Evening star., 1947-06-23
THE EVENING STAR Washington, D. G. e..A-l
MONDAY.
Rome Finds Patience
is Key 10 Training
Huskies in Antarctic
By comdr. Finn Ronne
North American A.w.pap.r Alliane.

RoNNE EXPEDITION BASE,
Stonington Island, Antarctic, June
l6.- Delayed)-To be driver Of
dog team you must have a strange
combination of qualities. For one
thing, you must like dogs well
enough to want to spend a major
part Of your time training them,
yet you must not be so attached
to them that you always run around
.patting them on the head or talk
ing to them.
The only four words you should
use to . dog during his long train
ing period, or on any trail trip
are the. basic commands. These are
yave and whoa for go and halt
and gee and haw for right and left
Many times / have followed "a
team for four hours without say.
ing a word. and then only given
a one-word command in loud
brusque voice. The dogs invariably
obeyed. But If you are inclined tc
be cor ersational with huskies er
route, they find 1t difficult to sepa.
rate pleasantries from commands
Further. your conversation is az
relaxing to them as it is to you
and their pace slows UP.
Lead Dog Is Problem.
The first problem faced in train.
ing dog teams is in finding a leae
dog. A lead dog is born, not made
His position as leader gives him
the responsibility Of keeping the cest
of the dogs in line behind him
He does this mostly by keepins
the gangline (Which runs down be-
tween all pairs so taut that tht
dogs simply trot along in place. 1.
the gangline is not taut, they car
cross it and start fighting each other
Trainers soon learn that two
males or two females paired to-
gether will generally fight, For eff
cheney, one male and one female are
usually paired. Red, one Of our bes'
females, refuses to get along witt
any dog other than male named
Buster. When teamed with any
other husky she makes life mis-
erable for the team and impossible
for the driver.
Successful training requires ar
awful lot Of patience, The mos'
patient men have been known tt
lose their tempers completely after
a few hours at the work. They
find it impossible to account fol
the variety of crazy things dog
does when given simple command
These are not funny to the trainer
but to onlookers they are always
hilariously funny-which doesn
help matters. either.
Man Walks Ahead.
In the initial stages of teaching
direction, one man walks ahead o1
the team to indicate where they
should go. Our surveyor, Bob Dod-
son, was trying to help Boy Scout
Arthur Owen get a team trained
and he was walking out ahead
Owen, who at this stage sits on the
sled to add a little weight. called
out to the dogs to follow. The dogs
charged into action, turned 180 de-
grees, and ran back for camp at
full speed. Owen, barely hanging
on, yelled futile commands to stop
Meanwhile, all work in camp halted
to watch the event.
The dogs finally stopped short OF
the camp, a little to their own sur
prise-they ran full speed into a
maze of uncoiled antenna wire from
which further escape was impos-
sible.
Mr.. Dodson and Owen spent the
rest of the daylight hours untan-
Cling them. They also occupied the
time giving each dog a thorough
bawling out. The dogs just licked
at the mems hands and faces.