October Training & Photos!

    Training is underway, after weeks of iffy weather. Juggling work and training, I usually run weekends and twice during the week. In September, because of the high temperatures, I had ended up running only weekends but also got in some evening nights - so I'd run 3 short runs in a weekend - but we are still "behind" compared to last year. I'm not worried, though, because last year we ran through the summer so the dogs kept in shape. This year we're starting after several months off - every year is different when you're running sled dogs!
    We've bumped up to 14 miles now, and everyone is looking good. The yearlings are a blast to work with - they are a talented bunch and I look forward to seeing them mature over the season.

   I have to confess I've neglected this blog a bit because over September/early October I did some real soul searching about my mushing future. Originally it appeared that to continue pursuing sled dogs I needed to take a break and go back to school - there's just not enough hours in the day to work full-time, run dogs and study. However, God opened some doors and I get to keep the dogs! School may take a long time, but I'll be happier and even if I don't do much racing, I can bide my time to pursue the Iditarod in the long run. More to come on this...but for now, back to training!

   With the shift in priorities, I did make the tough decision to downsize. It's especially hard to see some of the puppies born here move on to new places, but I enjoy hearing about their new adventures!

    Bella is one of those dogs you wonder about. She pulls hard and is generally well behaved, but not a great leader and, I'm sorry to say it, not the brightest dog of the team. Since the best way to train a leader is to put them in lead, I decided to let her and Achilles lead together so they could learn together. About a quarter mile into the run (which began in semi-darkness), I saw moose eyes to the left. They moved ahead of us and onto the road where the cow and calf decided to stop. Grr! They would not budge and I stopped a safe distance away, but the cow was still a bit menacing (at least, I thought so - I had all kinds of nightmarish visions in my head, borne of last year's moose encounters). But how to turn around a 19 dog team that was fresh and banging their harnesses? Without much trust in my command, I said, "Come Haw!"

   And Bella took the command and dragged Achilles and the team back towards the truck!

   Now, I've discovered that the moose generally move out of the way if you give them space, so about a tenth of a mile away, I stopped and turned back again. The moose were still in the trail, so I had to stop again at the same spot. Unfortunately, Bella had the bright idea that we wanted to turn around again. Ten minutes and many tangles later, we got moving forward again (I ended up having to move Bella out of lead to get moving forward because she's a big dog and did NOT want to go towards the moose - who were well away from the trail now).

    Another night run, we came down to the end of the trail (where we turn around) and there's a campground. The dogs got stoked because with the lights and smells they thought it was a checkpoint. Cool thing is that on a later run we went through the campground and over a one-lane wooden bridge. What great training for the dogs!

   This week I ran on Wednesday night and Thursday morning - spending the sunset and sunrise in the mountains. It's hard to catch in a picture, but I tried. Seeing the beautiful colors reminds me that none of this came about by chance - there is a Creator; it couldn't have happened by chance...