Workin hard!Duelly (black dog below) and Jackson

The weather has been cooperating nicely for training lately. We have been running our 4.2 mile trail, going slow for the most part with a couple bursts of speed to get them ready for upcoming training. Tonight, we will move up to 6 miles with bursts of speed here and there and eventually will run more of a race pace in the next few weeks to get ready for sleds in December and racing in January. Duelly has really stepped up to the plate in lead this fall. He has been so focused, where in the past, he was always concerned about every noise behind him and getting distracted. Looks like he finally worked all that out. Jackson, who is only a yearling, is doing a great job in lead this fall. He will be challenging for positions on the main team this year in the shorter races. He is going to be a really good dog as far as I can see at this point. His littermates: Gibson, Martin, Tak, Taylor, Fender and Peavey look great as well!!

Puppies, Training & Ana...The pups are now 12 weeks old. Tried to take a picture of them, but they aren't very good at standing still!!
Ana LOVES to help with the dogs. This is her stretching the line out before hookup. She is tough, doesn't care about getting dirty and LOVES the dogs, she will definetly be a musher someday!!

This is my team on the first mile of trail Saturday night. Razzle and Eddie are in wheel.

Otter (brown dog) and Cowgirl leading my team on Saturday. Otter is turning into a wonderful leader like her mom, Windows. She is always very happy and wagging her tail.

Duelly (black dog) and Boston after Sunday morning's run. Duelly is also doing very well in lead this year. He did a super job staying focused and keeping the line out with Boston in lead with him the last half of the run. Very important to pair your youngsters with good leaders so they don't learn any bad habits.

Jackson, one of the yearlings, after Sunday's run. He is going to be a super star!! He looks tired with his one eye closed, but you'd never know it on the trail.

Ana gettin' dirty playing in the mud while we were doing our dog chores. When she comes outside to help us train, she always says "It's gonna be Great"!! That is what Sponge Bob says, and Ana watches that ALL the time.

We had a nice weekend getting a few things done. Larry changed out our furnace to a 93% instead of 80% to save some $$ on propane this winter. I still have to spray out the freezers today and get them ready for our meat that I pick up this week (1,000 pounds). Aside from the warm weather and taking a few more days off than we wanted, the training is going very well. All the dogs are working hard, have excellent attitudes and are very responsive to our commands- even the yearlings, they learn quick!! We are still running our 4.2 mile trail, but will most likely be running 6 miles by next weekend. It is also supposed to get cooler again on Tuesday- yeah!! Well, I better get outside and get the rest of my stuff done so I can RELAX- yeah right!!!

Training......Nothing exciting going on here, just more dog training. We are currently running 4.2 miles, me with 11 dogs and Larry with 12. We have been rotating a bunch of different leaders each training run. We each go out with two and come back with one new one in lead so a total of 6 dogs are running lead each training run. My trusty awesome leader "Windows" will not be keeping up with the main team this year, so we have to make sure the other younger ones can get the job done. So far, they are doing a great job. The best veteran leaders for this year are: Star, Otter, Duelly, Tefa, Zoey, Cowgirl. Odessa runs lead, but does not know commands, just a trail leader and "hunts" the whole time she is up there. The best yearling leaders so far are: Jersey, Boston, Fender, Jackson, Gibson and Eddie. The weather was perfect for training this weekend, nice and cold and we got to run our favorite 4 mile trail. It goes through the most beautiful land. If I won the lotto, I would want to buy it!! The pups are now 11 weeks old and we have them chasing the 4wheeler a few times a week for some exercise. They have so much energy!! They are currently running 1.6 miles. The fastest pups are BJ, Dana, & Serra, then Franklin. The slowest group is Geoge, Silva and Liddell.

Family TimeAna's picture for Grandma & Grandpa

Larry painting

Me painting. If anyone remembers a LONG time ago, there was a drawing show for kids called "Commander Mark". Well, it is pretty pathetic, but I STILL know how to draw his cartoon characters.

Ana "helping" in the dog yard

Taylor (white dog) and Star after Sunday's training run

Otter (left) and Lilly after the training run

Memphis (blurry dog on left) and her sister Jersey after the run. Even after a training run Memphis NEVER settles down or looks remotely tired. She is quite a handful at this time to handle, but hopefully she calms down a bit after this season like her mom Zoey did at her age. She is NUTS!

It was a great weekend for training. Temps were in the high 40's in the a.m. both Sat & Sun, FINALLY!!! We've been waiting for cooler temps for awhile now. Looks like fall has started. We ran two teams Saturday and Sunday 3 miles. The dogs all looked good. I ran a yearling "Fender" in lead and Larry ran another yearling "Jackson" in lead. They were both SUPER!! Both lead with absolute confidence, next to a veteran leader, which is surprising since both would not lead at all in the spring. We are very excited about all 11 yearlings we have in our teams this year. Thanks Pete & Sharon for the breedings to Strider & Elrond! I think they are the foundation of great things to come to our kennel.

Saturday afternoon I went over to the Sutherby's in Mancelona for a musher get-to-gether. It was soooo nice sittin under the shade tree, relaxing and talking dogs. I met a lot of very nice people. Thanks Russ & Sherry for the great food and awesome brownies! I also got to see Ranger, Excel & Dot. They looked so good. I really missed them when I left, especially Ranger. He is such a great "buddy".

Labor Day Weekend!!!!Our dogfood (Redpaw)

Larry's new Cooper sled

Larry & Ana at the Garlyn Zoo

BJ, George & Serra

pile o' puppies

We had a great Labor Day Weekend. It was too warm to run the dogs, so we started the weekend by driving up to St. Ignace. We met Tom Clark at Clyde's. He bought my Alyeska sled and delivered Larry's new sled that we bought from Kim Kramer who lives near him in Wisconsin. We are so excited about Larry's sled! It is awesome! It is currently in the house so we can admire it for awhile. My new Prairie Bilt sled is being made and will be here around the end of October. We then headed to the Garlyn Zoo, located just a few miles outside of St. Ignace. If you've never been, be sure to go. It is a very nice little zoo and all of the animals have very nice habitats. Ana was most excited to see the "Puma". That is what she calls mountain lions from her cartoon "Diego". We saw all sorts of animals: Coyotees, wolves, bears, foxes, birds, goats, donkeys, caribou, bison, pumas, deer, a camel and a few more. We also picked up some dogfood for us and Merlin & Anne coy. We take turns picking up 30 bags of Redpaw each month which works out great so one person isn't always driving up to get it. On Sunday Larry made the puppy pen bigger, which they LOVE and can run all around in it like crazy. Monday we picked apples all afternoon for Larry's bow blind. By the end of Monday, we were soooo tired!! We ended the day with a well derserved nap! Hope you all had a great weekend too.

Pictures......Boston
Martin

Gibson

Liddell

Pete & Dana

Liddell

Thought I'd share some pictures Pete & Sharon took of our dogs when they stayed with us a few weeks ago. 17 of our dogs are out of breedings we did with their kennel.