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.