Caring for Dogs, Calming People as the 'WoofDriver'

This is part two in a series about Owings Mills resident Bill Helman, the "WoofDriver," and his dogs, the "WoofPak."

Bill Helman, the “,” insists he has the welfare of his dogs, and others, in mind.

He started with Czar, a Siberian Husky, in 1996. Czar’s natural instinct to pull made riding a bike, with Czar on a leash, quite challenging. Helman describes the experience on his website:

I love a challenge, and I loved my dog so I had to find an answer. My first move was to get an attachment for my bicycle to tether him to it, so I could safely bicycle with him and give him a job to run next to me. It was an incredible experience. I could use a minimal effort and Czar could satisfy his desire to run. The heath benefits, physical and psychological, for Czar were exceptional. I felt so wonderful, I could sense his satisfaction and happiness, and that was the most gratifying aspect to me.

Soon, Czar was joined by Hudson, another Husky. With a new member of the pack, Helman’s inventiveness grew. Now, he needed a rig to which he could attach two dogs.

“I stepped up a notch, with Czar and Hudson,” Helman said. “I wanted a cart where they could pull me, and I found this Sacco cart, which is made in Norway.

“It was one of the best carts I ever had … I started looking more and more … I found other ways that people are attaching their dogs to vehicles. I took ways that are out there, and modified them.

“I just have an idea, but I work with some wonderful people that are more engineer types. They’ll know how to weld, they’ll know how to build, they’ll know how to plan, and have helped me. We coupled together and have made some really cool stuff.”

Princess joined the pack and for years the three dogs worked as an exuberant team.

But the recent passing of Czar, at age 15, and Hudson, at 13, left Princess alone until Helman added his current puppies: Chase and Jag—both 18 months old—and Zarro, 15 months old.

The puppies will not pull a rig until they are 2 years old. Their bodies are still developing, and their growth could be stunted under a work load.

Nothing stops them, however, from running alongside a rig, in a different type of harness, not bearing any of the rig’s weight.

Princess, though, is another story.

“Princess could pull all day,” Helman said with a chuckle.

Helman is obsessive about his dogs’ health. He bounces all his ideas and worries off his veterinarian, and he’s invented and modified equipment to keep the pack healthy.

One contraption is a water mister, which sprays water on the working Huskies while they run in the summer, to keep them cool.

He also straps cooling packs and heart rate monitors to their chests to make sure that their health is never compromised.

And Helman keeps the well-being of others in mind, too. He uses the dogs to that effect.

The Jemicy School’s lower and middle school is close to Helman’s home, and the staff, kids and parents alike are charmed when they see his pack drive by.

Often, parents picking up their kids will pull over to ask him questions. With a “Whoa!” Helman pulls his pack over, too.

Jemicy, which uses a handful of therapy dogs on its campus for dyslexic students, invited Helman—who is proud of his own triumph over dyslexia—to give a presentation to its students in the fall, school spokeswoman Bonnie Wasserman said.

The dogs are a “calming influence” for the students, Wasserman said, and apparently, so is Helman.