puppies

Gearing Up The Dog Team

Sarah · October 2, 2014 ·

This week has been full of projects. We end our days tired with movies and puppies playing at our feet. We’ve been working on our enclosed trailer. It’s a 24 foot trailer we are going to use to transport our dog team and will hopefully allow us enough room where we can bunk in it if needed. We started by putting a fresh coat of paint on the floor and are now building the dog boxes to go in it. We are hoping to have 24 boxes in total in our trailer. Because we live in Seward, we spend a lot of time on the road training our dogs. On the plus side, our dogs love to travel, can all run loose outside the truck, and get to experience tons of trails all around Alaska.

Training runs are starting to take up more and more time. I’m running 12 dogs per team and have been working on finding good partners for each dog. Great chemistry makes a great team.

We’ve both been trying to work with leaders who haven’t had as much experience at the front of the team. We’ve had a few surprises early on with dogs. Bud is a 4 year old male who has never made the race team but this year is showing incredibly potential. It seems like his gait has really changed and he’s finally found his feet.

When not running dogs, we’ve relaxed watching netflix and hanging out with our younger pups. They run around inside, crawl and climb over everything, and, in general, have way too much energy. We enjoy watching them learn and play together. It will only be a few months before they are running too — a good reminder of how quickly time flies. Nothing is permanent, our life is always evolving.

Today Seward saw heavy sheets of rain slipping from the sky. The dogs sat outside their houses looking up at the sky as if to ask, “Where is the snow?” Our friends, further to the north have posted about snow flakes and flurries. Some are even on sleds! For us, the snow remains up high, coating the mountains that peer down at our house and kennel.

All too soon we will see snow of our own.

Tying Up Loose Ends & Starting Fall Dog Sled Runs

Sarah · September 30, 2014 ·

September has come and gone, almost. We’ve spent most of the month tying up loose ends around the kennel, trying to finish all the projects we started but hadn’t quite finished yet. I’m excited that our new website is finally done. So many hours were poured into it– I hope it shows.

Travis and I have felt overwhelmed recently. Our dog sled runs haven’t quite hit a solid rhythm yet of wake, run, rest, run, sleep but we are slowly moving towards that goal. The little things that have left us feeling disorganized are starting to fall in place: the piles of stuff in our basement left over from last mushing season have finally been sorted through and are sitting on new shelves that we installed. Our summer glacier gear for our glacier dogsledding camp has finally found a home and been mostly put away. And, it seems, we are finally remembering the little things: cooking real dinners like Chicken Parm and spaghetti and meatballs, rather than simply getting by on ramen noodles and pizza which is what we ate for most of the summer. I wish I was lying but when you are busy it seems the first thing to go is a nice home cooked meal!

Travis has been excited because our second ATV we use on dog sled runs had a few upgrades made to it. Although the machine doesn’t actually run, it’s perfect for running dogs with. He recently found some new fenders for it on a trip to the dump – what a score. He then pulled the fuel tank out and made a thermos holder. Also new — the padded backrest. May not look it, but it’s a pretty sweet ride!

We are back to the quiet life of fall — no more tours or help around — and it feels good to finally sit down and settle in, the warmth of the wood stove radiating throughout the house after a dog sled run. Our Friday nights have consisted of netflix and puppies romping around through our living room.

During our quiet moments at home we’ve allowed the young dogs to run wild through the yard, their squirming endless energy exciting the kennel and keeping everyone’s tails wagging. They are so much fun right now. It’s a great age.

The dog sled runs we have gone on have shown lots of promise. We’ve been working with new lead dogs and some of our younger sled dogs who were born last summer. Today, we ran Marlowe who just turned a year old in lead. To say he was amazing would be an understatement. He is a confident young dog who simply loves to go. From the first moment we put him up front he was an absolute natural. I’m so excited to be working with him and a couple of our other young sled dogs this year. I had so much fun free running them and bringing them inside last year while Travis was training. Watching them develop athletically into talented sled dogs has been exciting.

It’s still warm out but we’ve started doing 10 mile runs with the team. Hopefully, we’ll be able to head north to longer trails soon. The loops we run at home aren’t long but they at least provide some training and there is plenty of water in creeks along the side of the road.

Well, Travis has finished his coffee so we are going to head out on the trail again. We’ve been having fun running together.

Chesney Goes Ice Skating

Sarah · November 24, 2013 ·

Last weekend, I spent Sunday afternoon ice-skating with a friend out at Tern Lake. It’s a fun little spot where the Seward Highway & Sterling Highway meet and is usually one of the first places to freeze. I admit that I have never skated out there before and am not actually much of a skater.

