Thought I'd share a few pics from the first official day of fall training this year. A bit outdated, but since we were suffering from computer issues and not able to get this stuff on in a timely fashion, I'm going to post them anyhow.
This is the whole setup that we drive out to our training site
most days.
The team from the front.
Hard to get a good action shot with a mediocre camera.
Sometimes stopping and correcting/adjusting is necessary.
Obviously, this was before our days and days of rain that we're currently suffering with. Everything is so clean and dry looking...sigh...
So, its been awhile since I updated. The computer I was using for blogging took a dump. The motherboard, I guess, and its too expensive to be worth repairing, so we're doing what we gotta and making do. Using a different computer that is not as nice, but it'll do until we can get a new one.
The big thing happening around here right now is fall training. Our season officially started on Labor Day this year and we have been training as much as the weather and our schedules will allow, which has been fairly often so far. Currently, we've been running 16 dog teams and they pull Jeremy and I (Rhonda) in a golf cart with no motor, so they work pretty hard. They pull a lot more weight in generally more difficult terrain and conditions than during the winter. Right now, it seems as though it will never quit raining! For the past week its been raining off and on every day. If its not full on raining, its misting and if there is no precipitation falling, the sun never comes out, so its always wet. I know the dogs still love their work, but it sure does put a damper on things for us!
This time of year has us suffering from "winter fever". While we are dealing with conditions like this every day:
We are dreaming of this:
Along with the general annoyance and discomfort that all that wet and mud provide while we are training, it also gives us more work once we are done at home. We have to take all the snaps off of the tuglines and necklines (what the dogs are hooked to on the gangline) and rinse them:
And take apart the sections of the gangline(the main line connecting the dogs to what they are pulling) and rinse them out and hang them to dry:
Plus the harnesses that the dogs wear are obviously completely soaked and filthy, along with the clothes that we wear for training, so we take it all to the laundromat, the heavy duty washers there do a much better job of it then our little top load machine at home. Five bucks well spent. The harnesses have to hang to dry, so our kitchen looks like this:
