More dry land

Been out every day this week and things have been going quite smoothly with Lemon taking charge. On Friday I had an opportunity to hook up Lemon and Elmo with a good friends team so I took advantage of it. Got a bit of nice video of Elmo being excited to head out after we pulled him for a bit. Working on getting his love for the sport back up and taking all the pressure off. Just wanted to give a bit of an update and share some videos for anyone who wants to see how we're making out. First one is Elmo and Lemon on my friends team and second is my team from today, we're only up to 2.5 km runs right now as my heavies (aka the Tibetan Mastiffs) are not in the best shape to be running very far and the breed itself isn't exactly notorious for their energy levels anyway. Enjoy

When life gives you lemons...

Well you run your dogs with her :) This is an intro to Lemon, a 7 year old gee haw leader! Since her arrival we have done a few runs with the quad. All I can say is WOW, a lead dog makes the world of a difference. Our first run as a 5 dog team was amazing, we were not briskly walking anymore at long last. I took the dogs out on a short 2k run down the road with the quad on Wednesday morning and it went so smoothly, we even managed to hit a pace of 10 kms/h which really doesnt seem like much but if you ever tried to run a team of Tibetan Mastiffs you would realize that this is mach speeds for them. Everyone ran fantastic too and were happy to do it. I have some video that I will upload to youtube from that run in the next few days but for now here is a facebook link https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152199841955511 Not sure if that will work or not but it may. Also on Wednesday I hooked up the lil Brindle girl to the team too, she's still just a baby so she only went on a little run with Lemon and Elmo so she could get a nice gentle introduction. Here is a pic of the wee team with lil Brindle.

Its almost time :)

With our long HOT humid and ridiculous summer, not a whole lot on the sledding or training front has happened. We have head out a few times on my half a pedal bike that I purchased from kijiji (its missing a pedal but has tires that hold air so it was perfect for me) We had a few disaster bikejoring runs this summer but with the temperatures there was no way to work on much. However, now that it is October and it is getting so cold out I'm itching to GO. The dogs, probably not so much but I sure as heck am. Our team may be growing too! I am looking at a lead dog, an actual lead dog, former racer. I feel in a way that it is cheating but I don't like how the pressure of being the lead has taken some of Elmo's love out of the sport. I do plan on getting more serious with sledding this year, not to the point of racing, it would be nice one day but not for a while. However I do want to get out more on the roads as it is pretty quiet out here and there are TONS of secluded roads that could keep us busy all day. Also, Guy wants to get involved in the sport as well which is nice, we share NO common interests really but after his little trip on the sled when out icefishing last year he really enjoyed it, and laid off about the amount of dogs we have for the season :) So, looking into a good lead dog to pair up with Elmo to take the pressure off him for a bit and then eventually move Elmo on to his own team as lead which would just be following the head team on trips really. Also, considering we don't really have an even number of dogs this year, there is a sweet little pound pup here named Tazer who appears to be a Dutch Shepherd mix of sorts who will be starting lightly this year mostly just harness breaking and possibly putting her in the team with no hope for her to pull but just to understand the team and what is to be expected. I have a good feeling about this little pup, she really reminds me a lot of Elmo. Very willing and smart as a whip. I also noticed I had neglected to post about our first "race" last year. Team Briskwalkers ( aka us) came in something like 14th out of 16 teams which was FANTASTIC. I only ran 2 dogs and believe I had Elmo and Marv or possibly Elmo and Karma. We did 2 races and placed the same both times. I'm just not sure which race Karma was in and which Marv was. I will dig up the pictures and post them with a little description of the day as I recall it. That is all for now, hopefully I haven't lost my entire audience as it has been well over 6 months since my last entry.