Useful Post From The Past
Jan. 23, 2011:
CAN SPRING BE FAR BEHIND?
“Looks like there’s a lot of winter going on in other parts of the country, Chet,” Bernie says.
Uh-huh. We’re out on the patio behind our place on Mesquite Road. I’m lying in a nice patch of sunlight, feeling good.
“The Wall Street Journal here says that in the cold, small dogs, especially short-haired, inactive ones, often need some kind of coat when they’re outdoors.”
Coat? I have a coat already, nice and glossy today, as it happens.
“And here’s something I didn’t know. People use rock salt to melt ice, and it’s not good for dogs. It can hurt their paws, mouths and digestive systems. Even the supposedly pet-safe ones can cause problems if eaten in large amounts.”
What was this? Something new on the menu? I wait for Bernie to say more, but he doesn’t. Instead he has his face turned up to the sun, catching a few rays. Winter is what, again?
Tags: dog health, Wall Street Journal, winter
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 14th, 2015 at 8:48 am and is filed under Chet The Dog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
8:56 am on January 14th, 2015
I’m First!
9:01 am on January 14th, 2015
BearSpiritDog!
Good morning. I was waiting to pounce on first but BearSD was too fast for me.
Heading to the Greyhound Station with pillow and books.
9:03 am on January 14th, 2015
Chet and Bernie enjoy those rays…no patch of sunlight here.
Have a good trip, Dawson.
9:09 am on January 14th, 2015
Thanks Masquers! I’m looking forward to being where it is above freezing temperatures for a couple days.
9:15 am on January 14th, 2015
Good morning, BSD, Masquers and Dawson and all! Our mom says she remembers days like C&B’s. Miss them sometimes but she says having 4 seasons instead of 2 (green-6 wks and brown 46 wks).
Safe trip Dawson, hay a healthy shoulder be in your future.
Wednesday? Already? We’d better get mom in gear for the old fart market day 🙂
Have a welcoming Wednesday.
9:22 am on January 14th, 2015
Good morning. The weather here is not nearly as cold as last week, so we’ll (gladly) take it. That post by Chet sounds an awful lot like Siber-H.
Dawson,
where are you travelling to?To where are you travelling?9:30 am on January 14th, 2015
Oh, Siber Mr. H, I need to thank you for that lovely romp in the snow yesterday. It did my newfie heart good. I’m enclosing a newf-foto to show you how mush fun I had.
Your darling dozer, Darah Thea
9:31 am on January 14th, 2015
9:46 am on January 14th, 2015
HOH: Your time in Siber’s yard was spent wisely I see.
Hey, Howlers: Even warmer weather is on the way…for most of youse in fact.
9:48 am on January 14th, 2015
9:54 am on January 14th, 2015
The wind chill is minus eight here and the actual temperature is four. The sun is shining brightly.
Good morning all.
10:10 am on January 14th, 2015
That’s the good news…here’s the bad news…
– Weatherkat
10:16 am on January 14th, 2015
Rio: Thank you for the info about Gilmore Girls. It looks like they go to Yale in the first episode. Yale is beautiful. It reminds me of Cambridge.
10:20 am on January 14th, 2015
Catching up on yesterday–GO SNOWHOOK (and bite me, Insider).
C. Hobb and everyone else commenting on eating by the clock rather than the feeling of hunger: you never know when there’ll be a famine; might as well be prepared. (OK, so this may mean you won’t be able to jump the way you used to, but it would take you longer to starve to death.)
10:25 am on January 14th, 2015
Darah Thea–What a lovely likeness! I’m glad you had fun yesterday. WE had a discussion at the library (The Fault in Our Stars) that was heavily attended, despite doing a YA book. I was amazed!
I have a full sched. today and feel like accomplishing miracles–we’ll see how long that lasts.
Those of you dealing with cold and snow and whatnot, keep warm. It’s an icy 43.7F here, so I can sympathize even if the hardier among you laugh at me.
10:32 am on January 14th, 2015
DianeC: 43 degrees is no laughing matter here.
10:33 am on January 14th, 2015
Morning all.
Safe trip, Dawson!
And great snow sculpture Darah Thea!
We don’t know what happened, but at 5 am, we had a total panic, meltdown. We were crying and whining and trying to jump on Mama’s bed. In order to calm us down, she had to get up and put us in the bed with her. Then we settled and went back to sleep. Works for us!
