What’s the story behind calling company a Snowdog? Sled dogs and beauty of this unique human-animals cooperation.
Mostly because of passion for these great dogs and what they represent, many years ago I decided to call the business Snowdog. Sled dogs teams are all about something that we really have to care of in our business – team work, trust and competition, dedication but also fun. When it comes to racing, you view the team as a one entity, dogs and human. Animals compete also inside one team, so the musher’s tasks it to direct the energy in right direction. Too much of interference affects the efficiency of the whole team, so two-way communication among team members and musher has to be error-free, there is no way for misunderstandings. Reading dogs behavior signs and clear commands are key to success. Does it sound familiar? It should. Dogs-human team work is not that different from what we need to build to achieve success in business.
Sled dogs was always about some competition, first it was racing with time when carrying food, medicine or other life saving equipment in remote regions of the Far North. Now it’s different story with planes and snowmobiles but both dogs and humans still want to race… There are many long distance sled dogs events around the world, to mention only Iditarod, Yukon Quest or Finnmarkslopet as the most well known. Finnmarkslopet is a race over a distance of 500 or 1000 km. The second distance makes Finnmarkslopet third longest race on Earth but requires also finishing a qualifier 500km run first.
Krzysztof Nowakowski is a Polish musher who wants to finish 500km and next become the first Pole who can finish also 1000km Finnmarkslopet course. He’s a great person who cares first about dogs, second about the score. That’s the thing that finally convinced us to support him this year. We will keep finger crossed that he will realize his plan and finish both 500 and 1000 km courses in great shape and with happy dogs.
If you want to cheer you can see the racing course on the map of follow Krzysztof’s Facebook fan page. You can also support his adventure by donating some money at Polak Potrafi website, 25 hours left till the and of action.
* Mushing is a general term for a sport or transport method powered by dogs. Musher is a person riding a sled (Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushing)
