What Long-Distance Sled Dog Racing Really Takes (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: A dog is a man's best friend, but in the sport of sled dog racing, they are out-and-out athletes. No one knows that more than American long-distance sled dog racer Blair Braverman.

[00:00:09] Speaker 2: Like, imagine the speed and excitement and fresh air of skiing, or even just sledding down a hill. Like, you're a little kid and you're sledding down a hill. But then you're with, like, between six and fourteen dogs who are all really excited and happy.

[00:00:25] Speaker 1: An average race lasts for hundreds of miles and involves crossing rivers and navigating through mountain passes. It all allows drivers to experience nature in its purest form.

[00:00:34] Speaker 2: And so when you're out there, there's this beautiful silence. So the only thing you can hear is the dogs panting, maybe, like, their collar tags jingling a little bit, like, tiny, tiny, tiny sounds, their paw prints, their paws landing on snow. It's just this beautiful, subtle sound and everything else is completely silent.

[00:00:54] Speaker 1: Sledding across the wilderness may sound fun, but turning a regular dog into a racer doesn't happen overnight. It takes years of training.

[00:01:02] Speaker 2: Sled dogs aren't like a snowmobile. They don't get, like, parked in the garage in the summer. So all year round, you're working with them. So in the summer, we would do free running, like, I take them out in the woods and they're just running loose while I drive an ATV, or they're swimming in a lake.

[00:01:16] Speaker 1: Long-distance sled dog racing has never been an event at the Winter Olympics. Short-distance sledding did make an appearance at the 1932 edition of the Games as a showcase event.

[00:01:26] Speaker 2: Obviously, I would love to see distance mushing in the Olympics. It often takes weeks. A race takes weeks. And so it's hard to imagine a single Olympic event that takes weeks at a time. Like, maybe they could send off the teams during the opening ceremonies and then at the end see who emerges.