good enough to run with any dog I have ever known.

I find it necessary to lease dogs to compete, so my good friend Stan Bearup partnered up with me and leased me half a team of very fine dogs from the Taylor kennel the last 2 years. This spring we have 12 young dogs on loan from the Taylor’s to race next year. I hope to breed myself enough line bred dogs in the near future to get isolated enough to come back in with a strong line of very different dogs to produce a yard full of hard core racing hybrids.

What physical characteristics do you look for in your dogs?
My ideal is a #52 male and a #47 female. They have to have adequate hair and perfect conformation. They need to be aggressive eaters and hard chargers. Tight, tough feet are necessary.

What mental or emotional attributes do you require in your dogs?
They have to be workaholics. Gifted dogs that rise to any occasion. They have to be able to maintain a can do attitude for 12 days..

Tell us about an all time favorite dog or two.
My all time favorite is my 8 year old leader Marsh. He has earned over $75K and taken me all over Alaska and the Yukon. I maintain that all successful mushers have to pay homage to an exceptional dog. If I never have another dog this good I will not be disappointed, but my goal is to breed a better dog. This dog gets all the credit for my racing success. He has sired 2 litters of pups recently and his stud fee is $1000. I live in daily fear that he will develop cancer or a life threatening infirmity. If this dog belonged to a professional racer as a young dog, he would be one of the most storied dogs to ever race.

Marsh’s full brother from the previous litter, Danger, is the famous iron dog. He finished my Iditarod rookie race in lead after finishing the Quest in Brian O’Donaghue's team. He is now infamous and you can read about him in Brian’s book "Honest Dogs".

Their father Otis was also an incredible dog. He was a showboat, and boy could he steer. He was a big beautiful gray dog and he used to love to show off with fancy moves going through villages.

Puppies

What criteria do you use for selecting breeding stock?
I use my dogs to line breed. I have a very active shopping program and I am constantly looking for outcross potential with other programs. I think if we really understood the genetics on a numerical level we would find that these dogs are almost all essentially the same genetically.

The old saying is true, "breed the best to the best, and the heck with the rest." The top 5 finishers in the Iditarod or the top 3 teams in the North American are going to be very similar. That’s where you want to get your breeding stock from. I have some criteria that I use like pan tipping or house eating that some people might not consider, but I think they’re important. The most interesting trait that I monitor is, defecates in a single pile.

My ideal breeding plan is to breed only leaders to leaders in the event that you want to dominate. That is very hard to do all of the time, so I often wind up breeding a swing dog bitch to my main leader. I kick myself in the pants whenever I find myself considering anything less than leader to leader, because you generate recreational quality sled dogs every time.

Do you use any pre-training evaluation of puppies?
We start training at 6 months, so the only pre-training evaluation is very short and informal. It consists of observing who’s on top in the puppy pen at 4 months, and then again who’s watching you on the chain at 5 months. I maintain that you can spot leaders at 3 or 4 months by whose paying attention to you when your in the dog yard.

What method do you use for starting pups?
We take a couple of old steady pullers to stretch the line tight and head down the trail. Sometimes the kids will start small pups with a small drag. You work your way up from a hundred yards to a hundred miles over the first 3 years of their life. Those first runs are usually pretty indicative, but there are some exceptions.

What is the most important thing you look for in a young dog?
Tight tugline. From their first hookup until they die, tight tugline is the criterion. If a big dog, or a slow dog, or a small dog tries to keep that line tight, it’s got a future in someone’s team.

At what point do you decide a youngster is likely to make it in your team?
We train everyone together each fall for 2 months, and gradually the young yearlings start falling out. They will come back again next year for a second season. They don’t usually make the grade, but we give them every benefit of the doubt.

By their third season they’re either a successful racer or a recreational sled dog. My best dogs have started their careers as yearlings, so once again, the diamonds shine early on.

Training

What is the training/racing philosophy of your kennel?
Train them like you race them. I’ve heard about training with heavy loads, or training by running a 14 mile trail 6 times a day, or some other permutation of what our distance dogs do, but my philosophy is to run them with a reasonable sled load as far as you can and still maintain them.

I tend to ride the drag too much training and racing, because I have a conservative streak. I personally know how hard it is to patch up orthopedic injuries, so I try to avoid them.

We have a tried and true program that starts August 1st and works up gradually to December. Temperature is the early limiting factor. I feel that 4 days a week is ideal.

Do you have specific training goals for your team(s)?
Our goal is to peak physically and mentally at the start of our main event. We want to be able to spurt up to 16 miles an hour 10 hours into a run for a short time.

What do you consider most important to accomplish in training?
There are so many important things to accomplish in training I can’t list them all. Winning is contingent upon accomplishing all the tasks.

