Cherly Pintello

I've been involved driving sled dogs since the eighties and bought and built many gadgets over the years that I've found useful despite not being a big “gadget guy”.

A life long nordic skiier, I learned about skijoring from a Swedish musher and thought it sounded like a great idea. The only thing was that in the late eighties there were no suppliers of gear. My first skijor belt was a chain wrapped around my waist but soon found and adapted a climbing harness. As the climbing harness had leg loops it was superior to early models later available in the US until they started adapting this idea. Nowadays, there are many excellent suppliers of skijor gear.

One of the coolest things I've made was working with a retired aircraft engineer who had a grant from a dog food maker to study dog output. At the time, trees made GPS units rather unreliable so we used a bicycle wheel with a speedometer to measure speed / distance. But for measuring how much the dogs pulled, we built a system using a tensometer jury rigged to a Sinclair computer housed in a rubbermaid box to collect data. The research discovered that an efficient team actually put very little tug on the line to keep forward momentum. Less efficient dogs pull more with less consistency which results in more injuries as dogs pull best by relying on the harness to catch them as they throw themselves forward rather than landing only on their paws.

A modified four wheeler ATV has been a great gadget. Got it from the kid down the road for a great price as I had him remove the motor as part of the sale conditions. It's a nice way to get the dogs out when there's no snow. And without the motor there's no hassle for using the local multi-use trail that bans motors.

An avid cyclist, I also pioneered a sport called “bike-joring” which seems to now be an accepted term. Springer and others have been selling for sometime a way to connect your dog to the side of your bike, but it doesn't allow them to really work.

So I built a way to attach the dogs to the handlebars. It sounds counter intuitive, but it is the most stable spot to attach them. It's the same spot 6-day riders hold their bars when doing handslings on the track. And if you attach to the headtube, the line too easily gets tangled on the front wheel or fender and there is less control/stability.

A loop of bungie and rope over the bars, one on each side of the stem, gives great control and flexibility as it's easy to pull the loops off the stem if you need to untangle them or get better control off bike.

Then there's little things like better dishes, food scoopers and poop scoopers that make daily chores easier. Mine are home made for the most part, but I use hog pans as dishes.

I've always wanted a poop scooping robot and have thought of modifying one of those solar power mowers… but they are expensive and the dogs would probably eat it.

Auto axles are a great way to put a stake in the ground that will make it easy to chain up a dog. Much better than those little twisty stakes they sell in pet shops that never work reliably.

Good dog houses are also helpful. I use a 50 gallon plastic barrels supported on an A-Frame of pallets. This provides shade underneath the house and puts the door high enough that males don't pee in it. Over the years, been replacing the plastic with wood houses which look a bit nicer and give the dogs a flat spot on the roof to hang out. They like that. Never give a dog a peaked roof, unless it's a 2-D dog like Snoopy who can perch on that.

And maybe the coolest gadget I've seen and always wanted, was a truck load of old communication cable spools to give the dog yard a hacker/phreaker look by converting them into dog houses. Someday.

Dog mushing is fun in part due to the many innovations that come out over the years. Mushers tend to be quite resourceful hackers who combine high tech with an ancient art whose motto is, “you can fix anything with an axe” that reflex a legacy of self reliance in the wilderness. And despite the cool things I can brag about, am humbled by the true master dog drivers who could go out with one tool, an axe, and build an outstandingly engineered perfectly balanced sled out of a birch tree in short order that would outperform one made in a fully supplied shop of powertools and laser rulers and allignment devices.

Everyone\'s a critic: one of our panelists gropes for a sniff of biscuit.Photo: Jason Houston

I've got a bone to pick with conventional dog biscuits. Like commercial dog food, they are made with un-green or even potentially dangerous ingredients. Surely, they're unworthy of a companion who greets your return from the mailbox with nothing less than rapture.

But are the spendy, natural and/or organic versions worth the price of reducing Rover's carbon pawprint? Will your dog eat them, or even prefer them to cheap, commercial Milk-Bones?

Our esteemed critics are ready for their treats. Photo: Jason HoustonTo find out, I grabbed some Milk Bones (for comparison purposes) and higher-quality (even organic!) biscuits to test whether dogs prefer one over the other. Then I assembled a canine tasting panel. For scientific purposes, I went for a range of dogs across age groups and breeds. My four-legged panel includes:

• Burn: a ten-year-old, painfully sentient, ball-obsessed Border Collie.
• Lulu: a two-year-old cartoonishly cute Cockapoo with a high-pitched bark that could sever one's auditory nerves.
• Sugar Ray: a beanbag-shaped, geriatric Pug with a seriously deviated septum.
• Austin: a handsome seven-year-old Australian Shepherd with glacial eyes.

