How We Can Help You

Welcome from Liz Parrish and Barb Schaefer, co-founders of Life…Through Dogs!

We have had our lives and successes exquisitely guided and shaped by what we have learned from our sled dogs, and it is our mission to share that same information and material with others so that it can have the profound impact for you and your audience that it has had for us.

Our basic tenet is that the dogs provide a perfect mirror — with non-judgmental, clear, and unequivocal feedback — on how we are living, working and interacting at any given moment. Thus we can best learn about life, leadership, teamwork, business, relationships with others, and most importantly ourselves, from these amazing teachers.

We have a variety of ways for your audience to engage with the lessons from the sled dogs. Keynote presentations provide a great introduction and distillation of the key concepts, and are complimented and supported by the educational materials we offer, including our flagship bestselling book Be the Lead Dog, 7 Life-Changing Lessons Taught by Sled Dogs. Presentations will be customized to your audience and we offer a number of unique presentations for 2011. Yes, of course, we can bring the dogs too!

When this critical information is presented from the dogs’ perspective, it is engaging, intriguing, entertaining, and learning occurs easily and effortlessly. Your objectives for your audience readily occur because of the high level of engagement of your audience with our dogs and their fundamental lessons. We have developed presentations specifically for corporate/association, college/teen and young adult, and elementary school and youth audiences. Please reference each audience page for descriptions of our baseline presentations for 2011, any of which are readily customizable for your specific audience needs.

Corporate/Association Audiences

Engagement, Inspiration and Entertainment Guaranteed. Photos and Questions welcome!

Collegiate, Teen and Young Adult Audiences

Presentations and messages tailored for student audiences and developing student leaders. We’ll challenge your young adult audience to thought and action — guaranteed!

Elementary and Youth Audiences

This age group “gets” the messages from the dogs readily and easily. These audiences engage and respond to the role models and messages about believing in yourself, celebrating your differences, and never giving up pursuing their dreams.

Liz and Barb are proof positive that ordinary people can achieve extraordinary things if they are focused, patient, and trusting. Their goal is to inspire people to think and act differently, to map out how to take timely action, and to produce results beyond their dreams.

Through their powerful stories and keen insights Liz & Barb bring dog sledding to life, and use it as a metaphor for developing the skills to overcome adversity and accomplish your goals. They will give your audience an adventurous experience they will never forget, one which is transformative and impactful.

The Iditarod, “The Last Great Race”, is over 1150 miles of some of the toughest, most grueling, and majestic terrain Mother Nature offers. Few people have realized their dreams, fewer people have summited Mt Everest, and even fewer have finished the Iditarod.

Liz & Barb’s story of their individual journeys to finish the Iditarod Sled Dog Race move people to commitment, perseverance, and action. After experiencing one of Liz & Barb’s programs, your audience will know exactly what it takes to succeed in the journey of life, no matter the odds. They will be inspired and equipped to take their passion to the next level.

Who are Barb Schaefer and Liz Parrish and what do they bring to your group?

Liz Parrish grew up in the Midwest. She attended Rice University in Texas as an electrical engineer and computer science major and then began a high tech career in California’s Silicon Valley. After 21 years in a number of start-up and large corporate management positions, she moved to southern Oregon and bought Crystalwood Lodge at the base of the Cascades near Klamath Falls, turning it into a pet-friendly destination resort (www.CrystalwoodLodge.com).

Along the way, she met and conquered challenges from childhood cancer (Wilm’s tumor), meningitis, fibromyalgia, and a blood clotting disorder. The cancer treatments left her with a significantly compromised spine that has both been a challenge to her active lifestyle and an incredible source of strength.

Liz has always had a passion for dogs, dog training, and learning from these amazing teachers. She grew up with a miniature dachshund, got a cocker spaniel as soon as she could talk her roommates into it after college, and then became smitten with working dogs with her Australian shepherd, Jake. Jake never met a job he didn’t like, and they tried just about everything together — agility, flyball, herding, search-and-rescue, and finally skijoring and dog sledding. When the opportunity presented itself to participate in the first ever “Mushing Boot Camp”, Liz jumped at the chance. Thus, she created her first sled dog team out of her motley crew of house pets: an Australian Shepherd, a Norwegian Elkhound, and a Beagle Mix.

That first of many Mushing Boot Camps was memorable for many reasons. She met her future mushing mentor, Jamie Nelson, who would shape and guide Liz’s dream to run the Iditarod. She became totally hooked on the challenges and goals of training a set of dogs to accomplish something as a team. In addition, she met many lifelong friends, among them her mushing buddy and business partner, Barb Schaefer.

From that start, she spent a decade building and training her own sled dog team towards a goal of completing the 2008 Iditarod in celebration of her 50th birthday. In preparing to run the Iditarod, Liz completed a number of other races, including the Eagle Cap 200 in Joseph, Oregon, Montana’s Race to the Sky, and the Siskiyou Sled Dog Race at Mt. Shasta California, as well as the Klondike 300 and Goose Bay 120 in Alaska. Liz and her team finished the 2008 Iditarod in 14 days with 14 dogs — this in spite of being seriously injured early in the race and being “Iditarod’s Littlest Musher^TM.”

Liz spent a lifetime preparing for the challenge of the Iditarod, and she lives by the motto:  Quitting is NOT an option.

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Barb has always been interested in animals. As a young girl, she wanted to be a veterinarian so she could work with dogs. As a teenager, she realized she wanted to be an engineer so she could make good money and play with her own dogs. She became a mechanical engineer and pursued a successful career with Pacific Gas and Electric and Swift Communications in a variety of line and project management positions.

She and her husband, John, researched for three years before deciding Siberian Huskies were the breed for them. In 1987, she started with one Siberian and she and John would go cross-country skiing, skijoring, and biking, bikejoring, with their dog, with her and John trading off being the lead dog. They got a second dog so now they could each have a dog to use.

One day they were up in Markleeville and saw a woman with a 6-dog team, Barb knew what she wanted to do — dog sledding!

In 1995, Barb and her husband moved to the Sierra Nevada foothills in California on 10 acres where she could seriously train her dogs in harness. Her interest in distance mushing compelled her and John to serve as Iditarod volunteers for 10 years. Barb served as coordinator of the volunteers caring for the dropped dogs along the trail, thus earning Barb her nickname of “Barbara Dog Drop”.

Barbara raised and trained Jasmine, who played lead dog “Maya” in the Disney movie Eight Below.

Barb and her dogs are featured on Animal Planet’s, “Breed All About It, Siberian Husky” and can be seen on Comcast’s “Profiles” and in numerous magazines including Sierra Heritage and Sierra Alive.

Barb and her dogs earned numerous awards including:

One of Barb’s dogs, CH Fraka’s Sparkl’n Jewel O’Kossok, a top winning show dog in 1994 & 1995, was awarded Best of Opposite Sex at the ’94 Siberian Husky Club of America National Specialty Show and was featured in Life Magazine.