Never, under any circumstances, trust a dog with personality.

Lately, my time has been taken up almost entirely by my job. I have not had much time at all to get out with the dogs and even if I did, our four wheeler is in kind of sketchy condition with brakes that don't brake, a starter that doesn't start and an engine that needs more coddeling than a Hollywood starlet. This combined does not a happy musher make.

Today, however, was my day off. I had made arrangements the night before to borrow a friends four wheeler and to use his trails too, so I was up at the crack of dawn -- which, around here isn't at all as early as it may sound -- to feed the dogs so that they could digest their soupy meal before heading out on the trail. It was going to be a great training day, since my friend would be out on the trails with his dogs, too, and we'd get to practice passing head-on which is something our dogs haven't had much experience with.

Let me describe what a good team does when it meets another good team and has to pass: picture driving down the road. Any road. In a car. You see another car approaching and what happens? It just keeps on going. It doesn't swerve into your lane; it doesn't suddenly throw itself in reverse and cower on the shoulder, it doesn't honk it's horn at you and thereby distract you. It does none of these things. So, too, the well trained dog team passes without incident.

Now, let me describe MY team. Or, at least Ruby. Ruby was second from the front of the team ('swing' position, to those who know) and on the inside of the trail. She was doing wonderfully. She was working hard, she was keeping up the rest of the team, she was even refraining from checking out the side of the trail by sniffing or wandering. I was thinking to myself: 'why did Ruby stay home so much last winter? She's doing great.' And she was. Then, around the corner and onto the straight stretch we came and met my friends team head on. He was about twenty yards in front of us and closing and as he and his team neared us, I could see Ruby's thoughts, as though she had one of those cartoon thought-bubbles over her head:

"HEY! I didn't know there'd be other dogs out here! I can't believe it: other dogs! Out here! Did you know there'd be other dogs out here?" this last bit she says to her neighbour. Then, to the dogs as they pass: "Hi!MynameisRu..." then to the second one: "Hi!MynameisRub..." and the third one: "Hi!Myname's..." and so on, until my friend and his team had passed. That's right: I'm the car that swerved. I'm the one that went into oncoming traffic because I had the social butterfly of the canine world. The other dogs, who were trying hard to pass properly, who were behaving and trying to avoid a train-wreck (imagine the tangle that could have -- would have -- ensued, had we run into each other), strained to pull Ruby away and eventually succeeded. For the rest of the run, Ruby kept trying to find the dogs again.

"And now," to use an oft-quoted Monty Python line, "for something completely different."

Hunter at ballet class

Short and to the point.

The most difficult thing about having dogs is being with them while they face the end. Bug is not doing so well and she has been moved into the house to make what is left of her life a bit easier. She has gone downhill fast, but she is not ready to give up just yet. She sleeps a lot, but will still give small wags of her tail when she is alert and she can, most days, manage the outside steps on her own; both up and down. I'm not ready to eulogise her yet, but I don't expect a miracle, either. Here are a few pictures of her, since being moved into the house.

This is how Bug spends much of her day now; sleeping on the couch.

Hunter and Bug. They've been pretty good friends for a while and even moreso now that Hunter feeds her treats almost non-stop.

On a happier note, one of our two living room window replacements has been completed. We didn't take a lot of pictures of the job, but those that we did follow.

Our boring, non-sun-letting-in, 4 square foot window.

The preparations for the new window -- making the opening.

The new window. 7 feet by 4 feet, 10 inches. Lotsa light now!

Of midways, porchlights and the now famous Princess Ballerina

Once, in a land known as The Valley, there danced a Princess Ballerina. This valley was not the happy, fertile and verdant plain the that name may suggest; rather, it was a fanciful name given to a slash in the landscape where, centuries earlier, angry forces hurled a stone so large the land was ploughed into a giant furrow.

I'll not go further with that pseudo fairytale; no good will come of it, I can assure you. I finally have pictures of Hunter at her ballet class, though. I don't have many, though, because Jenn's camera ran out of battery.

To set the scene: picture the bumper car rides at a midway or moths and a light. In each case, there is a knot of activity that seems to be more or less following a prescribed path towards a common goal, but there is also a lot of individual activity going on at the fringes; activity that is similar to, but apart from, the common goal. Sometimes, there is the kid in the bumpercar; it's his first time driving and he just can't get the hang of it, and so he spends the duration of the ride driving into walls. Other times, it's the moths and their erratic circles; their inability to just focus on the light and maintain a steady direction. Instead, they fly close, spiral and spin away, and then fly close again, repeating this, it seems, forever and achieving nothing. So it is with a young girls ballet class. There are those who follow the instructor, those who don't and those who can't take their eyes off of their own reflection in the room-sized mirror. I'll let you guess which category Hunter falls into.