But Mama is a little grumpy this morning. Hmmm
10:36 am on January 14th, 2015
B & Rio: How about Ordering Netflix for a month or so to watch the rest of the 7 Seasons of The Gilmore Girls, then canceling?…don’t know about youse, but Commercials Drive Us bonkers…especially 5 in a Row.
10:37 am on January 14th, 2015
Hey, I just read today’s post–very informative (plus I hear other things bad about rock salt–lingering aftereffects on the environment). To add to the overall sense of cold, I just checked some stock prices.
Someone here had tried to buy some Alibaba at the IPO–did you get it? Is it priced within reach now?
10:38 am on January 14th, 2015
Masquers–thanks for your support.
10:41 am on January 14th, 2015
Watch Gilmore Girls Online – Full Episodes of Season 7 to 1
http://www.netflix.com/Gilmore-Girls
10:43 am on January 14th, 2015
Diane, We are the ones who mentioned Alibaba, and Mom put in a “limit order”, just to test that method. She put a joke of a low bid, because she was not really trying to buy, but wanted to know how that worked as part of her job. It closed yesterday at $100 per share.
10:47 am on January 14th, 2015
DianeC: No, unfortunately, Alibaba was not purchased by someone here and we knew it was a big deal returning from Hong Kong last year.
10:48 am on January 14th, 2015
Also, we thought the petsafe ice melt was okay to use. But with the way Zeus eats birdseed, after reading Chet’s post, Mom thinks we won’t be using that this winter (she has to tread very carefully on the way to the barn nowadays though, because it is very very icy).
This is Mom’s last week in her cube at work. She has everything packed in boxes, as she will be moving to the “office of the future” next week. The “office of the future” consists of what would be better named a “shelf”, because that is about the size of her workspace. She will be sitting elbow to elbow with one of her co-workers, with the rest of her team sitting similarly, just behind her. The entire office is wide open, with nary a cubicle wall. The upshot: she fears she will no longer be able to keep up with this here blog, or have time to post on it. So please do not be concerned if you only hear from her when she works from home.
10:50 am on January 14th, 2015
Howlers: Another good example here of not listening to one’s intuition.
Riö: Looks like your friend has good reason to fear damage from the rock salt. Has she called the City?
10:52 am on January 14th, 2015
Gasp. O’Howlers, We Will Miss Youse in the Inbetwix Times.
11:09 am on January 14th, 2015
O’H and M–Hmm–I’m a fan of limit orders, but I guess O’H’s Mom’s bid was too low. When the market is down as now, I try to think of the whole business as a “Sale” with sale prices, but too many stocks aren’t thinking that with me…
11:11 am on January 14th, 2015
Diane, Barb does not buy any individual stocks but has a bunch of mutual funds. So when she just checked the financials, she was saying some bad words that were not fit for my ears.
Only good news here is that we are starting to get the moderate temps. Upper 20s today and upper 30s by Saturday. Heat wave!
We don’t use any of the deicers in the back yard, and if we did I would probably eat it along with the bird seed of which I am so fond.
11:31 am on January 14th, 2015
Howlers – oh dear. Office of the future does sound dreary.
We think we know what upset us this morning – Callie was just barking her head off outside. Mama went to check, and there was a small pack of coyotes right outside our fence line. They weren’t all that concerned about Callie either.
Coyotes. Shudder.
11:44 am on January 14th, 2015
Bear: Thank you for the link.
11:47 am on January 14th, 2015
Hello All,
Big Day here at the kennel. As some of you may know Blue Kat very generously sent us some Twix bars for the race. As I have a tendency to eat said bars before the race they mysteriously disappeared before I could accomplish this. None the less some new ones showed up in the mail today to replace said Twix bars so I can eat those in the meantime. Thank you Sharon.
On top of this though things got much better when a stunted dog sent us some cookies that were also supposed to be for Iditarod but those are now also gone. They were good but unfortunately there weren’t enough for the drop bags. Rio, I just have to keep taste testing these for quality. All of them require this I’m afraid.
In other less important news Philip finished the Copper Basin 300.:) He needed to finish this race in order to be able to compete in Iditarod. As I am seldom on this end of a race it was an interesting experience to watch the tracker move. Unfortunately I couldn’t sit still long enough so I went on a 200 mile run but kept in text communication with Vivian. For those of you who don’t know Vivian is a tremendous help who comes up from North Carolina to help as we really get ready for Iditarod. She showed up on Thursday and on Friday I sent her with Phil on the CB 300. Tomorrow and the rest of the week she goes along on one of my days. No rest for the jet lagged there.
