DEER CAMP, and you guessed it, MORE TRAINING!!!!!!Larry teaching Ana to play chess at Deer Camp

This is "Deer Camp". If that carpet looks familiar, it was Holiday Inn's carpet in the 80's.

Larry with Eddie (left) and Manny, one of our yearlings that just ran lead for the first time. He did surprisingly well!

Larry's team coming into the driveway

Ana playing with her doll house with "Jake"

Ana showing off her new headlamp! She was so excited to go outside after dark to test it out.

Larry coming home with another team. Zoey (left lead), our super spectacular leader from Doug Swingley and Jackson (right lead). Jackson is a 3 year old main team dog out of Odessa (Swingley) and Elrond (Curtice). Jackson started leading like a super star this year, which we are very excited about!

Well, time continues to fly by. Life and training 2 teams keeps us more than busy. We took 2 whole days off from training to go deer hunting. We stayed the weekend at Deer Camp and had a wonderful, relaxing time. Nobody shot any deer, but it sure was nice getting away for a couple of days. Ana would like to move to Deer Camp permanently. There is no electricity and the wood heat keeps us toasty warm. I could stay out there forever!

Training is going very well. We are still way ahead of last year's mileage. The teams are both looking very strong. We are getting a little sick of the long runs with the four wheeler though. I am looking forward to a HUGE dumping of snow so we can get on sleds. Last year, we were on sleds by Nov. 21st. Not this year. We are supposed to get some snow on Friday. Unfortunatley, it won't be enough for sleds yet. So, we will be doing our 30 miler on the four wheeler. NOT really looking forward to that!

Happy Thanksgiving to all from the Fortier's!!!!

Shaws Etc......Larry and I giving our presentation on our training program.

(photo courtesy of Shannon Miller)

Our crazy team during hookup time at Shaw's training weekend a couple of weeks ago (photo courtesy of Shannon Miller)

Sharon, Lyle and I doing what we like to do best...."talkin dogs!"
(photo courtesy of Shannon Miller)

Dr. Tim checking out Liddell during the rabies clinic
(photo courtesy of Shannon Miller)

This year's litter, now 3.5 months old. They are Billy/Fender. Pictured is Susie (left), Roxy, and Libby.

Dee Dee, another pup from this year's litter

Ana & our Border Collie, Jake E Jake, playing soccer

Me & Jake

Larry & Roxy

Ana and the puppies on our "puppy walk" today

Things are busy as usual here. Notice my last entry was a month ago!! Partly because my camera has been in the shop for that long. I FINALLY have it back and am so excited to take pictures again!! We went to Shaw's annual training session a couple of weekends ago and had a blast, as usual! It is so nice seeing old friends and actually getting to relax and hang out in between training runs. We never get a chance to do that during the races. It is never long enough though, next year we will try and come a day earlier. Our young dogs got a TON of passing practice both days, which is awesome training for our upcoming races. Larry and I also talked about our training program for us as well as the dogs. I was a little nervous, but after I was up there talking about something I LOVE, it wasn't bad at all. Other than dog training, we are just staying busy with Ana, her school, work and getting ready for winter. I can't believe it is already November! We are a bit ahead of our usual training, so that is always a plus. We are hoping that our little "tweaks" will help further our kennel this season. Well, that is all for now. Time to get a team ready to run.