Moths and bumpercars aside, Hunter loves her dance class.

Still no ballerina pictures.

Another cold and bright morning materialized today out of the cloudless night. Frost, and lots of it, lay thick on the grass and the truck as the sun had not made it above the tree tops yet. I could hear the familiar squeak and clink of dogs doing laps in their areas: they were up and waiting to be fed. Jenn, who was doing her best to sleep off a cold, was buried deep under the comforter, so Hunter and I had our hot chocolate and a coffee while I waited for a respectful hour to feed the dogs.

These are just a few pictures of Hunter in the back of the truck when we loaded the dogs to go home. She climbed up there all by herself and was pretty proud of herself for doing so. She graciously posed for Jenn and the camera. It was difficult to convince her that the front of the truck, in her seat, was safer and more comfortable than the back of the truck. She wanted to ride home with the dogs.

I'm a bit afraid to call attention to the weather; we've been fairly lucky, in comparison to the past few years, in that we have had less rain so far. That, and the new load of gravel that I have been wheelbarrowing around the dog yard, has made for a much less sloppy kennel this fall. The dogs are in great spirits and they are enjoying the cooler weather, too. I am looking forward to giving them new straw this weekend since the first straw of the year is always met with great enthusiasm. Much digging and shoving, pawing and fretting is done in the dogs' house when they get the straw, wanting to get it 'just so'.

This past weekend I was able to 'treat' my parents to a dry-land ride with the dogs. My friend Lou has been exceptionally generous in letting me borrow his four wheeler and Mule (a glorified golf cart and machine that I *need*. Really.) while my four wheeler is out of commission. The best thing about the Mule is that it allows the passenger to sit beside the driver, as opposed to behind the driver as on a four wheeler. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of that weekend, as I neglected to bring the camera -- a happenstance that I am sure Dad is happy about: I don't think he has ever worn dirtier clothes than when I lent him more suitable boots, pants and a jacket.

Mouse and Blitzi, post run.

I thought that we were far enough into our run that I'd be able to get a good shot of Jenn, Hunter, the scenery and of course, a neatly lined up, patiently waiting team of dogs. As is obvious, we were not ready for a break. Moxy can be seen snapping at Hope for moving around too much. Poor Moxy, she was the only one willing to behave.

Back in from feeding the dogs, I was on my second coffee and sewing harnesses. Please, don't ask. It's a story I'd rather not relive, since Triangle chewed a brand new, $26 harness; one of the fancy collared x-backs for those who'd appreciate that. Jenn had, by now, felt her way around the corner and into the livingroom, not fully awake but up and out of bed nonetheless. She had some breakfast while I finished the sewing and then I went out to hook up the trailer and load some dogs while Jenn got Hunter ready and met me at the truck a few minutes later.

Once we arrived at Lou's place, I started to get the four wheeler ready while Jenn dropped the dogs and put on the harnesses. Hunter followed Jenn around for a while and then, when I started to sort out the gangline, she decided to help. It's funny to watch what kids learn by observation as Hunter did, as best she could, what I do: untangle, stretch out, and put each tug out straight to make hooking up easier.

Stretching out the leader section.

... and the team sections.

"I don't know why it's all tangled, Hunter. Mischievious little gnomes must come in at night and do that because I rolled it up neatly the last time I used it. I swear." Sheesh, even my kid gives me a hard time.

The hookup was good and incident-free; no chewed harnesses. Jenn and Hunter got on the back of the four wheeler -- it has an add-on 'two up seat' so they had a lot of room plus a certain amount of comfort. The run, too, was great although the last half is sort of boring because the trail does a series of concentric, ever tightening laps in towards an imaginary center until it reverses direction and we do it all over again. I will say this, though, there is a lot of distance in that swirl of trail; Lou has done a great job with a small-ish field.

Part of the trail. Sort of dull and muddy at this time of the year but, at the speeds we move, it's hard to see, anyway. (Those that know us and the team have already picked up on the sarcasm.)

Getting pulled up and over a rock outcropping. Good dogs!

Tomorrow, the other half of the yard is slated to go out, Baby and Triangle included. Baby, I don't doubt, will be another great dog. Triangle, however, hasn't shown the same ability and understanding of his brother but his enthusiasm to go might overcome this, soon I hope.

Back at the truck, getting nice, baited water.

Get used to seeing this brown and black dog, Dora, in the front of our team: she's already proving to be a natural leader.

Moxy, Chili and Hope, post run.