About Frank Sihler
 Frank Sihler, who was born in 1965 in Geisslingen, Germany, moved to Alaska in 2001 for mushing and for love.
Frank got his start with competitive dogs by skijoring in the late 1980s. He founded
Germany's first mushing school and ran in Europe's Alpirod sled-dog race in 1990 and
1991. He first competed in Alaska in the North American Championships
sprint races in 1995. Frank moved to northern Finland and in 1996 started
a mushing tour company.
In 2001, Frank called a former girlfriend, Claudia, who had moved to Alaska,
and soon afterward he moved here and married her. Claudia, a veterinarian
in Germany, has been an Iditarod veterinarian and is a certified pet dog
trainer who owns The Better Companion dog-training school along Fairview Loop near Wasilla.
The Sihlers, along with the nearly 40 huskies of Moving Fast Kennel, live southwest of Wasilla.
Why the Iditarod?
Frank has twice completed the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and competes in
Iditarod qualifying races such as the Knik 200 and the Don Bowers
Memorial Sled Dog Race, but he has chosen not to run in the state's other
endurance race, the Yukon Quest between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon.
The Iditarod, he says, is the better-known race and there's a higher level
of competition.
Also, the Iditarod passes only a few miles from his driveway, so
the logistics are much easier to handle. The Quest would require that someone drive him and the dogs to either Fairbanks or Whitehorse and then pick him up in the other city. After mushing to Nome, however, he buys a plane ticket for himself, puts his dogs and gear in the cargo hold and flies back on Alaska Airlines to Anchorage's international airport, a 90-minute drive from his home.
Another fact important for mushers trying to get sponsors, says Frank, is
the fact that the Iditarod is the best-known sled-dog race in the world.
"The Iditarod is the Super Bowl of mushing," Frank says.
Training the dogs
Frank prepares his huskies for the 1,100-mile Iditarod race by building their confidence a little at a time. Show the
young dogs they can handle 100 yards of overflow on a river, for example, and they will be soon able to
go a half-mile without panicking.
In general, he says, echoing Claudia's training mantra, "You don't train a dog for failure. You set it up for success for the team. The team has done it
successfully, and then everybody's happen about it."
What what about the most dangerous spot on the Iditarod Trail -- the Dalzell Gorge? Can you train the dogs for that icy and
twisting descent? "Be well-rested
when you go there," says Frank. "You don't train that -- you deal with it."
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