Rebecca and I have spent months at this point teaching Philip how to run these guys and more importantly how to take care of them. Our mantra to him before this current race has been “1300 miles to Nome not just 1000″. It has been an interesting experience training my own team and also Phil. There’s been a few moments where I would grab the too excited version of Phil and tell him to settle down, other times where I would make suggestions and still other times of direct and guided instruction. I’ve never had a brother as I grew up with sisters but I would probably best equate the experience to something like teaching a younger brother how to do everything from tie his own shoes to ride a bike.
Still much remains to be done. While training, taking care of the kennel and concentrating on preparing for my own races before Iditarod I’m working on drop bags, preparing two schedules (one for myself and the other for Phil) and all the other ins and outs of getting ready. Upcoming in the next couple of weeks is the Knik 200 and the Tustemena 200 if there is enough snow. On top of that we have blood tests and ECG tests on all the dogs. Then of course mushers meetings, banquets and the pageantry that goes with Iditarod.
I am happy to note though that we’ve been running 80 mile runs now and are consistently running 50 to 60 mile runs in between. The team is strong, good attitude and I just genuinely love being able to go into the back country with these guys. They are almost ready for Iditarod.
Almost but not quite. As a side note to Chet, Bernie and Iggy. These guys are on my main team and are learning to camp still. I’ve found this is where their personalities do follow their namesakes. Iggy never stops barking and is always ready to go. Never resting. Bernie is a big strong and reliable character who I count on and always has something to say about the quality of the water when we camp. And Chet is something else. He’s a quiet dog who is always thinking about something. And then just as he seems to have the thought in place as in the books, it’s gone. You can see this process happen every time with him. So, he get’s distracted easy and forgets we’re resting when camping. Time will get all these guys ready though.
Which brings to mind a quick story that happened the other night….
While out training with the dogs I often stop through the kennel to feed or snack the team and then leave right away. I want the dogs to get used to being able to come into a safe place like home or a check point and then be able to mentally leave it when asked to. While doing this the other night as I was preparing to leave to finish an 80 mile run, out of nowhere Twig came running up to me. Twig has been my all star leader and is the daughter of Annabelle as well as the mother of Mae and Josephine who are all leaders. (feel free to insert a joke about strong female leadership here). At any rate I haven’t been running Twig much this year as she is getting older and I presumed slower. Somehow though she had gotten lose from Phil’s team who was also running at the time and tracked me down. At the time I was unable to get off my sled and secure Twig so off we went. All of us together.
What makes this memorable is not so much the act of her coming to me or staying with the team and maybe I’m the one reading too much into this but when Twig was running again with me, her pups and up front…. She just expanded happiness to the whole team. You could just see the joy in every step she took. Reasons why I love to run dogs.
So, that’s about it for right now. Things are coming together. The training wheels for Phil are slowly coming off as he learns to balance and I’m looking forward to this year’s Iditarod. Maybe Twig has one more in her with the main team after all.
Thanks much for your support and friendship and following run on sentences, fragments, run ons and so ons.
AJ
11:57 am on January 14th, 2015
Diane, when mom read your post she was at the Dr’s and laughed loudly (perhaps a head shrinker’s would have been better). It was the same here in TN but remember frigidness in SoCal.
T&G take care, those sneaky canines hunt in packs!
OH your “new” office sounds like a “pita”.
Mom made out like a bandit @ the market…$200 of goodies for &97 🙂
1:13 pm on January 14th, 2015
O’Howlers….I must comment about your soon to be cubicle to “shelf” workspace. Having been the on the work side of that sort of situation I can safely say that the noise level goes way up and concentration goes way down. What management gains in open oversite is lost to confusion. And THEN in a few years they decide maybe half type cubicles will cut down the issues they created and bring some baffeling and order to the workplace. And the office of the future becomes the office of the past….and so on and so on. Sorry, I am sure I am not telling you anything you don’t know, but the look back hit me so sharply that I could not help but commiserate!
1:30 pm on January 14th, 2015
ALR – good to hear from you! We have missed you.
