This Article Appeared in the August 15th Edition of the Seward Journal
Fall is slowly starting to creep in, and the dogs can tell. Cooler temperatures have begun settling over Seward and there is a tangible excitement hanging over our dog lot. The dogs know, like we do, that fall training is almost here – weeks? days? – and they are more than ready. On the rainy days when we have hooked them up for tours, the dogs are particularly loud, anticipating the longer runs that will soon come.
We’ve begun thinking about what this winter will mean for us too. Keeping dogs is no easy task, let alone Iditarod dogs. They are the Olympians of the dog world and have Michael Phelps sized diets. During Iditarod our dogs will burn 10,000 to 12, 000 calories a day, so we have to put even more back in to them. The summer months generally bring a reprieve from high food costs as the warm summer temperatures combined with the shorter runs mean the dogs burn fewer calories. Currently we are feeding one ton of dog food a month and as training begins that will only go up. Needless to say we have begun to think about fundraising to help alleviate our dog food costs.
We’ve also been slowly building new houses for our dogs too. Good houses mean the dogs stay warmer and are better protected from the elements. We still have another ten out or so houses to build before summer ends, but we are happy with our progress. The dog yard certainly is brighter as we’ve painted our houses brilliant shades of green, yellow, blue, pink, and red. The colors make the yard a fun place to be even on the rainiest of days Seward.
We’d like to remind the Seward community that we will happily take any freezer burnt meat or fish and to remember us this hunting season. Our dogs love bones and meat scraps. We also invite anyone who is interested in helping us fundraise to send us an email atTurningHeadsKennel@gmail.com