North Pole Day 2
Awoke to an inch of new snow on the ground. Loaded up all the dogs except for Jazz. He was limping last night (I knew something was wrong with him on the run yesterday!) and got to sleep in the house. He was still favoring it quite a bit this morning so he stayed at home.

I started off the day with my 4 dog team. Galena didn't pull much in lead yesterday so I moved her back and moved Pippi up to front.

Chanel (wheezer dog) Pippi (shelter adoptee)
Galena Chert

The trail was really slow. This team worked better with Galena in wheel. We held onto our place from the previous day.

Paul Gregory ran my 4 bitty girls again
Loon Beans (she is 10!!)
Millie Misty (SCL)

I was back in time to help both Paul and Don at the line. Don went out right after Paul with:

Topaz Raisin
Izzi Casper (both shelter adoptees)

Paul had put on different runners and OH what a wrong choice. He said it was very slow. Don caught up to him and passed him coming into the finish shoot. All the dogs looked great.

I skijored with Robin and Daikon. I too, should have waxed my skis. It was quite slow. But the boys did good. I was the weak link once again.

In the 6 dog class after dropping Jazz, I was down to 4 dogs. I decided to experiment and put Blackberry in lead.

Borax Blackberry (SCL)
Zorba Crowe

This was one of the slowest runs of my career. We were crawling along. The sled felt like sandpaper on the snow. But I just wanted the dogs to have a good run and they did. BB did great in lead. Not as driven as when she is in the team, but she did very good and passed everything without a hitch. She didn't cower coming over the finish line with lots of people. I was very proud of her.

Thanks to Paul for running the little girls. They make my heart sing, they all love to run!
Thanks to Don who left just a bit ago to teach a class in Juneau. Always my buddy and pal (well, OK and much more!)

North Pole Races
Don and I loaded up ALL the running dogs this morning (19 of them) and headed to North Pole for the 1st weekend of NP races. The day was cooler than has been all week so that was good for my dogs.

I ran a 4 dog team of:
Chanel (wheezer dog) Galena
Chert Pippi (shelter adoptee)
We had a lot of fun. This is Chanel's favorite race. Very short and usually cool enough. They all did a great job and had fun passing another one of my teams.

Paul Gregory was talked into running my "mini" girls. He went out one place ahead of me.
Loon Beans
Millie Misty (SCL)
He got off the line nicely with Faith, his wife's help and myself staying with Misty until they said GO. I caught up to him with about 3/4 mile to go and had a great pass. Very fun to see all my girls running happily.

Don took out a 4 dog team (he left #10, Paul was 16th and I was 17th in the draw order).
Topaz Raisin
Casper (shelter adoptee) Izzi (his dog, also a shelter adoptee)
He used the Mackler sled and had a lot of fun carving the corners.

Fun was had by all!!

I skijored with Robin and Daikon. I'm certainly the weak link...felt very out of shape. These 2 boys were my main skijor dogs for many years. Robin is almost 9 and Daikon just turned 8 on Valentine's Day. They did great.

Then we hooked up 5 dogs for me to run in the 6 dog class:

Borax Jazz
Blackberry (SCL)
Zorba Crowe

Borax and Jazz were both very "off." Jazz looked like he had a slight limp at the end. I've been lucky through the years with having very few injuries in my dogs. Both of these boys are getting older and Borax is actually a bit overweight. (He will be 9 soon and Jazz is turning 8).
Blackberry was actually almost running up their butts as she was driving the team from swing position. Once she stepped over the neckline for their tugs had gone so slack and I wasn't quick enough on the brake so had to stop so she could get untangled. She did freak out one time when we met 4 snowmachiners head on in a turn right on the trail. They all got off the trail but not before the dogs were surprised and BB made a huge dive off the trail and went totally off her line for about 15 seconds. She kicked back in though and I pretty much had a 3 dog team for most of the run. I will have to see how Jazz is looking in the morning. I may be running a 4 dog team in the 6 dog class tomorrow!

I was really proud of all my dogs and my SCL dogs make my heart sing.
Blackberry has been at Bonnie Borba's all week and trained twice with her team. Bonnie didn't want to race her quite yet, so I took her back for the weekend. Still not sure if I can part with her. I brought her home tonight and she is sleeping at my feet. She makes a great indoor dog, is quiet and totally housebroken now.

Tomorrow is the final day of racing for this weekend.
I always have to thank Don Kiely for being in my life, doing many handler duties, plus running a 4 dog team too!!! He's great.
And I was glad that Paul agreed to run my girls. All the dogs are happy and content tonight.

