WORTH TWP — Many people think of snow when they think of sled-dog racing, but at Cooper’s Lake Campground, more than 150 dogs and 30 mushers gathered for the Canadian American Sledders races on Saturday and Sunday.

The Canadian American Sledders is a group with about 40 members in Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland, according to secretary Jenn Vallimont, and the dryland race has been hosted at the campground for more than seven years.

The event featured racers, called mushers, from as far away as East Greenville, Pa., to Ohio and Virginia, Vallimont said.

The two days of racing included 52 races, according to Vallimont, varying by how many dogs pull the musher and what the musher rides on. There were six-, four-, two- and single-dog races and races for bicycles, scooters and wheeled rigs. All races were two miles, except for the single-dog races, which only were one mile, Vallimont said.

In addition to the variation on number of dogs and vehicles, the races were divided by purebred and mixed breeds. In the purebred classes, only Siberian huskies and Samoyeds can race, as breeds recognized by the American Kennel Club, Vallimont said.

However, any type of dog that wants to run can be used, but it is primarily those who have been bred to work that are most easily trained, according to Cindy Eddy of Center Township, a dog trainer and musher.

Typically, it’s larger dogs like huskies, shepherds and retrievers that she sees at races, but people can train “anything that loves to pull,” Eddy said.

Vallimont raced with four dogs over the weekend, all of which run in the mixed-breed categories since they are Alaskan huskies, a breed not recognized a purebred by the AKC, Vallimont said.

As a breed, the Alaskan huskies are vocal and spirited, she said — most people find themselves in the dog-racing sport because the dogs needed to burn off energy.

That’s how Eddy found herself getting into dog racing.

“About 30 years ago, I had a husky that escaped all the time,” Eddy said. Eddy found dryland dog racing as a way to keep the dog occupied.

Butch Alworth, the president of the Canadian American Sledders, from Parker, Pa., has been running dogs since the 1970s, he said — and he found his start the same way: by giving his dogs an outlet for their energy.

“I love animals,” he said. “These are northern breed dogs. This is what they’re bred for. I’m providing them the opportunity to do what they’re bred for: to run.”

But obviously, not every dog wants to run, and the mushers are very careful not to hurt the dogs or make them unhappy, according to Vallimont and Eddy.

“It all depends on the dog,” Vallimont said. “For the dogs who have been bred to run, they have that instinct. They want to run ... but you can’t force them to run if they don’t want to.”

Like Eddy said, “If the dog doesn’t want to do it, they just won’t.”

For the dogs who do enjoy running, the mushers often train them.

Vallimont said she would typically train two days on and one day off or three days on and two days off, but this is something that varies greatly depending on how recreational or professional the musher is.

But because northern breeds, such as the ones more commonly used in dog racing, have thicker coats, mushers need to be quite careful about when they train.

For instance, a general rule of thumb is that dogs should not be training when the temperature and humidity combined is more than 100 degrees. Vallimont prefers to train only when the temperature is below 50 degrees, she said.

Alworth said training demands plenty of patience, especially working with dogs who may be older or rescued. But the payoff is incredible, he said. There’s a certain personal satisfaction that comes from successfully training dogs to run and work on voice commands, in his experience.

As satisfying as the dog racing can be, it also can be expensive, according to Vallimont.

“It’s not cheap to race these dogs,” she said.

Vallimont spends $200 every month on food for her eight dogs, and they eat a special high-protein, high-fat food, both for the faster metabolism of huskies and the work they do.

“If you’re expecting your dog to work, you better be feeding them something good. If you want output, there better be input,” she said.

The cost is driven up as a musher becomes more professional or owns more racing dogs, Vallimont said. That’s one of the reasons she sees the sport as undergoing a shift, moving toward a recreational sport with more rescue dogs on small single- or two-dog teams.

In fact, that’s how Vallimont and Alworth would suggest newcomers get involved with the sport: training a rescue dog in need of a good home, often for a much cheaper initial cost than a purebred dog.

Eddy also said that dog racing was a great family activity. It was easy to pack up the whole family and the dogs to go running. And getting her family away from staring at a screen was just another plus, she said.