Sled dogs get belly rubs from Solon Springs students

SOLON SPRINGS — Who let the dogs out at Solon Springs school? Local musher Chris Kivi and his friend, Jason Hussong, of Illinois. They brought their sled dog teams for an outdoor meet-and-greet Wednesday, Feb. 19.

Students who bundled up and braved the chilly weather learned about the dogs, the gear and the mushers. They also got to pet and snuggle some of the dogs.

“I love him,” said fifth grader Jackson Judkins as he looked down at B.J., an 8-month-old malamute/Greenland dog cross. “He rolled over and let me rub his belly.”

Jed Carlson / Duluth Media Group

Playing with the crowd is what Kivi’s crew, consisting of malamutes, Greenland dogs and Siberian huskies, does best.

“Racing is fun, but this is what these dogs love doing more,” said Kivi, who runs CD Kennels in Solon Springs.

Malamutes are built for freight, not speed. Kivi called them the Peterbilt semis of the dog sledding world. While Alaskan huskies can travel 12-15 mph all day long, the larger malamutes have a top speed of 8 mph, with a typical working speed of 5 miles per hour. A malamute can pull twice as much weight as a Siberian husky, and four times more than an Alaskan husky.

“So the running joke is the professional racers they go three times as fast but that’s because they have to make three times the trip in order to haul all I can get in one trip,” Kivi said.

Jed Carlson / Duluth Media Group

Douglas County is home to multiple sled dog teams. Three live within a few miles of downtown Solon Springs: Kivi, Iditarod veteran Wade Marrs and Melissa Mendelson, who will compete in the

2025 John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon,

which kicks off March 2 in Duluth.

“We’re a well-kept secret,” Kivi said of the many dog sled teams in the area.

Jed Carlson / Duluth Media Group

The canine meet-and-greet was coordinated after the school’s annual ice fishing day event was canceled due to cold weather.

“These people were gracious enough to bring the dogs out here so the kids could still have a piece of the day that we would have had,” said paraprofessional Jennifer Bigoness.

Kivi’s path to musher started when he was a volunteer at the Douglas County Humane Society.

“I was always working with the cats,” he said, but on a rainy day the dogs were brought into his room to exercise. One of them was a malamute rescue.

Jed Carlson / Duluth Media Group

“All of a sudden the door blows open, that malamute comes through the door, came right up over the couch, just laid me out flat and,” Kivi made a slurping sound like a dog licking his face. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, I guess you’re coming home.’”

On the search for another malamute, Kivi and his wife found a retiring musher who offered them two dogs, then two more along with all of their sled dog equipment.

“He gave me everything that was basically a sled dog starter kit,” Kivi said.

That was 15 years ago. The Solon Springs musher, who works full time as a railroad engineer, now has 19 dogs. Sixteen of them are sled dogs. He said it’s about time to pass his starter kit on as he considers retiring from the sled dog world.

Jed Carlson / Duluth Media Group

Kivi’s dogs are involved in weight pulls through the Twin Cities Dog Powered Sports group. Next up for the Solon Springs team is offering sled rides and participating in the power pull at the CopperDog event Feb. 28 to March 2 in Calumet, Michigan.

And he’s bringing the sport to Douglas County. A power pull involving dogs pulling wheeled sleds is slated to take place Sept. 20 in Solon Springs. Visit the

facebook.com/twincitiesdogpoweredsports

for more information.

Maria Lockwood covers news in Douglas County, Wisconsin, for the Superior Telegram.