Scouting New Trails

  We are always on the lookout for potential new trails for running dog teams. I assume that all mushers might be the same: every time you see any kind of trail (snowmobile, hiking, biking, etc.) our brains immediately work out whether or not it would be dog team friendly, meaning good distance, no real road crossings, wide enough on the turns to be safe.  This week, we decided to haul dogs up to Marenisco to loose run them and scout for some new possibilities to change things up a little next winter.  We walked in on several trails that looked promising, came to a couple dead ends, and did manage to find one trail that looks really good so far.  We haven't been able to walk back far enough to know for sure, but have looked it up on Google Earth and it all looks good on there, meaning it goes for a few miles and looks like it has a nice loop around a pond that would make turning around easy.  One thing we are really looking for is a trail that is a bit closer than what we usually train on (meaning not as wide as a road), as the dogs really perk up and enjoy it, and so do we.

This trail dead ended.

This trail would have been great, nice and close, but dead-ended.

We would have no problems with doing some chainsawing, but this trail was a no go, too.

The dogs had lots of fun running through the woods, jumping downed trees.

Another trail...

That came to an abrupt end.

Found lots of swamp.

Storm and Pinsripe stuck on the other side of the pond-they went for a bit of an unintended swim.

Puppies

  No litters for the huskies planned right now, but we do have pups.  Two of our little house dogs bred (by accident), so now we have little pups.  They are half long haired chihuahua, a quarter pomeranian, and a quarter papillion. They were born April 17th, so they're about four and a half weeks old now.  Cute little buggers!  Different experience from husky pups, that's for sure.  They didn't start to really play and be sociable until they were over three weeks old, whereas husky pups are wrestling each other by around two weeks old.  Now they are enjoying play time, though.

Mom-Tika

Dad-Shorty

About two weeks old.

First food-about three and a half weeks old.

Char, Chocolate, Flame, Chisana, Phoenix, and Brute-the kids named them-Brute is the only male and he's about twice the size of the rest.

Phoenix-four and a half wks. old.

Char-four and a half wks. old.

Chocolate-four and a half wks. old.

Brute-four and a half wks. old

Chisana- four and a half wks. old.

Flame- four and a half wks. old.

All tuckered out after play time.

I HATE PORCUPINES!!!!

So we were out enjoying a beautiful day loose running dogs and then...

Hoodscoop-he got hit the worst.

Truk-13 years old and still too dumb to avoid it.

Two other dogs got it, too, but not as bad-forgot to take pics of them-Thunder and Brian, because by that time we were so tired of the job.  Needless to say, the rest of this lovely day-like five hours or so total, was spent pulling quills out of dogs, and we have been checking them over every day since and finding more quills all the time.  Then, two days later, we took another group of dogs out to the same area (duh) and two of them managed to find a baby porkie and got more quills.  Luckily, those two were pretty well behaved and only took like a half hour each to extract the quills.  We are not going back there again!  On the plus side, out of 26 total dogs, only six total got stuck. 

Still Loose Running Dogs...

Pretty much been loose running dogs on a daily basis, though now we've started running two groups of 13, so each dog is getting out more often, and they've been behaving really well.

Cloud found a deer hide "prize".

Down in a ravine by the Lake.

Old man Truk-age 14 years.

Foreground dogs Hail, Chico, Scooby Doo, Breeze(front),Cloud, Rain, Traveler.

Loose Running Dogs

We are back to loose running dogs now that sledding is all done.  We bought two four wheelers to train dogs with this year, but they both need a bit of work, so until they are ready, we are just going for walks with groups of eight dogs at a time. 

Angel

Cloud-now 9 months old.

Cloud.

Brian (white dog) and Lara.

Stimpy-we think he's about 13 yrs. or so.

Hoodscoop-he's one of my all the time wheel dogs.

Brian-my other all the time wheel dog.

Pinstripe-Hoodscoop's brother.

Elliot.