Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Training, Training and more Training


Training, Training and More Training!

 
The dogs at Deer Camp for Labor Day Weekend


Ana & Odessa

 
Larry and team getting ready to run from the kennel


Poppy, George, Boston, Rosie & Gibson at Shaws
 


The dogs staked out at Shaws
 


The dogs at Shaws
 


The dogs after a run at the kennel. Zeus & Cello in lead



Beautiful Juneau at Shaws (Elrond/Odessa)


Daisy, a daughter of George/Odessa


Pansy, another daughter of George/Odessa


Tefa, enjoying her retirement

 
Ana and her furry brother, Jake
 

Me and the team at Deer camp. George & Fiddle in lead

 
The nice buck I am hopefully gonna see tomorrow!
 
 
Things are good, but busy as usual at Coyote Run Kennel. If we are not shuttling Ana around to school and her activities we are training dogs. That is all we do this time of year. We will take a couple of days off to deer hunt this weekend but then its back to training. We are looking forward to our races this season and hope that this cold snowy fall means a colder snowier winter. We hope you all have a great Thanksgiving next week! Check our website soon for our 2013 race schedule. Also, if you are in need of any Manmat products contact us!
 
 
 


Monday, August 13, 2012

Summer Highlights




Summer Highlights

Ana finishing her 1st race, the 1 mile fun run at Alpenfest


Larry & Ana after their races. Larry got 3rd in his age group in the 10K


Larry at his 1st race of the year, the Mellon 5K


On our way to Taylor's wedding


All dressed up for Taylor's wedding on Mackinaw Island. We had so much fun!!


At the Gavin Degraw concert in Interlochen


Ana with Mia


Our dog yard project. Over 40 trees were cut to make more room.


Our friend Rob standing on a HUGE root ball


After a ton of work, this is what it looks like. Much nicer not having all the trees around!


Now we can hook up our team right in the middle of the dog yard instead of taking each dog 70+ yards each time. We also have a new outgoing trail so we don't have to go down our driveway anymore.


The view of the other side of the dog yard. Also built 4 new pens. We still have to fence the entire yard, but we are working on it.


This is a picture of our old dog yard so you can compare. It was heavily wooded, so it was hard to have any type of organization with all the trees in the way. It is nice having all the room now!


We have had quite a summer this year!! Been super busy, so always forget to update the blog. I figured I better do it before training starts!! Our dog yard project was the huge project of the year. We started in late April. Our friends Rob & Joey came to help and cut all the trees and Joey did all the dozer work. We could not have done it without them!! It is soooo much nicer now!! Dog training starts in one week, I cannot wait to hook up the dogs for the first time in the middle of the dog yard. This will be so much easier for us! We still have to fence it, which we are currently in the process of.

Some fun highlights: my super fun all girls weekend with friends from high school, the Gavin Degraw concert, the 4th of July (fireworks with friends), my bestest friend for over 28 years coming to Michigan for 2 weeks, Alpenfest, our friend Taylor's Mackinaw Island wedding, and Farm Fest. We have had so much fun this summer. We have 2 more events, Camping and Larry's half marathon, then dog training starts! I cannot wait!! The weather is cooler and the dogs are restless and full of energy.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Midnight Run & Winter Fun!


Me with the A team on a training run. George & Roxy are in lead.


Larry with the B team, Pansy & Zoey in lead


Larry's team: Odessa, Zoey, Daisy, Dee Dee, Susie, Rosie, Pansy & Zeus


My team: Roxy, George, Poppy, Franklin, Curlin, Fender, Manny & Smarty


Ana even ran her team: Tefa & Liddell. She is a natural on the sled and does the entire run by herself now. I get a kick out of listening to her give all the commands.


Poppy, a yearling that will be running with the main team. He is George's son and will be "rookie of the year" like his dad was.

Roxy, a 2 year old female that will be leading my team. She is SUPER in lead!!

It seems like we have been training FOREVER since Tahquemenon due to the Beargrease getting canceled. I can't believe the Midnight Run is finally here!! Our winter here has been terrible. It has been an endless cycle of disapointment. We would finally get snow, get a couple of runs in, then EVERY Monday it would RAIN!! This is not good because it turns our trails and dog yard into a skating rink, making it unsafe to take teams out. Sooooo....we have been forced to truck our teams to a safer trail for 4 weeks now. We have never in 12 years in the sport had to truck our dogs this much. Not only is it much harder, but it takes all day to get our runs in and adds much more work! To top it off, after our last warm up, even our safe trail was in terrible condition, so we were forced to take the snowmobile out and make a new trail through the woods where there was still good snow and wasn't heavily traveled by snowmobiles. The trail isn't very long, it takes 7 laps to get an 11 mile run in. So, you can imagine my extreme boredom!! It is all we can do, so it is better than nothing. I am more than excited to run a new trail this weekend and NOT have to do a bunch of laps! The dogs will probably be relieved if we never have to see our little trail ever again!! The Midnight Run is a 90 mile race that starts in Marquette, runs to Chatham for a 5 hour layover, then we finish in Munising. Due to lack of snow, we are only doing a "ceremonial" start for the sponsors & fans in Marquette Friday night. Then we will load our dogs, head to Chatham for the restart. We will leave the chute between 10-11 pm Friday night for a 50 mile run back to Chatham, where we will have our 5 hour layover. Then in the morning we will run 35-40 miles to the finish in Munising. We leave for the race tomorrow morning. To follow our race go to our website, click on our kennel name and go to races: www.sleddogstuff.net 

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Race Season Has Begun!!!!

Well, it's been over 7 months since I updated this blog. One word to describe how we've been.....BUSY!!! We survived a painfully snowless December and FINALLY got a nice amount of snow last weekend. We only have a handful of runs of the sled, but it's better than nothing! Many areas in the mid-west STILL don't have snow and we are going to be very disapointed if some of our races get canceled. After 4 months of training/conditioning the dogs our first race, The Tahquamenon Country Sled Dog Race is finally here this weekend!!! Larry and I are both entered in the 8 dog pro, 42 mile race. Check race updates at: www.tcsdr.org/ It starts Saturday morning. We are excited to get on the trail and see alot of our musher friends! I'll update when we return! A HUGE THANK YOU to our sponsors for helping us get to the starting line: Manmat, Northwood Land Company and the Powerhouse Gym!!!!! We could not do it without you!!!