Running With Dubs
Elena Vega de Soto’s husky handler journey at the UW.
Lights, Crowd, Energy!
During the kickoff of football games at Husky Stadium, tens of thousands of fans see the same thing: Dubs II, the majestic Alaskan Malamute, charging across the field to kick off the game. But if you look just beside him — leash in hand, heart pounding, eyes lit up with pride —there’s a pretty good chance that’s Elena Vega de Soto.
And she’s made that sprint more than 15 times.
“For three years, I’ve been the one running with him,” she says. “It never gets old. The lights, the crowd, the energy — there’s nothing like it.”
Vega de Soto and Dubs II during Senior Night kickoff at Husky Stadium vs. UCLA.
Vega de Soto and Dubs II lead Husky Cheer onto field in game against UCLA.
A Place to land
Vega de Soto didn’t always expect to land at UW. Growing up just across Lake Washington in Bellevue, she says she didn’t fully appreciate the university’s potential — until she arrived. “It was always just kind of there,” she says.
“But now, I love UW with my whole heart” she says. “I couldn’t imagine having gone anywhere else.”
She quickly found her footing through hands-on public sector work, including a capstone internship with King County researching drop-off recycling sites. Alongside a co-intern, she visited over 150 locations, from grocery stores to landfills, to understand why people weren’t using e-waste systems as intended.
“I realized you can’t just think about what to do after someone throws away a TV,” she says. “You have to think about what happens before the TV is even made. What laws are in place? How do you build a circular economy that benefits everyone — not just people with access?”
That sense of systems thinking, rooted in equity and accessibility, also guided her personal research project, focused on building better producer responsibility policies in Washington state.
“Sustainability can’t move forward unless we bring everyone along,” she says.
(Top) Vega de Soto on a site visit to the King County landfill with fellow UW grad Alec Baron during internship. (Bottom) Vega de Soto measures baby sea turtles before release while studying abroad in Costa Rica.
Fate, Fur, and Friendship
While many know Vega de Soto as one of the student handlers for Dubs II, that role wasn’t part of her original plan. After narrowly missing a spot on the UW cheer team her freshman year, she happened to stumble upon the application for Dubs handlers on the athletics website — and the rest, as she puts it, “was fate.”
“He has so much personality,” she says. “He’s sassy, he’s talkative, and you still have to earn his respect. He’s not going to just listen to anyone.”
Their bond is unmistakable. Dubs may be the star, but handlers are part of the performance. Vega de Soto trains with the team, runs sprint drills, learns one-armed running form to hold the leash, and even cues Dubs to ignore treats from rival teams and mascots — but accept one from a Husky.
Vega de Soto at the University Bookstore launch of the Dubs Collection with fellow Dubs handlers who helped design it (L–R: Anne-Lise Knight, Elena Vega de Soto, Jillian Holbrook, Bryn Ament; bottom: Grace Martin).
Vega de Soto and Dubs II at Husky Stadium.
Beautiful Problems
Vega de Soto’s time at the UW has been anything but one-dimensional. She’s studied abroad in Italy and Costa Rica, built deep community connections through RSOs and group work, and mentored peers through interdisciplinary environmental projects. Now, as graduation nears, she’s contemplating her next move — potentially returning to Spain, where her family is originally from, to reconnect and explore job opportunities in environmental policy or advocacy.
"I feel so lucky to have so many things to miss when I leave UW. What a beautiful problem to have.”
As one of four graduating seniors on the Dubs handler team, she knows her time leading the mascot onto the field is coming to a close. But the friendships, the purpose, and the momentum she’s built won’t disappear. “I’ll always feel like I have a place at UW,” she says. “It will always feel like home.
