Raising the Next Balto

Rohn and Nikolai may have the world's best job. The brothers work at the Happy Trails Kennel in Alaska. They help train 20 puppies a year.

"We don't have to do it. We like to," says Nikolai. The puppies grow up to run in the Iditarod. This is a yearly dogsled race from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska. The race on March 1 follows an old path. Dog teams raced on this path to bring medicine to sick kids.

Their dad is Martin Buser. He is a professional dogsled racer. He has won the Iditarod twice. He even named Rohn and Nikolai after stops on the trail. Buser wants the puppies at his kennel to have plenty of love. He knows the human touch will make them better sled dogs.

While the pups are tiny, the boys pet and cuddle them a lot. "That's what makes them really used to people," says Rohn. He and his brother watch videos with snoozing puppies tucked inside their shirts.

Nikolai and Rohn run around with the puppies for hours every day. Race dogs need to have their feet checked for injuries during races. The boys rub each dog's feet to get it used to having them checked. They go out on training runs with the dogs. They tie a small dogsled behind their dad's full-sized one. The puppies start training with a sled when they're about 9 months old.

Which pup is the very best? "We don't really have favorite puppies," says Nikolai. "We like them all."


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