The Contest is Over

Our "Name the Puppy" contest had ended and the puppy got her name late last night.

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I wasn't sure how many people would enter our little contest, or who they would be, but I was surprised at the amount of people who wrote in. I'd like to thank everyone who participated. The names that we received were varied and creative, but at the end of it all, we could only use one suggestion.

The winner of the contest is Cathy Parent who suggested that we name the puppy "Valley" because of her Valentines Day birth.

So, Cathy, please e-mail me your mailing address so that we can send out your prize.

Another collection of miscellaney

Things around here have started to slow down considerably in the last few weeks. Cold temperatures have made for some pretty icey trails, and although there are still mushers going out, they are doing so during the warmer part of the day so that the trails are a bit softer. The problem is, this is when I work. Or, they have switched from sleds to dry-land training rigs and 4-wheelers. Neither of which I have.

After some shameless hinting on my part, our friend Stacey has agreed to let me tag along on the camping trip. So far, there are going to be seven people going. I don't know all the details yet, but I think that we are headed to Haines Junction to go to one of the summits there. It is supposed to be a short twenty mile run and then an overnight and back again. I guess I'll have to get working on my dog-food cooker.

I would like to use the opportunity of the camping trip to teach our dogs how to behave while camping. I don't think that they will be tired enough to let them stay on the gangline, though, so I will have to picket them instead. Picketing is when a length of chain or aircraft cable is stretched between two solid points -- like trees or sled and snowhook -- and the dogs are attached to it with "drop lines" which are usually about 16 inches long or so and spaced far enough apart that the dogs can't really bother one another. They will be fed here and sleep here and then hooked back up to the sled when it is time to go. The reason that I don't want to try to keep them on the gangline is a two parter: Firstly, we still have Scroggy who is a chewer. He has already chewed through several necklines, a tugline and had started on the gangline. If he isn't tired enough, he will use this extra energy to chew, I'm sure. Secondly, the dogs will not want to stay where they are supposed to. They will get up and wander around and create all sorts of tangles in the lines. While it is a huge pain to untangle a team of dogs if it goes unnoticed for a period of time it could be fatal to a dog. Using the picket system, the dogs will get an understanding of what is going on and they will be of no danger to themselves or others.

Bluegrass has been taken to her (hopefully) new home for a trial run. She went yesterday with Kim, our friends daughter. Jenn talked to the previous owners of Bluegrass and they were very understanding of our reasons for choosing to not keep her. I haven't yet heard how Bluegrass fared with her new owner or whether she even has a new owner yet, but I am sure that I will hear within the next day or so.

With a spot open and available now, I am now looking forward to bringing home a new dog from a very good and successful racer. This dog, Horton, is just not as fast as this racer needs, but he will be far and away faster than our current team, so he will add greatly to our kennel, I'm hoping. While I'm on the subject of new dogs, I suppose I should also say that there may be a possibility of aquiring another dog out of Hortons kennel; and the partner of the person to whom we loaned our dogbox has offered us a great dog at an unbeatable price. It is looking like we will have a moderately competative kennel next winter!

We will be opening up spots in our yard for the new dogs because two, possibly three of our dogs will be going back to their owner, as was the deal this past fall. We'd like to make an offer on Ben, but Scroggy and Grizzly are just not going to fit into our kennel, either.

"Puppy," as she has become known for now, is growing rapidly. She is getting rather agile and confident when she is out and about. Her ears are almost completely up and she is beginning to look more like a dog. I can't believe that we have had her for 6 weeks already. This weekend is the name choosing and I hope to have the name and the winner published before Monday rolls around.

Here are some shots of the puppy, because I haven't any other shots of any other dogs right now...

I'm only holding her for size comparison. Really.



Furry close-up



The "Calander Shot"

A variety of subjects

After several weeks of near-spring to spring like weather, the temperature has finally dropped to a more seasonal -18 at night. As of yet, however, I have not managed to get out with the dogs. I think that the trails are a bit too icey to be safe right now. It isn't that we'd be going too fast, after all, I have a brake but more the case of risking injury to the dogs. Conditions like this can lead to shoulder and wrist injuries as well as cuts on the front of their feet or on the bottom of their feet. I have decided that since we are not training for a race I should maybe make the more judicious decision to stay home for now. So close and yet...

I had thought that since the dogsledding is at more or less of a standstill at the moment, I would post some pictures of the northern lights that we have been seeing these last few nights. However, my night-time photography is not what it should be so the photos wouldn't be much to look at. Take my word for it, though, the lights have been stunning lately. It makes a midnight trip to the outhouse a bit more enjoyable.

