Monday, November 26, 2007

Ana playing on my new sled. She was saying "C'mon girls, straight ahead, straight ahead!" She had her stuffed dogs infront of the sled.

Larry running the team on a fun 8 miler

Star (black dog) and Cowgirl in lead

Another team out for a run with Larry

Otter & Odessa in lead
Our runs are still going well. We still have a total of 21 dogs in training for our two teams. We'd love to sell a couple of dogs, but it seems that every time we put one on the 4-sale list, they come off a few days later because everyone is STILL hanging in there. Otter and Star are really shining in lead. Otter is SUPER on commands and is only 3 years old, so I will have many more seasons with her leading my team. Larry broke the 8 mile record again last weekend, running it in 32 minutes with the ATV. The dogs were flyin'!! That was the team above with Cowgirl and Star leading. We are still running our 14.5 mile trail and the dogs are finishing strong. We will move them up to the 17.5 mile trail on Friday. I wish we'd get atleast a bit more snow to cushion the dog's feet some. The trails are getting slick and are a bit icy. We had some small cuts on some feet after last night's run. Looks like it is time to bootie some feet, yuck, booties can start getting expensive when we don't get snow soon enough. The trails get rock hard and that is not good on their feet. Hopefully we'll also be on sleds in the next week or so if we get the snow we are supposed to get. I always get worried about the transition to the sled though because our trip out of the driveway and down a plowed road before our 2nd turn can get a bit hairy. I've lost teams on that 2nd turn more times than I want to admit. My dad is usually following me on the snowmachine, thankfully, so we can catch the team as quick as possible. That turn to Larry is nothing. He goes out of the driveway with a 12 dog team like a piece of cake. It is so easy for him.

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