We've been out on a few early season training runs, and yesterday tried out a couple of the new girls in our yard. Carol blogs about Kiche's first run with us on her blog (see the 28 October 2005 entry), and the very, very cool transformation that we could watch before our eyes. We could feel Venus there with us; we already know that Venus and Kiche have a strong bond since Venus died. I'm still tearing up as I type this.

Then we decided to give Jewel a try. We were pretty unsure about how she would take to mushing for several reasons. (When I adopted her after fostering Jewel for several months, I knew that she might not take to it. But that it was perfectly okay if she decided that she didn't want to be a sled dog; she has burrowed her way into our hearts either way.)

First, she is a basenji/doberman mix (our best guess), not exactly classic sleddog breeds. Second, some time ago Jane Hocking had a dog communicator speak with Jewel, who said that she didn’t want to be a sled dog and chose the name Jewel. Third, she has very short hair and some complete loss on her ears and chest, likely from some previous less-than-great care.

Knowing all this, I had several conversations with Jewel over the summer, letting her know that in the fall we’d put her in harness and see if she wanted to run with a team. I always tried to make it very clear that it was her choice. If she didn’t want to be a sleddog that was perfectly okay.

We put her in a fairly low-key team for this first time. (Hmm, a low-key team with Chanel in it????):

Chanel   Beans
Millie   Jewel (SCL)
Pippi   Galena

While Carol got the other dogs and harnessed them, I went into the house to dress Jewel, since it was my first time harnessing Jewel and fiddling with her new dog coat. We got a coat from Katahdin out in Two Rivers, so I had to harness Jewel and then put on the coat. (I’ll have to take a picture to post!) Then we went out to the yard where Carol was hooking everyone else up and put Jewel in swing. (We’re still doing 4–wheeler training.)

She did great!!! She did the turning around thing while we were getting ready to go, but then took right to it. Her tug line was not exactly taut the whole time but it wasn’t flopping around either. She didn’t look around too much. We stopped at the turn around and I went up to see how she was doing and to get all excited over her. Then she helped take us all the way home.

Jewel rocks! She is such a great addition to our home!