Missouri 'urban musher' has dogs pull his bike

WEBB CITY, Mo. -- Ron Walker makes no bones about being "a lazy man" when it comes to taking his five Siberian huskies for a walk.

A home builder and winter-sports enthusiast, Walker styles himself an "urban musher" and frequently straps two or three of the dogs at a time to his bicycle, letting the animals tow him around town.

"Give a lazy man a hard job and he'll find an easy way to do it," Walker said after he returned from a spin around the block pulled by his 2-year-old huskies, Rosie and Princess. "This is an easy way to take my dogs for a walk."

Walker's son, Johnny, agrees with his dad's strategy to let the dogs' natural instincts to pull do the work.

"It's easier to do that than to take them for a walk," he said. "They pull so hard."

Walker said he and his wife, Denise, let their dogs pull them through the streets of Webb City or along the trails of King Jack Park just about every day.

The elder Walker said he first got the idea to use the dogs for something other than a traditional sled on a camping trip near Leadville, Colo., several years ago.

"This guy pulls up in an old Ford van, just full of greyhounds. He gets out, and he lashes six greyhounds to his waist, straps on a pair of cross-country skies and he says 'Go.'"

Walker said the dog team pulled the man across a frozen lake at a tremendous speed, and his own dream of becoming a musher was born.

"I told my wife that's the craziest thing I ever saw," he said. "I got to try that."

Walker acquired his first two huskies -- Smokey and Shadow -- about five years ago. They were joined a year later by Maya, a cinnamon-colored husky. Princess and Rosie are the only two pups remaining from a single litter Smokey and Shadow had before they were fixed.

Having that many dogs led Walker to get a special-use kennel permit from Webb City. The permit stipulates that he cannot breed his dogs or board other dogs, and that he cannot get a replacement if one of the dogs dies.

"Most of my neighbors don't have a problem, but one complained that we just had too many dogs," he said. "It led to a nine-month ordeal with the city."

Neighbor Mike Shuster said he has no problems with Walker's dogs, or his unusual hobby.

"I didn't think it was weird, I just hadn't seen it in this area," he said. "It's kind of a unique thing, but it's a good hobby to get into for the dogs, and for him."

Walker said mushing is a great way for his family to spend time bonding with each other and the dogs.

"My grandkids love it," he said, adding his grandson Gage is fond of the activity. "He will be a musher."

While he acknowledges that the activity may seem unconventional for southwest Missouri, Walker said it has become part of his family's lifestyle.

"We watch the Iditarod like we watch the Super Bowl," he said. "It's a lifestyle, you know, and it's a lifestyle my wife and I have always been enticed by. We're winter people."