Evening Run

Boy were we lucky.  Mark told us that there were 2 trees down on our trail.  Bob took off on the snowmachine with Mark and they cut the trees off the trail.  Both Bob and I took out big teams.   I drove 15 dogs and he drove a 14 dog team.  I ran Arnie in single lead.   He did a great job!

We left just before dark.  15 dogs is a lot of power.  I have have to really stand on my drag mat hard so that they don't get going too fast.   We have a very steep hill that we go down.   I use the command "Easy...Easy".   I don't let them go flying down the hill out of control.  I try and get them to listen to me and go slow.   If you go too fast down a hill, you risk injuring your dogs.

Well, we had a great run.   I was in the lead with my team and we went out on the river.   I had only been out that way once and I wasn't really sure where I was going.   My dogs remembered the way and they were great at following the trail.  We went about 30 miles.  We only saw one other team out there and our head on pass was smooth.

Steven Greene asked about foxtails.   

  

 So, here is a picture of Spot modeling a foxtail.  It is very important to take care of all of the dogs on the trail.  Some dogs don't have a real thick protective coat.  When the temperature gets low, I will put coats on some of the dogs.  When the temperature gets really low I will put coats on all of the dogs.   The male dogs need protection of their privates from frost nip and frost bite.  I carry fox tails with me at all times in my sled.  I put a fox tail around the dog's abdomen and it is secured in place with velcro straps.  It gives the dogs a lot more warmth and protection and they won't get frost bite.