Still, I used this as an opportunity to introduce one of our shier pups and to get him more familiar with me. We were really hard to socialize are dogs and it is important that lots of socialization occur at a young age. We try our best to work with dogs that show early signs of being shy by working with them more frequently. We often try to do plenty of 1-on-1 time.

Chesney was born this summer. He is the son of Fidget and Copper, both finishers from last year’s Iditarod team, both incredibly eager dogs, and both a little reserved when it comes to social interaction. I expected several dogs from this litter to show more signs of being shy. Fortunately, they are all very friendly dogs.

Here is a video of Chesney following along on the ice:

PS sorry…my voice over came out really loud, you might want to turn your volume DOWN.

In the last week after this video was shot, Chesney has been really friendly and out going — all very positive signs.

A Day at Turning Heads Kennel in Pictures

Sarah · September 30, 2013 ·

A picture is worth a thousand words. I apologize in advance. I didn’t take pictures very regularly and often times started a project and forgot to show a finishing picture. Whoops! The things you learn…Anyways, without further delay…

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In the morning when Travis is gone, I wake to Max. He never goes on the bed with me while I am awake but always climbs on after I’m asleep. Strangely, he never wakes me although our bed sits maybe 3.5 feet high.

Max, sleeping on my bed. I also wake to this handsome fellow. Although he does not like having his picture taken. Usually he is either cuddled in my arms like some weird alive teddy bear or he is cuddled up with Max. Midnight is a strange cat and so is his girlfriend Noon. Don’t worry Cat Tales: Stories Of Cats in Dog Land is going to be a series of blog posts when I can get around to writing it. You won’t believe half the stuff I tell you though. Fact really is stranger than fiction. In the morning when I wake up it’s sunny so I go outside. We have four puppies: Bruce, Marlow, Flo, and Aldawin who I need to tie up. Bruce is very, very unhappy with this decision. Growing up sucks Bruce, believe me, I know! At least you have someone who brings you dinner and cleans up after you. The pained look on his face is nowhere near as bad as the pained look on my face…this dog sounds like nails on a chalk board. If he tried out for American Idol they would show his video because it’s hard to imagine a sound like that actually existing. Yes, it’s that bad…he is very cute though! After I tie them up, I let my younger puppies loose to play. The little puppies come over to say hi to Bruce. Bruce got to run loose shortly after this and play too. I had all the dogs loose. It was great! Bruce is pretty popular. Marlow! He’s so happy. That’s Posey (TBD) playing with him. Max is always a crowd favorite. Travis calls at this point and tells me that their are fish. Great. I end up putting the puppies away (they protest) and heading out. We’ve been getting fish recently from the Bear Creek Fish Weir and the Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association. They routinely help us fill our freezers and our dogs bellies with salmon. In return, we do our best to help them. Here are some pictures of us at work, gathering and freezing fish from the weir. We would like to thank both Cook Inlet Aquaculture Association and Resurrection Bay Seafoods for their help. We rely on these fish to help lower our food costs and as valuable food for the dogs throughout training and racing. Many of these fish will be cut up and sent out in our Iditarod drop bags as they are one of the dogs most favorite snacks. The salmon start off in this holding pen and are then taken out and are used for SCIENCE. When we get the fish, they are fresh out of the water. Sometimes they’ve been cut open. They are slimy. They are stinky. And you have to throw them. The tote below holds 197 fish. I know because we have to count them. The Weir writes us a ticket for the fish in case we get pulled over by Fish and Game. Also big thank you to Adventure 60 North and Rick Brown for letting me use their truck while ours is up in Willow! It was fun driving an old ford stick shift. You can see the fish below have been cut open. They were used to make baby salmon. They take the males and females, fertilize the eggs and then bring them to different hatcheries. They also have to check their kidneys to make sure they don’t carry a genetic disease that can be lethal to the young fry (what baby salmon are called). You can see that I have an empty tote in my truck. Unfortunately, the only way to move the fish is by hand. So I put on fish gloves and start huckin. It’s not long before I am knee deep in fish slime. The worse part is the closer you get to finishing the slimier you get because you have to reach in over the sides of the tote. It is pretty gross. It is daunting work. I come home to find the dogs relaxing in the sun, a tote of smelly fish in the back of the truck. They are not able to freeze them right away at RBS. The puppies are happy to see me, though I wake them from a very cute nap. And no, not all these puppies are from the same mom. They were born within 3 days of each other however and I like my dogs well socialized. Eep more fish! I had to go to RBS to drop them off for freezing…and you know what that means? Slime Fest 2.0! We have to take the fish and put them on trays to freeze. We freeze each fish individually. Pretty nice. It makes chopping them into snacks for the dogs a breeze! Then we have to take some of our already froze fish home…to do that we need a big box! We take all the frozen fish and put them in the box we made: That’s Kris, Travis’ brother-in-law. Without him it would be really hard to do this! His cousin Andrew is also a huge help. It really helps lower our dog food costs! Then we take the big box home: And then we get home and Sarah realizes there is no room. Anywhere…and I spend the whole day cutting fish up so I can fit it all in the freezer. Cut up fish takes up way less space then whole fish. A big thank you to Ian Beals, Travis’ younger brother, for coming over and helping me. Together, we probably cut up some 700 or 800 pounds worth of fish. Intense! What’s crazy is if I were to take a picture of my day tomorrow it would look NOTHING like today. I wasn’t very good at taking pictures at regular intervals. Maybe Next time I’ll do that…but I’m more of a writer anyways.

