Fear not friend, you too can experience the same exhilarating rush with your doggies. Almost any dog can pull a sled, and more to the point, almost every dog will love it.

So, how do you get started? You need:

This brings us to the question, which came first, the dream or the dogs? Hopefully the dogs. By this I mean I hope if you are reading this you already have dogs. You are looking for something fun to do with them. Your dogs don't need to be descended from Togo, or Balto (actually Balto & Togo have no known descendants, but that is another story) to have a great time. In fact, your dogs don't have to be huskies.

But what types of dogs can pull a sled?

Almost any kind. Beagles to Bouviers, Siberian Huskies to Shibu Inu's. There is almost no restriction. However, you have to be careful with short snouted breeds like Boxers, Bulldogs, and Pugs. They can have trouble breathing normally, and sledding may be too much for them. Also, certain breeds have trouble with the cold, and special precautions must be taken with them. Dogs that fall into this category are Greyhounds, Dobermans, and certain hounds.

But say you don't have any dogs, and you want to start your own team. Think again. Are you thinking? Do you really want the responsibility of looking after these dogs? Dogs that need to eat expensive food, dogs that will need vet care, collars, and harnesses. They have to trained year round, they aren't a machine you can hook up come the first snow fall and expect to behave perfectly. Some people enter this sport thinking they make money. HA! How? You don't think you are going to win the first race you enter? Even if you do, the purse will never cover the amount of money you have spent on your dogs. Do you think you will make money selling puppies? Not until you have made a name for yourself in the mushing community. And that takes time and money. Did I mention you are going to spend a lot of money?

You need a dog sled. I recommend a toboggan sled for the first timer. These sleds are great for deep snow, and you can take a passenger along. The passenger is a great person to have to help you with the training.

You need harnesses for each one of your dogs. Actually, you probably need more than one harness for each of your dogs, because eventually one or more will get eaten. There are two popular types, x-back, and h-back. I like h-backs better, but it is completely a matter of personal preference.

You need collars. Adjustable ones. You don't want to skimp on these, unless you want to lose your dogs. You don't want to lose your dogs, trust me.

You need a gangline. Gangline is a term for the series of ropes connecting the dogs to each other, and to the sled.

You will need a lot of other pieces of equipment; these are just the main ones.

You need a place to run your dogs. The place you select will depend on the training level of your dogs. For example if your dogs run up to every dog and person they see, you don't want to run them through a popular public park.

If you are lucky enough to have a large amount of property yourself, you can make your own trails. How do you do this?

First, mark out the trail. Then remove trees, weeds, and rocks. You can groom the trail for winter use by dragging an old box spring behind a snowmobile.

Put lots of turns in, you'll get more trail, and it's more fun for the dogs.

Whole books have been written on this subject, and they are good ones. I could never cover everything here, and everyone trains differently. So I will tell you what problems I ran into, and how I worked around them.

First you must train yourself.

A good musher must have patience. Lots of patience. If you don't you are lost before you begin. Dog driving is very frustrating at times, the dogs rarely do exactly what you expect them to, and you must accept it. You must learn that sometimes a run just isn't going to work and it is best just to go home, and try another day.