Physical and mental conditioning, equipment testing and tuning, dietary acclimation and preparation. The thing that strikes me most often is attitude of the driver. Many mushers view training as boring. I focus intensely every mile of the way looking for weaknesses.

Races are typically lost by racers who take weak dogs and have to load them or stop to nurse them. The last month before a marathon race should consist of a week long trip with gangline camping so the driver and dogs can get away from phones and roads to make the final adjustments.

It is very crucial to get away to a remote location the week before a race for me. I hide out with the dogs until the drivers meeting. The goal is to gel as a team and clarify our race plan.

What is the most indispensable training equipment you use?
All of my gear is indispensable. 4 wheelers and snow gos allow training with control. Durable sleds allow us to train in rough conditions. Sharp hooks allow us to hook down on ice. Cable ganglines allow us to run 16 dogs safely. And of course you can’t get to a race without a good dog truck.

For actual racing success you have to imagine that everything, but the bare sled is dispensable. I know people who try new gear like a sno go track drag that costs them seconds in a race and they dispense of it right away.

Probably the most significant advance in gear is aluminum alloys for runners. People using wood sleds in distance races are at an incredible disadvantage. I am aware of 4 sleds on aluminum runners that were damaged beyond repair compared to 100’s of destroyed wood sleds. Rick Armstrong made my first sled for the 1994 Yukon Quest and I bashed it over the Yukon for 3 Quests and 4 training seasons before it broke my first Iditarod.

Racing

How do you choose which races to enter?
I spend about $20,000 a year to maintain my dogs, so it’s a combination of expense vs. income. I find that I make the same paycheck whether I go to the Quest or the Iditarod. Mid-distance races don’t pay anything per se. I have raced most races on the road system 2 or 3 times, so I look at it from a financial point of view.

Management also affects where I go. I’ve been to some races where everyone is treated like a prince and I’ve been to some where the checkpoints are a combat zone and the straw looks like it’s from a mud bog. The veterinary crew also affects where I race. I look for good competition, good management and a return on investment.

What are your strengths as a racer?
I am nuts about running dogs. I’m very gifted physically. I don’t need any sleep.

What do you consider your weaknesses, if any?
Weak killer instinct. High sportsmanship coefficient. Tendency to fall off my plan and fall into synch with the front pack.

Do you having a mushing career goal?
Career goal is to maintain current level of involvement for another 20 years.

I’m confident that I can win any race I enter if everything goes right. I’m comfortable just going and racing my best race without getting all caught up in a quest for an Iditarod trophy or the Stage Stop trophy.

I would like to make the mushing sportsmanship hall of fame when I retire.

What does it take to win?
The fastest dog team in the race, by definition. Many personal traits are also necessary. Unlimited financial resources are undeniably the most important factor.

The Future

What is your vision of the future of sled dog sports?
I am fairly insecure about the future of sled dog sports. The world is changing everyday. Global warming is a fact. Public opinion is swinging in the direction of animal rights activists. To be able to participate in something as frivolous as sled dog racing while people starve to death in the third world seems incongruous.

The inequity could persist and the sport could grow, or the world playing field could be leveled by a horrible disaster, in which case, northern people would use dogs for subsistence. Either way, I win.

What can individual mushers do to support and promote the sport?
Promote the highest standards of all aspects of mushing.

What part do clubs and organizations play in sport development?
Clubs have developed the sport and are the infrastructure. Without them the sport will collapse. This is the venue where non-mushing mushing enthusiasts can participate.

What advice would you give a beginning musher?
Work with a kennel like mine before getting dogs. Have a life before you get started. There is no way you can help this sport if you don’t have a solid foundation. That’s a bitter pill for young people, but it’s the gospel truth.

Anecdote

Tell us about one or two of your most memorable sled dog experiences.
The most memorable experiences I have are near the end of races when hallucinations and sleep deprivation put you into a nether world.

There was the night I saved Bill Stewart’s life by finding him sleeping in the middle of a snow field where he was hallucinating a hotel bed.

And the Iditarod from Shaktoolik to Nome where I socked away rookie of the year by putting a 100 mile run together from Shaktoolik to Koyuk. My strategy gelled as I crossed the ice. I went through Koyuk after 2 racers strawed dogs and kept going. I nursed the dogs into Elim and secured a 4 hour lead that held up all the way to Nome.

Comments

Any final comments about sled dog sports?
As I told George Happ years ago...nothing I’ve ever done with sled dogs has been contingent upon financial support. We are fiercely independent and intent upon preserving our northern heritage. We love what we do and we’re in it for the long run.

Photos of the people of Kinetics and Genetics

Kinetics and Genetics Dog Yard Photos

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