# Uncomplicated - 60+ miles on a journey with Wasabi



## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

I don't figure this qualifies for a legitimate working dog video but I had a nice time and wanted to share the video. It's just a compilation of different stops along the way. I wanted to see what she was up for so I used as much around me to work with. 

The mastiff made her own fun and added probably another 7-10 miles on travels of her own, which included chasing a black bear after trailing it at 20 MPH uphill for a mile and a half, tangling with a porcupine, eating with the crows on a brown bear kill, etc. Very different dogs, and I enjoy them both.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSoTk-U9rnM


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## leslie cassian (Jun 3, 2007)

Nice video. Cool dog.


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## Robin Van Hecke (Sep 7, 2009)

That DS is a nice dog, do you work it in a sport?


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## Tiago Fontes (Apr 17, 2011)

Is this wolf country? I wonder how much danger wildlife such as bears and wolves pose to your dogs while on these hikes. 

Thanks for sharing... Alaska fascinates me and it is on my trip schedule.

BTW, this is an AWESOME video!


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

Looks like great fun and a pup not afraid of anything. Loved the falling off the log. How old?


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## Meg O'Donovan (Aug 20, 2012)

The video was great and your DS is too! So agile. The Mastiff looked like it had a little challenge getting up out of the creek. Your bush looks a lot like what we have around here... We are lucky to live in these back-of-beyond places.


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## JOE SAMSON JR (Feb 24, 2009)

Cool dogs and beautiful country , I enjoyed watching


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

JOE SAMSON JR said:


> Cool dogs and beautiful country , I enjoyed watching


Thank you Joe, I am pleased to hear that.

Nancy, she is a bit over 18 mo old.

Tiago, the Dutch doesn't find herself in trouble too much. But I am finding that the Mastiff is teaching her some ways that appear to be a bit outside of her natural inclinations. It's an interesting dynamic to observe. The Mastiff does routinely hunt and forage on her own. I have another video of Willow that I am working on which while not nearly as dynamic in action as the Dutch dog shows, it does offer a general difference in perspective concerning their natural inclinations. In the video above you can often see Willow either off in the distance looking around on her own or atop of things surveying the area. She took off on one of the trips and was gone for 2 hours when she returned she looked like she had been kicked up a bit by a moose. It was the only time I have ever needed to go looking for her. The collar she's seen wearing in the video is the Dogtra Edge, one of the reasons it interested me was because it had a light feature, which I thought I might need some day to locate her if she ever found herself in trouble.

Robin, she is worked in sport. Due to my work schedule however I have not been able to work her with any kind of regularity.

Meg, the bank Willow swam into and then moved down to come up off was the same one that Wasabi also struggled to get up onto. She's 6 now and on this specific trip I set out to see just how far I could take her. The day that video was made she had just recovered from being sick the day prior which was the result of her eating off that killed brown bear and then dragging a 3+ lb slab of fat to eat on later. I was interested in seeing how she'd do since she appeared to be feeling better. 10 miles is what she did on that partiicular day. A bit less energy was probably the only difference I noticed. She conserves her energy but make no mistake, she reserves it for where it counts. While she may not be as agile or active as the 50 lb Dutch I have yet to find her limit on distance. When I got her, I thought surely I would at some point but even at this age, which is considered older for a big dog she still has the ability to flat out impresses me.

I am glad to see that putting up the video here wasn't a waste of time. Originally, I was just going to leave it on my YouTube channel but I thought it might be enjoyable for others to watch it.


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## Gerald Dunn (Sep 24, 2011)

enjoyed it, thanks so much


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## Erik Watson (Dec 27, 2010)

Cool video ... I liked it. 

Thanks for sharing.


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## Robley Smith (Apr 20, 2012)

Very cool!


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Very cool to watch and looks like a beautiful place for dogs. Both look in great condition, Willow in particular. Nice to see a mastiff that doesn't look like it's gonna have a heart attack if it moves to fast!


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Bob Scott said:


> Very cool to watch and looks like a beautiful place for dogs. Both look in great condition, Willow in particular. Nice to see a mastiff that doesn't look like it's gonna have a heart attack if it moves to fast!


Thank you Bob. I am not sure why but I thought that in the videos she came through as a heavy looking dog and not as the athletic, muscular dog I see in front of me. With that said most working dog people rarely look twice at Willow but those who are familiar big dogs and understand what they are looking at when they see her realize that she's something special. 

She is one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. I reconnected with her breeder a few months ago, he recently offered to gift me another pup down off similar lineage from when he's ready to produce his next litter. It's a generous offer and one I am going to give serious consideration to. 

It's truly been both an honor and privilege to be entrusted with someone's pup to raise up. Something about that opportunity has made the experience almost more special than if I had sought her out and paid for her directly. I guess maybe because it felt like I wasn't just raising her for myself but also that she was in a place where she could be exposed to various situations and physically evaluated at a level that he wasn't able to do from down in the states.


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## Lori Gallo (May 16, 2011)

"The day that video was made she had just recovered from being sick the day prior which was the result of her eating off that killed brown bear and then dragging a 3+ lb slab of fat to eat on later."

Just another day in Alaska I guess! Nicole I enjoyed the video. Both dogs. I never see large breeds around here that can do physically what your nice mastiff does. I don't blame the breeder for wanting to hand off another one to you. And of course the puppy entertained me...