1:30 pm on January 14th, 2015
ALR, Mom and her coworkers are not looking forward to the future. Heh! She said she doesn’t see that she will go back to more space, because she has continually had her space downsized since she began work at her company. Her first cube was huge, with 2 separate areas that she and a coworker referred to as the work office, and the parlor. The supposed purpose of this future is for collaboration, yet her managers have advised the purchase of noise-cancelling headphones. Go figure.
1:50 pm on January 14th, 2015
Chet, Good post this morning. We don’t have to worry much about rock salt here. Everyone’s attitude seems to be it will melt.
We got more snow during the night, but it is all rapidly disappearing.
HOH, Cute snow Newf.
Howlers, I will miss you guys. I hope the move works out okay for your mom.
I am laughing at Diane’s comment about the Insider.
I am not going outside because the snow is turning to water, gah
2:02 pm on January 14th, 2015
Siber Mr. H, so rude of that snow we had so much fun in…But, if you send me, me, me the water, I will wnjoy that too!
ALR, love hearing from you.
Melting ice and Snow with anything other than Temperatures and sun…not good
for man, critters or plants 🙁
Mom gets to go back to Dr tomorrow since the resident vampire was off. Oh well, she has had a great time shopping and with us 🙂
DianeC. when you posted about The FAult in the Stars, mom dropped everything and read it several more times. Yesterday she was shelf readinf in the “young adult” section and ran across the John Green books and did them and thought she would pick up several of them on her next foray. No coincidences so it must be ment!
3:03 pm on January 14th, 2015
In between the end of the teaching day and the beginning of a union negotiation. Sigh. Anyway, back when I worked in corporate land we got reconfigured. When they put us in a non-cubicle wasteland they called it the “sandbox”. Go figure. I could see how cats might be enticed by it. They would have been bitterly disappointed.
3:12 pm on January 14th, 2015
Martha, we would laugh if it weren’t so disgusting! Guess I am glad I spent 33 years in schools until standardized tests kept us from teaching: reading and thinking.
On the bright side, while at the Dr’s today a young woman stood up and yelled my name. Turns out she was a student in one of my last classes. I asked how she was, “Fine”. So I asked if she was married, had a family or was in school. To my surprise and joy she said that she was studying to be a teacher because I had always said: When you go to college. Not if you go to college. We hugged and I told her the world needed more young people like her. I wished her well.
Thank dog for good stories occasionally.
3:12 pm on January 14th, 2015
Thank you. Martha for continuing the good deeds.
3:39 pm on January 14th, 2015
Cube-less!….sniff!…My friend says she has a luxury suite at the busy-place right now, the only downside is she has to share with the bean eating hot-shot…grunt!…Her future holds a move back to the big office, where there is little to no room available. So she is worrit that she will end up in a room with a bunch of loud mouthed peoples too…gruffle!…The good news is no one knows when this move back will happen. She will have that treacherous highway drive again once the move is made…grump!…The prospect of becoming a vagabond is a very lovely thought these days.
4:14 pm on January 14th, 2015
Our mom is so (ooooo) glad she retarded years ago. No alarm clock, no time table, no schedule…you get it! Wunna-fulla, Wunna-fulla! Time to do whaever or not.
4:35 pm on January 14th, 2015
Rio, I forgot all about American Idol last night. And now tonight I will probably miss it too because we’re going down to Canalside where Sammy’s girl and mom are going to ice skate. I’m going to watch and drink hot cocoa.
It will be 9 degrees with a chill factor of zero. No problem, I would dress just like I was going skiing. Yes problem, all my ski stuff is down at Holiday Valley. I’m going to have to scrounge around for warm clothes.
4:37 pm on January 14th, 2015
Canalside is the old entrance to the Erie Canal.
4:47 pm on January 14th, 2015
MPM, not only does that sound like fun, it has some historical schnike…15 miles on the Erie Canal..We’ve hauled some barges in our day!
4:49 pm on January 14th, 2015
And every bridge on the place we know, from Albany to…………BUFFALO! Wowser, y’all live in some really neat places!
5:03 pm on January 14th, 2015
MPM, how much of the canal is open now a days?
5:20 pm on January 14th, 2015
Hi, all. Mom is trying to catch up, but gets home and as soon as she relaxes, she falls asleep! Hopefully, tonight she can stay awake a little later.
It has been cold and rainy here. Low 40s for the high for about a week. Not used to that for sure.
5:25 pm on January 14th, 2015
Hi BooBear – no worries – we are glad to see you and your mom whenever you get a chance.