There is only one week left in our Name the Puppy contest and I can tell you that I am glad we have decided to pull the names from a hat -- there are some very good ones that have been suggested. I wasn't sure who would enter; I expected some family, some family friends perhaps, but I was really surprised by the entry from Texas and the classroom of kids from Sudbury, Ontario. Below is a more recent photo of the yet-to-be-named puppy.



As I learn more about this Blogging business, I am trying to make the site more user-friendly and treat it more like a website than a diary. Soon, I hope to have a link to our dogs, so that the team is easily viewed with one click. I also want to try and keep you, the reader, more involved. I hope to have things like this contest for you to participate in so that you are more than just a reader of the site. I would welcome any ideas that you may have, so please use the contact links on the right-hand sidebar.

I think that we are going to try and find a home for Bluegrass, our last aquisition. She is not a bad sleddog at all, in fact, we have seen a great improvement in her ability since she has come to us, but she just doesn't mesh with our other dogs. I have a person in mind who I would like to offer her to. He, his wife and his kids are all mushers of varying degrees and I think that Bluegrass would find a place there quite easily.

Our neighbour is planning a camping trip for this coming weekend. He is going to be going on the Yukon River from Dawson to Eagle, Alaska with his eight puppies. I think he said that he has a friend coming from his hometown who has not really been on a dogsled before. What a way to start! This section of trail is part of the Yukon Quest trail. We also have another friend who is planning a camping trip in April with her dogs. She is going with some of her friends for an easy-paced, try out the new gear trip. I wonder if there is room for another person? If she is reading this...

There is not much else going on with the dogs. We are back to kibble in the morning and evening feedings. I had been given about thirty pounds of fish from work that was a big help and the dogs got this in the mornings. And, speaking of kibble, the puppy has started to eat soaked kibble, too. I guess it won't be long before Ruby has her completely weaned.

Any training is good training, they say.

As you may or may not have noticed, I have made a few changes to the sidebar of this page. I am hoping to provide easier access to our kennel for the viewers of this site. I would welcome any ideas or suggestion and I will do my best to incorporate them here.

It has been pretty warm here these last few days. I have been reluctant to take the dogs out because of the temperatures but most other mushers around here seem to still be going out so tonight we decided it was cool enough to go for a run. Earlier this week, I made plans to take the dogs out with a friend and her team today, but it was 4 degrees above zero at nine o'clock this morning so we postponed the run to a later date... maybe next winter at this rate. It is a good thing that we didn't go out, because she lives about an hour away and by the time we would have been ready to go, it would have been downright hot -- it was 16 degrees in the sun today. It is also good that we didn't go earlier today because the dogs had a terrible run tonight and I think that the warm weather was a major contributing factor. I can't imagine what it would have been like with warmer temperatures and another team to distract mine further. My dogs were tired much sooner than normal, and they were looking for excuses to goof off; and this is before we met two other teams which we had great difficulty passing.

Our run started out okay, but by the time we were two or three kilometers into it, the dogs were starting to bite at snow -- a normal thing when they are warm -- and my leaders were disobeying commands and looking around as though they were on a pleasure walk. This is part of the frustation that comes with having a recreational team and wanting a serious, working/racing team: the dogs do not have a strong work ethic. Partly due to this and partly owing to my lack of good leaders, the two passes that we had to try today were disasters. We met a team coming on a fairly passable section of trail and we ended up with our leaders standing nose to nose at a dead stop. I think that Amber may have tried to pass, but Crystal, ever the social dog, wanted to visit. We got past the one team by taking the leaders by the neckline and walking them past the first team. Then I waved to the second team further down the trail to come and pass while I was still off the sled and holding my leaders. The other team, although it wasn't the cleanest of passes, managed to run past our dogs and continue on. Jenn was standing on the brake of the sled while I held my leaders. It is lucky that she was there. Many leaders find passing another team to be stressful, especially those that haven't any training, or experience in passing. Definitely time to work with smaller teams and get them used to passing obstacles and teams. Today's passing was not acceptable.

The rest of the run disintegrated from there.

Earlier on today, we went into town to pick up a few things and we decided that the puppy was should come. We packed her mother, Ruby, in the back of the truck and brought the puppy up front with us. This worked out quite well. Until we picked up the drywall. I didn't want Ruby in the back of the truck walking all over the drywall, so we brought her into the front of the truck, too. We had the baby in the back seat, Jenn in the passenger seat with the puppy and Ruby in the back seat, too. It would have been fine if Ruby had stayed put, but she kept going from side to side in the truck until Jenn had had enough. I pulled over, moved Ruby to the passenger seat and Jenn got in the back and things were fine from then on. Maybe we should have left Ruby at home, but I was concerned that she'd try to get out of the run and find the puppy, which she has done before. She chewed through the gate closure and ran at full tilt into our front door, which burst open and in came Ruby.

