Last weekend we loaded up 16 dogs, the golf cart and all the other necessities to spend two days training dogs with other mid distance mushers in Newberry, Michigan, which turned out to be about a six hour drive one way. Totally worth it! We had a blast, despite the lack of sleep due to many, many high energy dogs all in one smallish area. There were maybe 15 teams there, including ours, and two kennels worth of resident dogs, which might have totaled around 200 dogs or so, give or take a few. We had to sleep the two nights we were there in a tent, and that many dogs equals lots of noise!
The purpose of this session, among other things, is mainly for passing experience for the teams outside of the pressure of racing. It also is for the social aspect for the mushers. A lot of mushers, us included, are fairly isolated from others in the sport for most of our training, so its nice to get together once in awhile just to be around kindred spirits, and it sure does revive the spirit to be around other people that have the "disease", as we affectionately refer to it. Most of the people in our lives, at least, think we are crazy and really do not understand the commitment and sometimes sacrifice involved in this chosen lifestyle, so it sure is nice to spend some time with people who get it.
Our dogs, in fact, had never actually been around any other teams at all, until Wednesday, when we took them up to train with our vet, so we were nervous and excited to get them around all these other teams in the camping area as well as the trails. As it turned out, we really had nothing to be nervous about, as they performed easily up to and above our expectations and hopes. It seems as though all of our hard work and time spent training and working with our dogs has paid off well. We had no problems hooking up and running out of the camp even with all the other dogs and people. Our leaders held the line out with no tethers and they ran out to the trail with no troubles. On the trail, they handled head on passing and side by side passing like they'd been doing it on every training run. In fact, it looked as though Thunder was enjoying leading the team past these "obstacles" and was always looking for the next challenge. Needless to say, we are thrilled with our dogs and can't wait for the next chance to train with other teams!
Our camp-tent's behind the trailer. Getting ready to hook up for the first run.
Another team getting ready. They were in front of us, so we had to wait for them. You can see our cart waiting in the background.
Other teams around us preparing.
Cruising down the trail. They have a great trail system right out of their yard. We are jealous. We have to load up to go to any trails.
Had to stop once or twice for tangles and corrections, but none were mess ups during passing, which was awesome!
Giant puddle! Two teams up ahead.
Passing a team. Another team up ahead.
Here's a video to give an idea of what it was like. The sound is no good, and its a bit shaky, and the end looks like it was about to be a mess, the team coming up on us was on the wrong side of the trail for what our leaders expected, but we ended up getting by okay with no tangles or anything.
All in all it was a great weekend and we'd like to thank Bob and Jan Shaw for hosting this wonderful event and we hope to attend it annually from now on.
Dropping dogs to stretch and pee on the way home.
Also thanks to the kids for staying home and caring for the dogs that were left behind so that we could go and enjoy the weekend with no worries!
Soon to come...updates on our puppies and the new young dogs that we just got last week. One has been on one hookup, forgot the camera, but pics up soon...
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