Tuesday, December 26, 2006
SNOW!!!! Finally we have had some decent snow accumulation. Trails around the area are shaping up and that is good news for all of us dog people.
We have been training off the 4 wheeler. We did my traditional Christmas run. Every year I run teams on Christmas day. Can't think of anything that I would rather be doing than being with my dog family.
We could run out of here again as fresh snow on the unplowed roads made for a good "trail."
All the dogs are doing good. Even as they age, most of my dogs are still enthusiastic and crazy to run. So many of my dogs are between 9 and 11 years old.
All the SCL dogs are doing fabulous. Chance is a good leader. We had her in lead in a speedy 6 dog team on Christmas Day. Blackberry was in that team too. She is a bit on the chunky side this winter, but is always hard on her line and just loves to run. She also loves to sleep in the house every night while the rest of the outside dogs are in the dog barn. Misty is still crazy to harness but has calmed down at hook up. She is a driven little girl.
Shaman, the very shy dog that I pulled from the shelter in early summer, is doing great. He is only a year old and although he gets spooked by a lot of stuff, he is a very driven dog who loves to run. He is becoming much more approachable and will come up with the rest of the dogs for treats and pats. The more we run him the more confidence he will get and I'm sure that he will turn out to be a loving dog.
We still have our foster dog, Yanert.....we will probably keep him. He has so many inherited problems that it probably wouldn't be fair to pass him to a new home....he has chondrodysplasia, a fairly rare inherited disorder.....along with that is anemia and some bone abnormalities....it is a dwarfism gene and he has turned out to be a slightly built, although long legged boy, that still looks very much like a puppy at 8 months of age. We adore him and he is easy to have around.
A few of my older dogs aren't running off the 4 wheeler at the moment. But once we are on sled they will be back in the team. My oldest is Beans at 11.5 years and she is both running on the 4 wheeler and skijoring. She loves to go and doesn't seem to have any problems associated with older age. I don't really have a retired dog in my yard yet!
I attribute a lot of their older success with a few things. One of course is really good nutrition. The second one is that I have given them year round exercise. When not running in the summer they are let loose together to run and play until they are tired. And 3rd....they sleep in a warm dog barn at night and if it gets really cold then they are in the dog barn all the time with breaks about every 4 hours to let them to out and stretch their legs and go to the bathroom. I used to think that they were better off outside as they could come in and out of their dog house when they wanted to....but when it gets cold they just curl up in their houses and rarely come out. In the dog barn (it is 50 degrees) they can really stretch out and also move around in the very large boxes. Most can stand up as the boxes are all 2 foot high, 4 foot deep and around 3 foot wide.
Happy Trails.
We have been training off the 4 wheeler. We did my traditional Christmas run. Every year I run teams on Christmas day. Can't think of anything that I would rather be doing than being with my dog family.
We could run out of here again as fresh snow on the unplowed roads made for a good "trail."
All the dogs are doing good. Even as they age, most of my dogs are still enthusiastic and crazy to run. So many of my dogs are between 9 and 11 years old.
All the SCL dogs are doing fabulous. Chance is a good leader. We had her in lead in a speedy 6 dog team on Christmas Day. Blackberry was in that team too. She is a bit on the chunky side this winter, but is always hard on her line and just loves to run. She also loves to sleep in the house every night while the rest of the outside dogs are in the dog barn. Misty is still crazy to harness but has calmed down at hook up. She is a driven little girl.
Shaman, the very shy dog that I pulled from the shelter in early summer, is doing great. He is only a year old and although he gets spooked by a lot of stuff, he is a very driven dog who loves to run. He is becoming much more approachable and will come up with the rest of the dogs for treats and pats. The more we run him the more confidence he will get and I'm sure that he will turn out to be a loving dog.
We still have our foster dog, Yanert.....we will probably keep him. He has so many inherited problems that it probably wouldn't be fair to pass him to a new home....he has chondrodysplasia, a fairly rare inherited disorder.....along with that is anemia and some bone abnormalities....it is a dwarfism gene and he has turned out to be a slightly built, although long legged boy, that still looks very much like a puppy at 8 months of age. We adore him and he is easy to have around.
A few of my older dogs aren't running off the 4 wheeler at the moment. But once we are on sled they will be back in the team. My oldest is Beans at 11.5 years and she is both running on the 4 wheeler and skijoring. She loves to go and doesn't seem to have any problems associated with older age. I don't really have a retired dog in my yard yet!