Skijoring
Blackberry (SCL) is at a friend's sprint kennel to see if she would like to be in a young team of sprint dogs and maybe be adopted. I miss her terribly already. There is a big hole in the house at night without her here. But I am giving her the chance to see if she wants to race with dogs her own age and learn to trust someone other than me.
Today I picked up a dog from the shelter (Scooter) and came home to load my dogs into my truck and Don brought his dogs Izzi and Mardy to head to Creamer's to skijor.
Don took out Raisin, Izzi and Mardy for 2.7 miles. I hooked up Chanel and Scooter. He is a 1 year old husky/hound mix. Very handsome with very blue eyes. Iris and I put him in a team on Friday and he was pretty good considering he had always been a pet dog. Today we did 1.4 miles and he did admirably. Not great, but pretty good. He wasn't afraid of the skis. He didn't look back....he just didn't pull consistently, but I think he will "get it" in time as he has a fair amount of drive and really pulls hard when he is working. He is a young boy with lots of potential.
Then I hooked up a 4 dog team of "mini" dogs to skijor with:

Loon Misty (SCL)
Millie Ivy (adoptee from the shelter 3 years ago)

Ivy really hates being a sled dog. She was doing pretty good but running on the far right and crowding Millie so I tried to switch Millie over, ended up taking off Ivy's neckline and finally just letting Ivy loose. She didn't want to cooperate at all so she got to run along with the team for 2.7 miles. Misty was distracted by Ivy running loose. I'm glad that I had Loon, as she is such a driven dog that has a great work ethic. Misty is still young and thought that having Ivy running loose was great fun. Finally Ivy ran out in front and stayed there the rest of the way and the team all settled down to a nice run. Misty was great when I was stopped to try to get Millie on the left...stayed lined out, but both her and Loon really wanted to go and Misty doesn't know "wait" yet so that is a command I need to teach her!
All in all it was a fun run.
Don had taken out Galena and Chert for 2.7 miles and came in soon after us.

Thanks to Don for all his help and being part of my life.

Gold Run Day 2.
It was a bit cooler day so my dogs were happier!! I was the 6th skijorer out today as we went out in the fastest to the slowest order. Don was able to help me at the line today (as he managed on Day 2 to defend is red lantern position) so Blackberry (SCL) wasn't quite as freaked out.
Borax and she did GREAT. Much better than yesterday. I wore a different pair of skis and the wax was much better. Borax didn't dip until about 1.5 miles to go. Blackberry was hard on the line for most of the time. The only time she balked a bit was when a white rabbit ran across the trail in front of us (her ears perked up and she glanced into the woods where it had headed) and then when a moose jumped across the trail about 20 feet in front of us. This freaked BB out a bit and she went on the neckline for about 5 seconds. Borax has seen enough moose that he didnt' care. I went into a full tuck as close to the ground that I could get until we got passed the point that the moose crossed. I was just worried that there might be another one right behind it and I didn't want to hit it broadside!! BB kicked back in quickly and really worked hard. I was once again the limiting factor. I haven't been getting much exercise since I hurt my shoulder so I was gasping up the hill. I moved up a place overall today and ended up in 5th place out of 16 teams. I was very proud of my team.
BB is out on loan this week with another sprint musher to see if the person wants to adopt her. Wow...can I really let her go? She has a huge spot in my heart but I know that she is very young and in another year or two would probably be very frustrated with my older slower dogs....

Sara ran Pippi and Casper again, my 2 dogs adopted from the shelter. They did better, but Pippi has been off. She was limping last night but looked fine this morning so she got to go. Sara said they did better than yesterday but not as good as she has seen them run in the past. Maybe it was all the hub bub of a bigger race, or that Pippi is harboring some subtle injury. I will keep a close eye on her.
Gail Davidson did the 2 day race with my dog's Loon and Beans.
Don skijored with Topaz and Daikon and had a great time.

My 4 dog team held onto 2nd place overall. They had a great run.

Thanks to all that helped me today! Lots of fun with lots of dogs.

Shelter dogs and Gold Run.
On Thursday Don and I headed to the shelter. I wanted to try skijoring with some shelter dogs. I used Chanel as my one steady leader and put 3 different shelter dogs with her one at a time. That was all fun.
After that, Don took out a team of Mardy, Izzi (both his shelter dogs!!) and Raisin.
I hooked up:
Mille Misty (SCL)
Ivy (adopted from shelter 2 years ago).

I rarely skijor or mush with Ivy. She just doesn't like it. She is a total indoor pet dog that I take everywhere in the car with me. Totally trustworthy anywhere off leash. But today I wanted to get her some exercise. She actually didn't do all that bad !!

