Second Chance League

A few observations:
Furlon is a study in contradictions. He's a happy, high energy dog that's always happy to see me, but his personal space is large and he gets uncomfortable when you penetrate it. He will jump on his house to greet you, then run off when approached. Then he jumps back up for a few seconds until he can't stand it anymore and off he goes again. He has no problem jumping up on me, but only from my back, never from my front.

Harnessing was a struggle the first time, because he simply went limp when being handled and then tried to escape. I've always harnessed by straddling a dog and working from behind, but I've since found that he prefers being harnessed on his house from the front. He knew very well what the harnesses were for the first time I brought them out, and clearly wanted to be included in the team. He'd probably be happiest if there was some magical way to get harnessed, off the chain and onto the gangline without any human intervention. As it is now, when you come up to him with his harness he jumps onto his house and does his best to stand still long enough to get suited up. Funny thing - once he's hooked up in the team he pretty much turns into a normal, well behaved dog with none of his previous shyness.

Cheyenne eats up any and all the attention you can give her, but she also has a jealous streak with other dogs. When she first arrived she was very aggressive towards the dogs around her, almost immediately escalating to bared teeth. In years past I've had a couple of alpha females that did this - but this seemed different because it happened so often. So I watched her interact with the other dogs and they invariably were all caught off-guard by her aggressions, even though I saw it coming. The amateur dog psychologist in me thinks this has to do with her being debarked. She can't make any sounds at all, not even the compensatory ones you sometimes hear in a dog that has been debarked. That means no warning growls or barks to signal her intentions to the other dogs. She can't up the ante, because she can't vocalize. If the other dog isn't paying very close attention to her body language, she won't get their attention. I suspect she's simply dropped the normal behaviors of signaling because they were ineffectual, and instead is using the only thing she has left. While I have no doubt she was a dominant female beforehand, the debarking has probably forced her into relying on these higher stakes displays.

One of the things I do now is acknowledge her by name when she tries to bark at me, even if I'm a distance away. The first few times I responded to her trying to bark, she seemed surprised that I even noticed. Now she tries to bark, I call her name, and it gets to be a game. [soundless bark at me] Hi Cheyenne [excited soundless bark] Whatcha doing Cheyenne? [more excited soundless barks] and so on. She seems genuinely thrilled that she can get me to focus on her that way.

This year's snow has been a mixed blessing around here. Enough to fill in the holes and make a trail through the tussocks, but it also insulated everything and slowed down our freezeup. A few hundred feet out of the dogyard the trail goes out onto a lake and, up until about 2 weeks ago, I still had a foot of overflow and open water cutting off access to the trails. Things have been pretty solid for the last 10 days, so we're training on the 4 wheeler now. While the trails are certainly doable on a sled, I still prefer to run the dogs with the bike in the early part of the season. The control you have on a bike is incredible, allowing you to exactly determine the pace and to keep the team moving steadily if you miscalculated on the distance/dog power equation.

My team is getting older, with half my dogs now 10+yo. We've been keeping the speed pretty consistent at 13-14 mph, as this seems to be what most of the dogs (especially the older leaders) are comfortable with - a fast trot or an easy lope. Running around the lake early in the season is nice because each lap is about 7/10ths of a mile, so it's easy to increment up just by adding another lap. Another plus - if there are any surprises you're never far from home. Of course, both the dogs and I get bored pretty quickly going in circles.

Tonight, on the far side of the lake, the dogs got a gee instead of a haw and off we went out onto the main trail. While everyone but Furlon and Cheyenne knew where we were going, they were both just as excited as the rest of the team by the change in the routine. Within about 1/3rd mile we hit the Ballaine Road crossing and had to wait for a couple of minutes until the traffic cleared. Always good for a little adrenaline rush. These are the times you really appreciate having the dogs solidly attached to a 500lb 4 wheeler! Two teams = crossing the road 4X, and the dogs hit it flawlessly each time. Cheyenne and Furlon never missed a beat, and ran in the finest "hook 'em up and forget 'em" tradition (IOW - they were great team dogs). They've both been running in separate teams of 7, Cheyenne in single and Furlon in double. So far they've both been very well behaved (no chewing, dipping, etc.), with tight tugs and great attitudes.

Let's start with some pictures from last month. These first two are of Angie and Teva, who were recently adopted by the same family.

Angie and Teva:



Cheyenne:
This is Cheyenne, giving me a silent 'woo' (Cheyenne is debarked).



Furlon:
Here's Furlon, who never stops long enough for a decent shot. You can just catch him in the lower corner of the second pic. That's Angie in the background.

Furlon and Cheyenne