Dog Water Skiing

No...not the skis ON the dogs.

The summer must be getting close to being over as I'm thinking more and more about winter these days.

We have dogsled, cross country skied and mountain biked behind our huskies, but water skiing never occurred to us.

My friend Duane sent this article and the below video that was fun to watch. Maybe we'll need to give it a try. Too bad our yearly spring flood didn't last longer on our property.

Cody

Tough night last night as we lost Cody. Very sudden. He was 13 and a half years old, but still behaved like a puppy at times. Definitely not expected.

I ran my first dogsled race a number of years ago in Eldorado with Cody in lead, and we have also raced together in Bancroft, Marmora, Kearney, Fort Kent Maine and Craftsbury Vermont.

Dispite his serious nature and being all business most of the time, Cody had a sense of humour as well. Once at Marmora, the conditions were very icy and the sled flipped on a corner. I hit a snowbank hard and couldn't hang on to the sled. Cody looked back at me and smiled as he picked up the pace and left me to run the mile to the turnaround point at the aid station where he was happily hanging out and rolling around in the snow.

.

While Cody hasn't raced in a few years now, he enjoyed his retirement and still had a good year of recreational dogsledding last winter.

Cody was a great lead dog and great friend, who will be missed by all of us in the pack.

Kearney Dogsled Race...

Fort Kent Maine...Hanging out after a game of hockey...

Sleddog Blog

Question: How many sleddogs can you fit in a Subaru Forester?....

Answer: 5 (so far).

With the cold weather we've had recently, we've been taking advantage of some great dogsledding conditions. A couple of nights ago we loaded up the team and headed to our favourite trails. The trails were fast and the dogs were flying. I love dogsled runs after dark. Everything feels so alive.

.

Here are a short profile of the huskies and their roles on the dogteam...

.

Meela:

Alpha female. Great lead dog. Not our fastest dog, but a good problem solver who could pretty much parallel park a dogsled.

Jesse:

Super enthusiastic. Loves to run. Keeps everyones spirits up on the trail. Runs well with Meela in lead and listens to her well.

Cody:

Mr Reliable. Seasoned pro. Runs in point well, as well as a great lead dog. Has seen and experienced everything as he has several years of racing under his belt.

Willy:

Extremely strong dog. A gentle giant. The hardest working dog in our pack. Thinks he needs to try to pull the entire sled by himself. We think it's to impress the girl huskies.

Siku:

The wonder pup. This is her first year of being hooked up with the team, but is a natural. Loves to run and has taken to dogsledding right from the first hookup.

Okay, we can't forget the non-sleddogs in the pack...

.

Neeka:

"What do you mean? I'm a real sleddog. I have a harness you know. I can pull." Well, yes Neeka has been hooked up and I believe deep down thinks she IS a husky, but seems to perform better as a cheerleader.

Mali:

Well, it's pretty safe to say that Mali will probably never make the team, although she does look rather fashionable in her booties. Mali prefers to bark commands with her booming baritone voice, while munching on a porkchop.

We'll try to get some action photos and videos at some point during a day run.

First Snowfall

This past week was a nice little taste of winter, and it looks like there is much more on the way.

Winter is my favourite time of the year, but the only problem is there aren't enough hours in the day to fully appreciate it. This was evident last Wednesday with a full day consisting of a trail run in the morning, snowshoe run in the afternoon, dogsled run in the evening and some snowman building mixed in for good measure with Brennan and Heather.

Speaking of the dogsled run, it was our first time out this season and the dogs were all very excited. It was fun seeing our youngest dog, Siku dogsled for the first time. She is a natural and caught on very quickly. Veterans Meela and Cody ran lead, with Jesse and Willy in point. Siku ran single wheel and after the first 5 minutes of looking over her shoulder at me wondering if this was what she was supposed to be doing, she settled in and had a great 5km run. The trail was in great shape and was just beautiful as we ran at 8pm during a light snowfall. Below are a few pictures of our team before hooking up to the dogsled...... and then the chaos and excitement begins.

It's going to be a fun winter!