Misty was the star today though. We did 2.7 miles. Misty was hard on the line the whole time. Part way through, Ivy started to neckline a litle bit, but once we turned back towards the truck (even though we were still a mile away!) she really kicked in. Millie kept wanting to take short cuts, but Misty actually kept her on the trail and going the correct direction! YEAH.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
So, here it is Saturday now and the 1st day of the Gold Run is over.
I skijored and did the 4 dog class. I couldn't decide who to skijor with!!! Ended up with Blackberry and Borax. I had never paired them up before, so I thought...what the heck! HA! Why don't I experiment in the prelims. instead of a championship race??
Blackberry totally flipped out at the start. Someone was trying to paint her head (the dogs get painted the first day so that you can't switch to a different dog on day 2). She nearly backed out of her harness as people were grabbing for her. Poor girl. She needs more socialization. Don and I went out too close together for him to be able to help me, but on Sunday he will have time to get me to the line.
The race marshall finally told everybody to "back off!" and he took her by the very back of her harness. She was still very scared, but not freaking.....he let her go at the "GO" by the timers. She did pretty well today. Got a little scared at the photographer at the bottom of the hill, but we had 2 nice passes and she charged up the hill. Borax was a bit of the limiting factor today (OK, behind me!!! I was gasping) as he dipped an awful lot. It was quite warm. Near 30 and he hates the heat. But we had a respectable time and I was proud of my SCL dog and Borax.
Don also ran a skijor team as did Sara Elzey and Gail Davidson. FUN!
Ater I ran the 4 dog class I came home and all the dogs are fed and happy.
More updates tomorrow after the 2nd day of racing.
Thanks to Don, Gail, and Sara today!
Especially Don who is still doing a lot of the heavy lifting because of my shoulder. What a sweetie!

# posted by Carol @ 3:37 PM

Chena Lakes training.
I met Sara Elzey at Chena Lakes this afternoon. It was terribly warm which seemed nice for me, but my dogs hate the heat and I knew our runs would be slow and I would be stopping some.
Sara had skijored with her 3 dogs then came back and helped me get my dogs harnessed and ready to go. She skijored 5.5 miles with Pippi and Casper. She will probably run those 2 in the Gold Run. They are 2 shelter dogs that I adopted several years ago and they are both good leaders and good skijor dogs.
I took out the following team for 6.7 miles:

Borax Jazz
Robin Blackberry (SCL)
Crowe Zorba

Borax dipped a lot (he finally pooped right when we got back at the truck!)...I knew something was going on with my leaders as they were slacking quite a bit and Blackberry was setting the pace from swing position. I had to drag my heels a bit so that Robin and her wouldn't over run the 2 big boys up front. Jazz is very heat senstive so my leaders weren't running their best today. But we had a good run. Everyone else did great.

Sara and I then lined out her 4 dog team and I sent her out first for 5.5 miles.

Loon Beans
Millie Misty (SCL)

This was Sara's first time alone on a sled (she had double sledded with me last year and I didn't manage to dump her off then so figured she was ready to go on her own). After a few pointers, off they went. I forgot to talk passing with her though and I knew that I would catch her.
I set up my 6 dog team:

Raisin Chanel
Galena Daikon
Topaz Chert

A nice team of all relatives except for Chanel. (Galena, Topaz and Chert are siblings....Daikon and Raisin are Galena's pups....the pups turned 8 years old on Feb. 14th).

We caught Sara at the 4.5 turn. The dogs were testing her and didn't go on by but went into the turn. By the time that I got there, she had them turned around. I hooked down and helped them get back out on the main trail and off they went. I passed right after the 5.5 mile turn. I was "barking" orders from the back "use your mat to slow down!" "try and move the sled over" "STOP the team".....she did a great job and we went past. After a half mile I stopped and let her pass me. Her sled was sliding sideways and Chert had to jump out of the way but they got past just fine. I then passed her again and led the team home. It is fun to turn and watch my dogs running! How often do you really get to watch your dogs from another viewpoint? All 4 of those pups had HUGE grins on their faces. Misty was driven and charging along and really wanted to catch her "mother." Sara was amazed how they poured on the speed after I passed and she slowed them down a little with the mat.

It was a fun day and all the dogs did great.
Thanks to Sara for helping me train all the dogs today!

Misty runs lead. Don and I loaded up 19 dogs and headed to the track again.
I sent him out first with a 4 dog team on the Mackler sled. He has always used the Extrapol, which is a very stable sled. The Mackler is a smaller wooden sled with "hinges" at the front of the runners. Makes carving a turn very fun and immediate. He had a blast on it! He took out the family of Galena and Topaz (brother and sister) and Raisin and Daikon (siblings and Galena's offspring). They did 4.5 miles.