The Ebb and Flow of Things

Sarah · September 29, 2013 ·

It should be obvious enough that we are dog people. Our life revolves around our dogs: In the morning we wake to water and feed them, Then there is scooping the yard, running them, feeding them again, and if we can, running them again. At least that’s how the days go by this time of year. In the heart of winter it’s different, the days go by slower and longer, and in the spring it’s different too, perhaps more relaxed, but it’s not much different. Still even so time passes, not so much in the changing of the seasons but in the life cycle of our dogs.

We watch the puppies transition, first away from their mothers, then into the dog lot, and then, finally into harness. We watch their goofy progression as they learn how to manage their lines in the team and how not to chew on the gangline or their neckline and finally we watch as they come into a steady, rhythmic gate, their legs moving so swiftly and effortlessly you could balance a glass of water on their back.

The playful puppies Travis had when we first started dating now have the look of hardened athletes who know what competition. They are steadfast. They give their heart and soul on each and every run. They are more disciplined this year — and so are we. As they grow up and learn the rhythm of training, we grow up and learn how to train and live and balance running dogs with running a home and managing two businesses. I am honestly still not sure how we do it. I guess the way you do anything hard: one step at a time, then another, then another, then another. Progress seems slow but we are always moving forward.

The older dogs who once ruled the dog lot — Pilot and Hope — have gone on to help a neighboring musher and have left our yard for the winter.

When we dropped Pilot and Hope off Travis said few words, his sadness greater than my own for as many times as they had come to my rescue, I knew they had come to his more. Together they have travelled countless miles not only across the frozen wilderness but also across his childhood; Pilot and Hope had run almost every junior race with Travis and had helped him qualify for the Iditarod.

Last year, when picking out his Iditarod team, Travis choose to take Pilot despite the fact that he thought Pilot wouldn’t finish. “He always has my back,” Travis said when I questioned the decision. Pilot, sure enough, ran 700 miles with Travis and then broke out of the checkpoint when Travis left him behind. “I guess he wasn’t as tired as I thought,” Travis told me. “Some guy from the checkpoint had to go out on a snowmachine and bring Pilot back. He wanted to keep going with the team. I thought he hadn’t been feeling well. Guess I was wrong.”

As we drove away from Pilot and Hope’s new home, my eyes were full of tears. Travis told me, “Pilot and Hope are teachers.”

I nodded, thinking of all the fantastic dog runs I’d had with them both and everything I’d taken away from my time with them. How do you measure what a dog has taught you? Pilot and Hope got me through my first 200 mile race, The Tustumena 200. They were the old solidified backbone to my otherwise young, rookie dog team. They encouraged not only the young dogs who would later form the core of Travis’ Iditarod team to keep going, but they also encouraged me: I was intimidated by the intensity of what I had undertaken — two hundred miles of unending hills, without sleep, with only my dogs.

He continued, “They need a new musher, new dogs to teach. They know they are getting old. Would you rather sit around remembering all the awesome times you had when you were younger or would you rather keep having them? They aren’t fast enough to keep up with the young dogs they’ve trained anymore. I think they will be much happier here feeling like they are still A-team stuff.”

We’d seen this throughout the summer on tours and we’d seen it last winter too, especially with Hope. They weren’t running in the front anymore and though excited to go anywhere in the team it was always obvious to me that lead dogs, even when not up front, never stop leading.

Our dogs grow up and grow old and one day, we always hope its a long ways off, they pass on. We measure our lives by our dogs presences and their subsequent absences. Pilot and Hope are not gone; they have simply moved on to another kennel but I can’t help but feel that we are growing up and growing older too: we are no longer uncertain in ourselves or our young team — we are confident in what we have built.