I attribute a lot of their older success with a few things. One of course is really good nutrition. The second one is that I have given them year round exercise. When not running in the summer they are let loose together to run and play until they are tired. And 3rd....they sleep in a warm dog barn at night and if it gets really cold then they are in the dog barn all the time with breaks about every 4 hours to let them to out and stretch their legs and go to the bathroom. I used to think that they were better off outside as they could come in and out of their dog house when they wanted to....but when it gets cold they just curl up in their houses and rarely come out. In the dog barn (it is 50 degrees) they can really stretch out and also move around in the very large boxes. Most can stand up as the boxes are all 2 foot high, 4 foot deep and around 3 foot wide.
Happy Trails.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
This certainly is shaping up to be a winter for the record books. A severe lack of snow has cancelled several skijoring and mushing races. We are training on the 4 wheeler but have been pretty slack doing that as the weather was at first pretty cold, then warmed up for a couple of weeks to the 30's. yikes!
But today we loaded 16 dogs into the truck and hooked up the trailer and the 4 wheeler and headed down to the dike along the Tanana River. It is totally flat but at least there is a thin hard packed layer of snow. We ran 2 teams of 8. The first team had Misty (SCL), Blackberry (SCL), and Chance (SCL). We went 5-6 miles and they all did well.
The 2nd team brought tears to my eyes. It was an older team with Beans at 11.5 years, Robin is 10.5, Daikon is 9.5 and Pippi is around 9 years old. But we decided to harness break Shaman.....he is a dog that we rescued from the shelter this summer. He was just about to be euthanized and I had been sitting with him when they were going to put him down. He was only around 7 months old... I just said...no..I will take him....and brought him home. He was terribly unsocialized and just froze when you would try to pet him. He didn't want anything to do with any people. Through the summer and fall I would take him for walks (he was so fearful that he actually stayed glued to my side) and we would bring him into the house and gently pet him all over. We can let him loose in the yard and he loves to play with the other dogs. When we tell him to go back to his house he runs and jumps in his house so we can hook him up.
Well....today he was very nervous at the truck, trying to climb as far under as he could....and he didn't particularly like getting his harness put on....but once he was in the team and I said "let's go" WOW!!! He took off hard on the line and that was it.....he is a driven dog and fast. The 4 wheeler actually died and we had to have this team pull me most of the way back to the truck. Don got his exercise by running after us, but we left him in the dust even with no engine. I was so proud of this team. They just love pulling and running and they really worked hard to take us back to the truck pulling me and the 4 wheeler. Shaman was hard on the tug this whole time. He will come around quickly now in his socialization. In his mind he now realizes that he has a job in this world and I know that he will blossom.
A rewarding day.
But today we loaded 16 dogs into the truck and hooked up the trailer and the 4 wheeler and headed down to the dike along the Tanana River. It is totally flat but at least there is a thin hard packed layer of snow. We ran 2 teams of 8. The first team had Misty (SCL), Blackberry (SCL), and Chance (SCL). We went 5-6 miles and they all did well.
The 2nd team brought tears to my eyes. It was an older team with Beans at 11.5 years, Robin is 10.5, Daikon is 9.5 and Pippi is around 9 years old. But we decided to harness break Shaman.....he is a dog that we rescued from the shelter this summer. He was just about to be euthanized and I had been sitting with him when they were going to put him down. He was only around 7 months old... I just said...no..I will take him....and brought him home. He was terribly unsocialized and just froze when you would try to pet him. He didn't want anything to do with any people. Through the summer and fall I would take him for walks (he was so fearful that he actually stayed glued to my side) and we would bring him into the house and gently pet him all over. We can let him loose in the yard and he loves to play with the other dogs. When we tell him to go back to his house he runs and jumps in his house so we can hook him up.
Well....today he was very nervous at the truck, trying to climb as far under as he could....and he didn't particularly like getting his harness put on....but once he was in the team and I said "let's go" WOW!!! He took off hard on the line and that was it.....he is a driven dog and fast. The 4 wheeler actually died and we had to have this team pull me most of the way back to the truck. Don got his exercise by running after us, but we left him in the dust even with no engine. I was so proud of this team. They just love pulling and running and they really worked hard to take us back to the truck pulling me and the 4 wheeler. Shaman was hard on the tug this whole time. He will come around quickly now in his socialization. In his mind he now realizes that he has a job in this world and I know that he will blossom.
A rewarding day.