The plan was to give each dog a choice: Milk Bone or fancy biscuit?

I also managed to talk the dog's adult owner-companions into joining in the taste-test. Don't wrinkle your nose — the “eco” biscuits in this taste-off were of higher quality than most of the stuff found in school cafeterias. Personally speaking, I've eaten many dog biscuits on a dare during my childhood, which explains why I have great teeth and a glossy coat.

Our mixed panel of beasts — canine and hominoid — found:

Wagatha's Super Berry Biscuit

Ingredients: Whole millet flour, dark rye flour, barley flour, oat flour, canola oil, whole eggs, brown rice flour, flax seed, quinoa, sunflower seeds, apples, cranberries, carrots, blueberries, apple cider vinegar, alfalfa, rosemary, allspice, ginger, calendula.

Price: $7.99 for 9 ounces

These small classically bone-shaped, USDA certified 100 percent organic treats from Vermont are pretty much vegetarian, though not vegan. Lulu clearly preferred this treat over the Milk Bone and Austin, the Aussie, consumed it with little chewing. Sugar Ray backed away from the bowl and observed the biscuits from a safe distance. Burn, perhaps searching for her tennis ball, left the room. The humans thought these treats smelled like “berries and bacon” and “tea.” Taste-wise, the humans were pleasantly surprised. “I've had things at the health food store that taste like this!” Another taster thought he detected “sundried tomato.” Wrong!

Newman's Own Organics Salmon & Sweet Potato dog treat

Ingredients: Barley flour*, ground salmon, sweet potatoes*, carrots*, apples*, chicken fat (preserved naturally with mixed tocopherols and lecithin), rolled oats, rosemary extract. (*certified organic)

Price: $4.29 for 10 ounces

Okay, so a few ingredients here are organic and that's cool, but what's up with the conventional salmon? I know that Newman's Own Organics is trying to do the right thing, but surely they know about environmental hazards of farm-raised salmon. The dogs were not impressed with the cutesy heart shape, or, surprisingly, the fishy smell. The Pug could not be enticed even when the biscuit was waved in front of what passed for his nose. Only the Aussie was game (he pulled both bones, the Newman's and the Milk Bone control, out the dog dishes and gobbled them). Most of the hominid tasters meanwhile were repulsed. Two ran to the sink to flush their mouths. “It's like the cardboard the fish was stored in!” said one taster. “It gets worse with saliva,” said another. But one taster chomped approvingly and said, “I like salmon!” (It should be noted that, while in Africa, said taster once drank goat's blood directly from the animal's neck.)

Mr. Barky's Vegetarian Dog Biscuits

Ingredients: Wheat flour, whole oat groats, whole ground brown rice, whole ground yellow corn, whole barley, soy flour, sunflower oil (preserved with mixed tocopherols), calcium ascorbate (source of vitamin C), yucca schidigera extract, vitamin E supplement, vitamin A acetate, vitamin D2 supplement (calciferol), D-pantothenic acid, niacin, pyridoxine hydrochloride (vitamin B6), riboflavin supplement, thiamine mononitrate, vitamin B12 supplement, biotin, zinc amino acid chelate, calcium amino acid chelate, copper amino acid chelate, iron amino acid chelate, cobalt amino acid chelate, sodium selenite.

Price: $5.99 for 21 ounces

We all know that dogs aren't vegetarian. What I think is going on with these biscuits is that, by avoiding potentially creepy animal ingredients, owner-companions can assuage their own guilt. Although vegetarian is the greenest way to go for the planet, a veggie bikkie may leave your dog pining for the backyard squirrels. Sugar Ray took an unenthusiastic whiff at this multivitamin-posing-as-snack and hit the ground. Lulu seemed unable to smell it at all. (She wagged her stumpy tail and circled the bowls suspiciously.) True to form, Austin ate it while the Milk Bone was still in his mouth. The human tasters were unenthused, comparing these bix to “straight-up cardboard,” and “Zwieback teething biscuits” and, most damningly, “like Ryvita!”