MPM – our idea of winter sports is the drinking cocoa part, without the being outside freeing part!
5:32 pm on January 14th, 2015
HOH, the entire Erie canal is open. It’s now a recreational waterway. About 100 years ago, the entrance to the canal was moved. It’s the old entrance, now unused, that was excavated.
Conveniently, the old canal entrance was covered over and Memorial Auditorium was built on top of it. That was where the Sabres played hockey for many years. After the Aud was razed, the ice making beneath it was left there. So now that ice-making equipment is making the ice on the old canal.
5:32 pm on January 14th, 2015
We forgot to thank the Weatherkat for the nice (first) forecast. (Whispering) we are ignoring the second one.
5:45 pm on January 14th, 2015
Idol!…The show we watched last night was from last week…snort!…Tonight I am planning on watching it as it unfolds in tv time. As there are as many commercials in OnDemand as there are normally. I believe the auditions continue tonight and tomorrow night as well…wheeze!
5:46 pm on January 14th, 2015
ALR: So Good to Hear from You!
Along with C.Hobbit, you are one of the Early Pioneers on this here Blog.
6:49 pm on January 14th, 2015
HOH,O’H, Siber-H–(It’s H-time!) Condolences re: melting snow, Dr. visits, and ever-shrinking work environment. I’m not sure who decided that inadequate workspace would enhance productivity, but there should be plenty of evidence to refute it by now. You have my sympathy.
If anyone else (besides me) is P.G. Wodehouse fan, I recen tly finished Sebastian Faulks’ “Jeeves and the Wedding Bells”. It’s described as an homage, and truly is as described. I very much recommend.
8:10 pm on January 14th, 2015
MPM, so we can sing “and every inch of the way we know, from Albany to Buffalo”. and still be semi politally correct? Low brige, every body down. Low bridge for we’re goin throught a town. And you’ll always know your neighbors and you’ll always know your pals, if you’ve ever navigated on the Eire Canal.
8:38 pm on January 14th, 2015
I got back at 8:45 so I’m watching Idol. Lots of pictures and I’ll post some tomorrow. HOH, the Erie Canal is still Albany to Buffalo, just to a different spot in Buffalo.
8:41 pm on January 14th, 2015
8:15 – I didn’t miss much.
8:43 pm on January 14th, 2015
Hey guys, still behind of course, waiting for pups to get bigger. I get to see pups on the 31st! Anyway, anyone got an in with this sheriff’s office? I want one of these. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/ODD_SHERIFF_RUG_ERROR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
8:58 pm on January 14th, 2015
WE trust in dogs more than gods, they come through!
8:59 pm on January 14th, 2015
You know it!
9:01 pm on January 14th, 2015
How do we love thee? Let me count the ways. We love to the lots of stuff, so keep itr comming.
9:11 pm on January 14th, 2015
MollysMaw!….Good job getting home in time for some Idol!…snort!…It just started here. Kansas City tonight!…chuffle!
9:21 pm on January 14th, 2015
Squeeze Box!…snort!….Did you catch the blue-haired girl with the accordian? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but she was most excellant!….Woooooo!
9:35 pm on January 14th, 2015
Diane C: I loved P.G. Wodehouse and will try and read your recommendation.
At the library today shelving for 2 hours, I met someone who volunteered that she had read all the Chet and Bernie books. She hadn’t checked out the blog so I told her all about it and that I was the only Alaskan on the blog. When I mentioned that some posters give a voice to their animals on the blog, she mentioned that she had a cat (a Russian Blue) whose voice would be too annoying to do. Heh.
9:38 pm on January 14th, 2015
Ahhh, it is so nice to put in a word or two here and then find you dear people so welcoming to this infrequent poster! I stop by most every day as I love Chet and you all. Maybe I should speak up more often! Thanks for taking me in stride!
9:51 pm on January 14th, 2015
Buddy&Leno: I love that rug!
DianeC: Big P G Wodehouse fan here.
CHobbit: An annoying cat. How unusual! (I’m have to google Russian Blue cat.)
9:56 pm on January 14th, 2015
C.Hobbit, The Corgies would say the Russian Blue would fit right in with the Herbs. (annoying)
ALR, Hello! Please do join in with us.
10:11 pm on January 14th, 2015
CHobbit!…Is it not enough that you let your own house become over-run with Kats?…grunt!…Now you are inviting more annoying Kat voices to this blog. Fur Shame!…wheeze!
