A No Pet Rule Creates A Master Musher

Tom Thurston, who grew up in Massachusetts, never understood why his family didn’t let him have a pet. His family jokes that he made up for it in an expensive way. Today, Tom who lives in Oak Creek, Colorado owns 36 dogs. Why dogs and not, for instance, lots of cats? Tom says he admires a dog’s loyalty, kindness and persistence. “You can be the worst person, a crook, a drunk, a murderer, and a dog will stay with you as long as you take care of it.”

Tom is a hard working person who describes himself as restless. “I will go on a 3 mile hike and end up doing 15 miles. I was born that way. I need to go out. Dogs are always ready to go any time, day or night.”

After going to college on the East Coast and working in the mid-west, Tom moved with his wife, Tami, to Oak Creek where their 2 daughters were born. Tom discovered in Milner, a town a few miles further west, Red Runner, a complex which offered dog-sled rides in the winter. Fascinated, Tom worked there part time. On his own Tom began to acquire Alaskan huskies. “A husky,” Tom explains, “is a type of dog and not a recognized breed - basically a mixture of a Siberian crossed with a variety of other breeds.”

It was only natural that Tom should go several times on to Alaska to do the Iditarod.  Known as “The Last Great Race on Earth®,” the course memorializes how mail, medicine and food were distributed before the days of snowmobiles during the harsh winters when temperatures hover at 60 below Fahrenheit. The 1049 miles long route from Anchorage to Nome is marked with laths which tend to be knocked down by the 80 mile gales. Taking 9 to 14 days, there are checkpoints every 30 to 100 miles where dogs and rider may receive medical care. One race Tom remembers particularly is when one late evening he could no longer see the laths to the next check points. One of his lead dogs, Darla, just kept going. Tom wondered if they were still on the correct trail. When Tom saw the lights of the check point coming into sight, he knew that Darla was smarter than he had thought.

Today, Tom owns Double T Kennel offering back country dog sledding. Most of the tours start from Oak Creek’s scenic Stagecoach Lake. Others, in the Flat Tops, the third largest U.S. Wilderness Area in Colorado, where the snow promises to last into the spring. Tom says its good for the dogs to be busy.  Though divorced, his two teenage daughters join him frequently grooming, feeding, playing with the dogs. His eldest daughter has already run in Colorado several races on her own. While Tom has not raced for a few years, he says “I do miss going 20 miles an hour in 100 miles per hour winds in Alaska.”

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