After he went out I lined out the following team:

Borax Jazz
Robin Blackberry (SCL)
Zorba Crowe

This is a great 6 dog team. I should have gone 7.7 with them today, but we did 5.9. They weren't tired at all coming up the hill. Blackberry was great. Always tight on the line.

Don then took out a 5 dog team for 5.9 miles.

Loon Pippi (shelter adoptee from several years ago)
Beans (soon to turn 10 years old!)
Izzi (Don's dog) Casper (shelter adoptee from 2 years ago)

He was back on the Extrapol and had an uneventful run. The interesting thing was that the temperature rose 10 degrees between the 2 runs.

I took out a 4 dog team for 4.5 miles.

Chanel Misty (SCL)
Chert Millie

It was almost too warm for Chanel. Her breathing (she has laryngeal paralysis -a hereditary problem) gets worse as the temp. increases. But she did great being the mentor to Misty's first time in lead in a team.
Misty did GREAT. She is very focused. Looked like she was doing it her whole life. We didn't have to pass anyone or have any major distractions, but I stopped a couple of times for Chanel and Misty was just lunging in her harness to GO!

She did great at line out, other than she kept wanting to be on the right side (she is a hard left running dog)...so I finally just let her be on the right and she stayed lined out and ready to go. She crowded Chanel a bit and at the turn Chanel ducked under her to take the 4.5 mile trail (Misty doesn't understand commands yet) so then everyone was lined out nicely for the run home. We didn't set any speed records, but it made my heart sing to see Misty up there in front with all the confidence of a good lead dog.

Thanks to Don for once again, doing all the heavy work today loading the dogs and the sleds. My shoulder is slowly getting better. Yeah!
We all had a great day. It was beautiful with a nice temperature. Dogs are happy. Don and I drove home with smiles on our faces.

The dogs had not been run since Sunday. I had hurt my shoulder and Don was out of town. But today we loaded up 19 dogs to get them on the trail.
Don took out Misty and he writes the following:

I had a couple of sedentary days in Anchorage this week, so I was elated when we could run dogs today. It was a long day. We started by loading up the truck and scooting off to the Shelter to meet Iris and run four shelter dogs. (All of them did great, although they were all pretty big boys and girls. Getting them in and out of dog boxes was a tiring challenge! As the lone guy and Carol with her hurt shoulder I got most of the honor of heavy lifting.)

Then Carol and I headed to the hall to run 19 of our own dogs. I started with a 5-dog team 5.9 miles, then took out this team:

Galena Loon
Beans Misty (SCL)
Daikon Millie

The run began with a bang as I caught a rut at the starting line. Fortunately I think that confused the dogs so they stood still while I righted the sled, including picking the whole thing up to right the drag that had folded back under the sled. Then we were off! The trail was a little slow from the dusting of new snow, but this team did great. The "interesting" part of this run was coming up on a skijorer at the beaver dam just past the 4.5 turn who was going the wrong direction. He was in a bit of a tangle so was stopped, and started reeling in his dogs. But they were still splayed across the trail, so we slowed to a crawl and inched past them. As I was going past the dogs, one of them leapt up and sunk his teeth into my arm, a very painful experience. At the time I didn't think he had penetrated my several layers of clothing, but I knew that I'd have a pretty nice bruise. Regretfully, I swore at the dog but quickly recovered. Fortunately the dog did the right thing and let go right away, and I went another five feet or so out of range. Then the skijorer and I had a pleasant enough, short conversation about trail direction and controlling dogs. He was new to the trails, and was quite sorry about the whole thing.

Later at home I found the puncture marks in my parka and the two fang marks in my forearm. I hope my tetanus shot is current! (Actually, the skijorer very kindly came up to the truck and offered me his name and phone number, which I didn't take, and said that the dogs were current on rabies. Kudos to him for doing the right thing.)

Then we were off again. It was a great, fun run. Misty did the best ever. At one point she stepped over the gang line; I touched the drag lightly and she sorted it all out just fine without us having to stop. Later looked over at Beans and I thought she was going to try to play, but Beans ignored her and Misty quickly returned to work. (DON)

(CAROL)
I ran a 4 dog team to start for 5.9 miles. I didn't want to stress my shoulder so we took it nice and easy.
The 2nd team had my SCL dog in it. This was the line up

Jazz Blackberry (SCL)
Robin Crowe

I had run BB one other time at the hall in lead and she freaked out at the Shakespeare set, so I have recently been running her in swing. But today decided to put her in lead and see what happened. I gave Don plenty of time to get out ahead of me, hoping that I wouldn't have to pass today, and he finished well ahead of me.
This team was great. BB did a fabulous job in lead. She is a very driven and focused dog. The trail was soft and slow, but coming back up the hill I swear she was pulling all the other 3 dogs! She is a fast little girl, very focused and turning out to be a good leader. She went by the Shakespeare set this time without even looking at it.

