Meet Juneau’s most ambitious dog walker

Shoes cutting into the mountainside, dog runner Houston Laws followed Sadie, a brown, pointy-eared mixed-breed dog, on Grandchild Peak Trail. Laws hiked with an economy of movement, progressing quickly up the steep, 3,800-foot climb.

Sadie, not so much. The 40-pound 5-year-old has the outdoor dog’s endless pool of stamina. She ran ahead a hundred feet, zig-zagging around roots and doubling back, tongue wagging, then jutting off for some bushwhacking, all while keeping one eye on Laws.

“It’s maybe 40 more minutes to the alpine,” Laws said. “You don’t need a break, do you?” he asked Sadie.

Sadie is not Laws’ dog, but she might as well be a part of Laws’ family. The pair have been hitting the trails together since Sadie was a puppy. For four years, Laws has taken her on walks, hikes and runs as part of his dog running business Run’Em Crazy to Lazy.

Sadie and a handful of other dogs have logged so many miles with Laws that he’s decided to write a book. “Trails and Tails” is a coffee table collection of pictures and passages written from the perspective of Laws’ dogs. The project is a collaboration between locals Laws, who took the pictures, writer Katie Stromme and book designer Rizza Mae Sariano, a freelance graphic designer with Z Squared Studios.

Every chapter describes a different trail around Juneau — each a dog’s favorite — and includes a topographical map to encourage families and dog owners to follow in Laws and his dogs’ tracks. “Trails and Tails” will come out in about a month and is taking pre-orders right now on Facebook.

“It comes with the two biggest things Juneau has to offer,” Laws describes the book on his Facebook page. “Remote trails and the amazing pups that run them!”

The first $2,000 of book earnings go toward a graduating scholarship for Ketchikan and Juneau high school students.

A training opportunity

About two miles into the hike, Sadie and Laws leave this desk jockey in the dust, though both mercifully take breaks so I can catch up. On a normal day, they’d probably have summited Grandchild Peak an hour earlier than they did.

Laws is an experienced distance runner, a pursuit which formed the origins of both the business and the book. In 2013, he worked his way up to a 50-mile race in San Fransisco, then ran his first 100-mile ultramarathon later that year.

A 2004 Ketchikan High School graduate and wrestler, he had always been one to test his physical limits.

“I just like the aspect of pushing myself, seeing what’s around the next bend or over the next peak,” Laws said.

He ran five more ultramarathon races in seven months in 2014, capping the grueling series by running the 108-mile Klondike Road Relay solo, one of only two people to ever complete the race by themselves.

In training, he was logging hundreds of running miles and burning through shoes. So he decided to turn his hobby into a side gig.

“I put in so many hours of mileage on these trails, and I was like, well, this would be great if I could buy new shoes and an airplane ticket to compete. That’s how this came to be,” Laws said.

So he’d run to his dog’s houses, pick them up, and run to the trail. Then on to the next dog. Through experience, he learned that every dog he walked lived within a mile of a trail. Laws cherishes Juneau’s proximity to great hiking.

“Half a mile is the longest route from the house to the trail, so I’d leash them up, run them across the street — there’s the trailhead. So we’d run 40 minutes to an hour, I’d take him back to the house and run to the next house. I could have three to four dogs. It’s pretty much a whole day for me,” he said.

After a year or two, he found he was amassing so many pictures, he thought he’d put them to good use. “Trails and Tails” was borne out of those photos.

He credits his parents, small business owners in Ketchikan, for fostering his entrepreneurial spirit. Following their lead, his hobby led to a side business, and a book out of that.

But it’s more than just a business. He’s happy to share something he loves with families. To him, hiking, dog walking and running are part and parcel to the happiness of humans and their best friends.

“Even if you’ve had a long day, it’s going to be great mental health for you and physical health for you and the dog. So all around, you are going to be a happy owner and a healthy dog,” Laws said.

 

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• Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or at kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.

 

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