As for the puppy, she is doing great. She is now walking around the run, barking, growling and starting to play with objects. A little unsteady on her feet still, she will try to run a few steps and then lose her balance. I'm not sure how much she weighs. Because she is so fat, I'm not that concerned with her weight just yet. Ruby is gaining weight again, which is good, and she is in good enough shape to take out on a run although we won't be doing that this season. At four weeks old it is now time to start offering the puppy some food other than her mothers'. We soak puppy kibble in water and make a slurry which we set that on the ground in a wide, shallow pan for the puppy to get at. She has so far not needed much encouragement to eat, but she is not a big eater yet because Ruby hasn't started to wean her. It is unlikely that Ruby will wean her soon because, being an only puppy, Ruby isn't feeling the stress of nursing like she would if she had seven others to feed, too. We have seen many changes in the little pup since she was born and her development is rapid. Here is a picture of her, although it is a week old. It was kind of nice to get the kennel logo in the shot, too.

The makings of a lead dog

The contest is half over now. The puppy is three weeks old and getting big. Any name suggestions can be sent to nameoursleddog@canada.com

NOTE: Sorry for the lack of pictures. I have two videos that I would like to post here. Once I figure out how, I will. Hopefully, it won't take long.

There are two main schools of thought when it comes to training lead dogs. The first are the people who feel it is best for dogs to learn from other dogs; they use an experienced, usually proven dog that knows its' commands and they run it beside a dog they feel has the potential to become a lead dog. The other side feels that there is no better way to train than personally and they will walk with the dogs, working on commands, or they will take an inexperienced dog out on the trail and reinforce commands using 'teachable moments.'

Most often, the latter method is used by people with: limited funds -- good lead dogs are expensive; limited resources -- trying to dogsled in an area with little to no sledding community; limited dogs -- small kennels with few dogs, or a pet or two and a borrowed sled. Not always is this the case, though. Some mushers with the ability to buy good leaders, who live in the middle of a mushing community and have many dogs still prefer to train the dogs personally. However, most use the following method.

Using a proven leader allows the musher to take his team out, knowing that they will be able to navigate the trail network without a lot of difficulty. This lets the musher concentrate on other things, like attaining a milage goal, or breaking in new dogs or practicing camping, overnights and so on. The inexperienced leader will pick up on commands through repetition and good leaders will nudge or tug the dog in the correct direction. This requires no corrections from the musher and the leader-in-training gets to see what is expected by the driver. If any of you have ever thought "it would be so much easier to train my dog if we both spoke the same language" the experienced leader is your translator.

I bring this up because although I would like to try the latter method, circumstances have me using the former method. I can't say which works better but our run last night is certainly an argument for personal training.

Amber has taken over the lead position with Crystal since Ruby has become a mother. At first, Amber didn't know the simplest commands; she wouldn't hold her line tight at hook-up and she would become very unfocused on the trail, wandering from side to side and goofing off. Gradually, though, she has become more serious and much more reliable -- to the point that she may be Ruby's equal, if not her better right now.

Last night we went on a run that took us off familiar trails and through a community center parking lot that had cars, people and confusion. I was expecting a big hassle at the community center, but Amber was flawless. She led the team around a few parked cars and between a snowbank and a van that had just pulled in and was still idling. Quite a progression for a dog that has only been leading for four weeks. She took commands very well, only missing two turns, one which was difficult since it was a snowmachine track that led off of a wide driveway and road intersection.

Today I thought that we should test her a bit more, although I was fairly sure that she would have difficulty. Jenn came with me in the sled so that I would have help if I needed it. We ran our normal trail, but instead of turning 'haw' to come home, we went 'gee' instead, and ended up on a river trail. There were patches of overflow and the trail was braided with snowmachine tracks, but Amber was able to focus on the main trail. Our run would take us right by -- thirty feet from, in fact, -- someones dog yard. I knew this was going to be difficult and Amber had a hard time passing it but once she got pointed in the right direction, she was off and running again. It is difficult for our dogs to pass by a distraction like a dog yard or a house because we don't normally run on trails where these are encountered. It is, however, important that the dogs know what sort of distractions are out there and become able to pass them cleanly.

I think that I would prefer the confidence of an experienced leader for training, but Amber has been very good so far. Tomorrow is supposed to be warm again and the dogs have done well running in this weather, but I think that they can have the day off. Amber could use the break, too, since leading and taking a lot of commands on a short run is stressfull.