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## Nancy Jocoy (Apr 19, 2006)

How did you come up with 60+ miles? Just curious. I know the dogs cover a lot more ground than we do on a given day. How many human miles was involved assuming the dog was ranging out from you and not sticking at your side.


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## Gillian Schuler (Apr 12, 2008)

I really enjoyed that Nicole.

I watched Willow especially because I see a lot of DSs over here, although I enjoyed its activities nonetheless.

Willow's body was similar to our Fila Brasileiro's, lean and muscular. You would be sad if you saw some of the Mastiffs over here. One could hardly "climb" into the back of the car at 5 years' old. Our FB, Gaucho, could outrun our Briard over 100 metres, a little bit like Ben Johnson.

Over here we have Old English Mastiffs and Bull Mastiffs which, looking at Willow's head, seems to be more the latter breed?

At a Molosser Club Meeting, one of the owners handed me her Old English Mastiff while she visited the WC. It was huge, even for a Mastiff, and a man walked up to us and it growled so I told it to shut up - those were my last words (for the day) as it turned its evil smirking, massive head towards me!!

These Molossers, Bull Mastiff OE Mastiff, Mastino Napoletano, Fila B, Tosa Inu, etc. are very often owned by people who let them vegetate in their gardens as some sort of ornament - as a protection they would be no good, as they couldn't make it to the gate quickly enough!!

I'd have another Fila like a shot but couldn't take it to England and to a certain number of places here in Switzerland.

Congratulations on both dogs, but especially on Willow.

Gill


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Nancy Jocoy said:


> How did you come up with 60+ miles? Just curious. I know the dogs cover a lot more ground than we do on a given day. How many human miles was involved assuming the dog was ranging out from you and not sticking at your side.


Hi Nancy, I tracked it (trip meter on the ATV). The + loosely accounted for anything that the ATV did not. It's also how I know what the traveling speed was on the night that Willow traveled when she went after the bear. It was 12-15 MPH for 1.5 miles and 20 MPH on the way back up until she got sight of the bear. From the speed alone I knew something was up. Standard traveling rate for both dogs is 8-10 MPH during the day and 9-12 during the evening. 

Gillian, when I was active in DDB I found two primary groups of people. The pet/show type people you described (the bigger the better) and then the others who seemingly were offering me pups hand over fist to get their dogs in a place where they'd get the type of exposure that mine got. In most cases the motives were not genuine and the dogs were not of a caliber that I'd want to work with, despite being offered as a gift. 

I frequently received rather strong opposition and disapproval from that first group for the things I did with my dogs. That said, I've received certainly far fewer but no less similar comments regarding some of the things I did with Wasabi at an earlier age. 

I x ray all my dogs and typically more than once during their lifetime. I don't just x ray the hips I do elbows, shoulders, knees, etc. I do this first as feedback to the breeder but also because I often start the trail work much earlier than most people would consider acceptable. I needed to know if the work had any negative impact and if not at an early age, what would the films look like 3-5 years later. Certainly, over time the physical condition and sustained ability of the dog is considered in that evaluation as well.

Foot hiking is one thing and certainly better for the human, it's another to use an ATV as a specific conditioning tool in order to have them travel at various rates for sustained distances. We're able to go further in some ways reach areas I couldn't if I were on foot. Once in an area I want to explore further that's too steep or not solid enough for the ATV, it's done by foot.


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## Joby Becker (Dec 13, 2009)

super video...thanks for sharing..

wish I was one of your dogs..


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## Connie Sutherland (Mar 27, 2006)

Nicole Stark said:


> I am glad to see that putting up the video here wasn't a waste of time. Originally, I was just going to leave it on my YouTube channel but I thought it might be enjoyable for others to watch it.



I'm glad you did!


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## Bob Scott (Mar 30, 2006)

Nicole Stark said:


> Thank you Bob. I am not sure why but I thought that in the videos she came through as a heavy looking dog and not as the athletic, muscular dog I see in front of me. With that said most working dog people rarely look twice at Willow but those who are familiar big dogs and understand what they are looking at when they see her realize that she's something special.
> 
> She is one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. I reconnected with her breeder a few months ago, he recently offered to gift me another pup down off similar lineage from when he's ready to produce his next litter. It's a generous offer and one I am going to give serious consideration to.
> 
> It's truly been both an honor and privilege to be entrusted with someone's pup to raise up. Something about that opportunity has made the experience almost more special than if I had sought her out and paid for her directly. I guess maybe because it felt like I wasn't just raising her for myself but also that she was in a place where she could be exposed to various situations and physically evaluated at a level that he wasn't able to do from down in the states.



I've gotten a couple of dogs under similar circumstances and yes, it is an honor when someone looks at your dog abilities with that much trust!


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## Tyree Johnson (Jun 21, 2010)

that was cool to watch ... thanks for posting. i like both dogs


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## Sally Crunkleton (Jan 13, 2012)

Loved it!

I wish that was what we could do all day, every day. Beautiful dogs and scenery! 

That DS is quite a jumper...like a little gazelle!


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## Nicole Stark (Jul 22, 2009)

Thanks guys. I'm real glad you guys checked it out and enjoyed watching it.


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