Almost all of our snow has melted and we have had to go back to wheeled training. This really stinks for everyone. Its really hard on the dogs' feet having to run on gravel and frozen gravel and its really hard to get the miles up. Its noticeably harder on the dogs in general-the snow softens some of the impact on the joints, too, and the dogs are just plain happier when they are on snow, to say nothing of the mushers. Its really one of the most helpless, frustrating things to deal with this time of year-not being able to get the weather we need.
We went and tried out a part of the trail system we are hoping to use this winter over near Marenisco a couple days ago. This section has a tunnel that goes under the highway-it's an old railroad tunnel that is now part of the snowmobile trail system east of Marensico that allows us access to many, many miles of trails (hopefully) without the worry of crossing the highway. We decided to see how the dogs would take it, as they've never been through a tunnel before. They slowed down a bit, and at first it looked like the leaders were searching for a way around it, but in the end, they went through with no trouble.
This Friday was Ironwoods annual Jack Frost Parade. We've been talking for a couple years now about how we should get the dogs in the parade and get a little more involved in and exposed to our community, and this year we finally did it. We decided to just have a small team of dogs pulling either a sled or four wheeler. At first, we were hoping for the sled, six dogs, Autumn riding in it, Jeremy driving it, and Elliot and I keeping the team under control with leashes. Well, the snow all melted so we had to go with the four-wheeler. We decided to go with eight dogs , Jeremy driving, Spike (Autumns fuzzy little dog) riding in a milk crate on the front rack, Elliot, one of Elliot's friends, Charlie, and I held leashes to keep the dogs on the right path and under control, and Autumn walked along near the ATV to keep an eye on Spike (and stop frustrated dogs from chewing lines). We ran a string of lights up the gangline, and had some lights on the ATV-the lights of course stopped working halfway through, ARGH!
The dogs handled it all pretty well-we went with Thunder(of course) and Cherry in lead, Storm and Cloud in point, Hail and Lara in team, and Nakiski and Aspen in wheel. The young dogs got some crowd experience and we had to take the two blue eyed dogs just for show. Thunder really shined and enjoyed himself, grinning and pulling/leading the team like mad. It turns out LOTS of people bring their dogs to this parade, so the yearlings (Storm, Cloud, Lara) were pretty nervous and vocal about it, and they all got frustrated with the SLOW and stopping, and Autumn had to stop some line chewing from happening, but all in all, they put on a nice show and lined out and kept moving forward nicely, and looked pretty professional if I do say so myself! I took a couple pics before the start of the parade, but it was dark (parade started at 6 pm) and our camera is not good in low light.
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| The ATV with our logo sign on it. |
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| Trying to get a pic of the lights before hookup. |
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| The team waiting for the start. I think their whining/barking/howling annoyed the people from the float in front of us, but we had to listen to their generator run for the hour before the start, so I think we were even. |
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| You can kind of see Spike in the basket on the ATV. He was a real hit with the crowds, too. |
Other people were supposed to have been snapping pics for us, too so hopefully I'll get a few more good photos soon.
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