I sooo thank Don for coming along to help run shelter dogs and all of our dogs. I didn't do any of the lifting today which is kind of strange for me to let someone else do all the physical work...but I didn't want to stress my shoulder. Happy that he is willing.

ADMA Preliminary #5. It was postponed from last Sunday but the weather cooperated and the race was on. I couldn't decide if I would put Blackberry in my skijor team or give her to Sara Elzey to run. I decided to give her to Sara along with Pippi and Casper...so she had an all shelter team. This is a great, speedy team. She went out first and I figured that she would have a good clean run....well.....She said they were all doing really well and then they hit the 5.9 mile turn and the turn around marshall (TAM) (we won't name names!!) was just putting up the fence and had the snowmachine sitting in the MIDDLE of the trail into the turn...the dogs started to go around it but got spooked as the TAM came running at them and they competely turned around and got into a huge tangle. Sara lost an easy minute there. I was surprised to catch her after the turn....all 6 of these dogs were pretty evenly matched. I had Robin, Galena and Chert. Chert got nervous, so Sara slowed down and we tried to stay out in front of the dogs (they WERE chasing their mother!!).
Blackberry did great in between the big mess up. Sara was 4th over all, but could have been 1st or 2nd. I won with my 3 dogs and I was very proud of them. All approaching 9 years old this spring.
Don ran a team consisting of Topaz, Raisin and Izzi. He had a lot of fun, despite losing one of the lens of his glasses that popped out along the trail. He did slow down and pick up my orange glove that fell out of my pocket on Saturday (I tried to pick it up but just missed it).
Lisa Baraff ran Loon with her shelter dog Hope. They didn't have a very good run, but looked upon it as fun.
Thanks to all that helped today. Mike Malvick got both Don and I to the line in skijoring.
I give much thanks to Don for being a great handler, great friend and great.....well...just great.
I'm certainly happy to have him around now since I crashed in the 4 dog class and sorely wrenched my shoulder. Yikes!

Friday Feb. 4th
Don and I waited out the cold before we loaded 12 dogs in the truck and headed to the hall.
He headed out first and had the following to say:

(DON) We almost didn't run today because of the cold weather and the canceled Race Across the Valley at Chena Lakes. But fortunately Carol and I looked again at the temperatures after noon and it had warmed up enough to head out to the Musher's Hall. I once again had my Dream Team for a 4.5 mile run:

Loon Raisin
Pippi Misty (SCL)
Izzi Topaz

It was a magnificent run on a beautiful day with amazing dogs. I knew that things were going to go well as soon as we hooked up Misty. She was the third dog hooked up, and jumped around a couple of times. But as Carol and I returned from the truck each with another dog, we noticed Misty—gasp!—calmly standing there, lined out like a champ! And Carol noticed that she even calmly sat down at one point, although I missed that. She is turning into a great member of the team.

The run was amazing on a bright, sunny day, although a bit on the chilly side. The trail was hard and fast, with a few ruts from long drag of brake, particularly in the outbound in the field below the hall. Misty, as usual, didn't even seem to notice as the sled rattled over the ruts, and focused on her job. The team held speed quite well over the distance, and even Izzi's tug was tight the whole time. Misty did try to play with Pippi a few times, moving way over, but Pippi just ignored Misty. Yay, Pipster! Misty gave it up after a minute or so, and went back to focusing on a nice run. Hopefully this was just a passing fancy, and since nothing fun came of it she'll not make this a habit.

Thanks, Carol, for letting me run dogs with you and being in my life!

(CAROL) After Don left I got my 6 dog team out of the truck.

Robin Beans
Galena Blackberry (SCL)
Casper Chert

The trail was hard and fast....occasional ruts from brake marks. Even though Beans is one month away from being 10 years old...her and Robin set a good pace. Blackberry stumbled going down the hill and I had to pause and let her get untangled, which she did on her own....then the rest of the run was pretty uneventful (awww I like those!) with a smooth running team of dogs going 4.5 miles. All the dogs worked well together although this was a mixed team of old/young....faster and slower. But all kept the same pace and we charged up the hill on the way home. All the dogs were happy to finally get out again. Their last run had been Sunday and although I had been letting everyone loose in my fenced yard, that is just not enough to release their pent up energy and enthusiasm.

Thanks to Don for saying "YES!! Let's go" and all the help. What a sweetie.