Harmony Farms Health Bars with Apples & Yogurt

Ingredients: Oat flour, pearl barley, rye flour, oatmeal, dried egg, apples, blueberries, yogurt, oat fiber, chicken liver, flaxseed, salt, calcium carbonate, dicalcium phosphate, chicken fat (preserved with natural mixed tocopherols), carrots, cinnamon.

Price: $4.29 for 18 ounces

Health bars … really? With non-organic chicken liver and fat? And WTF are “natural mixed tocopherols”? At this point in the tasting the Burn started looking despondent and went on a hunger strike. The clearly well-fed Pug lay down again, either out of boredom or because of aching joints. Lulu sniffed, snubbed and cocked her cute little head as if to say, “I do not understand your silly species.” Austin, on the other hand, sniffed at the Milk bone and then clearly chose the Harmony Farms bar. The humans, meanwhile, were ready to serve these with tea. “Almost cookie-like!” enthused one, while another concurred “like an unsweetened graham cracker.” One mother's comment: “This is like something I'd make for the kids, but without the rendered chicken fat!”

Organix Organic Dog Cookies, organic peanut butter flavor

Ingredients: Organic chicken, organic peas, organic brown rice, organic oats, organic barley, organic chicken fat naturally preserves with mixed tocopherols (form of vitamin E) natural chicken liver flavor, organic natural peanut butter flavor, organic flaxseed, rosemary extract.

Price: $5.69 for 12 ounces

Right off the bat I wondered, why peanut butter flavor and not actual peanut butter? I mean, how freakin' hard is it to put peanut butter in the batter? The dogs must have wondered this, too. Austin was the only dog who ate this biscuit. Lulu pranced away, Sugar Ray seemed close to death, and if Burn had opposable thumbs she — convinced that she was being subjected to this because she had done something truly horrible — would have committed seppuku. At this point we offered her a choice of all of the biscuits, and she rolled her Jesus-like eyes to the ceiling (Forgive them father, they know not what to eat). The bipeds, meanwhile, agreed on the extremely crunchy texture but deemed this cookie “not peanut buttery” and tasting like “dog food smells.” Zinger: “It tastes like something you'd have at a Super Bowl party in the suburbs.”

Milk Bone Medium Dog Biscuits for Dogs 20-50 pounds

Ingredients: Wheat flour, wheat bran, meat and bone meal, milk, wheat germ, beef fat (preserved with tocopherols), salt, dicalcium phosphate, natural flavor, calcium carbonate, brewers dried yeast, malted barley flour, sodium metabisulfite (used as a preservative), vitamins & minerals (choline chloride, zinc sulfate, vitamin E supplement, D-calcium pantothenate, vitamin A supplement, copper sulfate, ethylenediamine dihydriodide, riboflavin supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, vitamin D3 supplement).

Price: $3.49 for 26 ounces

With the exception of Austin, all of the dogs snubbed these iconic treats. A few human tasters patently refused to put them in their mouths. Those brave enough to try this courtesy-of-the-rendering plant treat were rewarded not with fresh breath, but with something “salty and chickeny” and “like wet fur” and most strangely, “like a taste bomb–an exploding harpoon.”

The Bottom line

Let's be honest here: Canine taste-tests are for purely for entertainment. Dogs' taste preferences range from super-fussy to so undiscriminating that they will eat road kill, litter box contents (“Almond Roca”) or even their own feces. That said, the winner of this particular taste test was Wagatha's, based on the fact that two out four dogs ate them. The humans, meanwhile, seemed to actually enjoy the Harmony Health Bars and the Wagatha's. (And really, aren't many of the choices we humans make for our dogs about us, not them? Hence those humiliating dog pajamas, breath spray, canopy-style dog beds, Halloween costumes-need I go on?) The bottom line is that owner-companions should carefully read ingredients, avoid the potentially scary and environmentally bad stuff (the generic meats, animal byproducts, digest and meals that are the consequences of factory farming, HFCS, artificial dyes, preservatives and cheapo grain fillers like corn and rice), and make a choice based on your dog's fussiness level. Also, consult your vet about your dog's specific needs.

Lastly (you regular readers know what's coming) … if you want to save money and avoid stepping into a big ole pile of carbon caused by shipping and packaging story-bought dog snacks, follow Umbra's advice and bake your own treat. 

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 25th, 2010 at 8:36 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.