10:47 pm on January 14th, 2015
Ooooh, the Russian Blue is a beautiful cat!
11:03 pm on January 14th, 2015
So Tupper & Gilly and Callie saw coyotes this morning! Reminds me of my coyote story….(you may be sorry you got me going today!) I used to take small groups of women into Yellowtone and most often they had not been there before. Because I was the leader I got to be the boss, and I must admit to relishing that part! One night in the dark dark we were walking from a wonderful dinner at the Old Faithful Inn to our cabins along a boardwalk. Suddenly something flashed past our legs so fast we could not even tell what it was! But it had fur. We went into one of the many General Stores nearby the walk because who doesn’t like to bring home t-shirts and such. When we mentioned the animal that dashed right in between us we were informed it was the Old Faithful Geyser Basin Coyote, and we had had an encounter of the semi-wild kind! At least it wasn’t a bison.
11:06 pm on January 14th, 2015
And I must also mention I had a Russian Blue cat for 23 years. He was surely one of my best friends. I guess he was not true Russian Blue, though, as his Mother was a long haired Siamese. Now we live with two Miniature Schnauzers.
12:35 am on January 15th, 2015
Hello All,
Big Day here at the kennel. As some of you may know Blue Kat very generously sent us some Twix bars for the race. As I have a tendency to eat said bars before the race they mysteriously disappeared before I could accomplish this. None the less some new ones showed up in the mail today to replace said Twix bars so I can eat those in the meantime. Thank you Sharon.
On top of this though things got much better when a stunted dog sent us some cookies that were also supposed to be for Iditarod but those are now also gone. They were good but unfortunately there weren’t enough for the drop bags. Rio, I just have to keep taste testing these for quality. All of them require this I’m afraid.
In other less important news Philip finished the Copper Basin 300.:) He needed to finish this race in order to be able to compete in Iditarod. As I am seldom on this end of a race it was an interesting experience to watch the tracker move. Unfortunately I couldn’t sit still long enough so I went on a 200 mile run but kept in text communication with Vivian. For those of you who don’t know Vivian is a tremendous help who comes up from North Carolina to help as we really get ready for Iditarod. She showed up on Thursday and on Friday I sent her with Phil on the CB 300. Tomorrow and the rest of the week she goes along on one of my days. No rest for the jet lagged there.
12:38 am on January 15th, 2015
Hello All,
Big Day here at the kennel. As some of you may know Blue Kat very generously sent us some Twix bars for the race. As I have a tendency to eat said bars before the race they mysteriously disappeared before I could accomplish this. None the less some new ones showed up in the mail today to replace said Twix bars so I can eat those in the meantime. Thank you Sharon.
On top of this though things got much better when a stunted dog sent us some cookies that were also supposed to be for Iditarod but those are now also gone. They were good but unfortunately there weren’t enough for the drop bags. Rio, I just have to keep taste testing these for quality. All of them require this I’m afraid.
In other less important news Philip finished the Copper Basin 300.:) He needed to finish this race in order to be able to compete in Iditarod. As I am seldom on this end of a race it was an interesting experience to watch the tracker move. Unfortunately I couldn’t sit still long enough so I went on a 200 mile run but kept in text communication with Vivian. For those of you who don’t know Vivian is a tremendous help who comes up from North Carolina to help as we really get ready for Iditarod. She showed up on Thursday and on Friday I sent her with Phil on the CB 300. Tomorrow and the rest of the week she goes along on one of my days. No rest for the jet lagged there.
Rebecca and I have spent months at this point teaching Philip how to run these guys and more importantly how to take care of them. Our mantra to him before this current race has been “1300 miles to Nome not just 1000″. It has been an interesting experience training my own team and also Phil. There’s been a few moments where I would grab the too excited version of Phil and tell him to settle down, other times where I would make suggestions and still other times of direct and guided instruction. I’ve never had a brother as I grew up with sisters but I would probably best equate the experience to something like teaching a younger brother how to do everything from tie his own shoes to ride a bike.
Still much remains to be done. While training, taking care of the kennel and concentrating on preparing for my own races before Iditarod I’m working on drop bags, preparing two schedules (one for myself and the other for Phil) and all the other ins and outs of getting ready. Upcoming in the next couple of weeks is the Knik 200 and the Tustemena 200 if there is enough snow. On top of that we have blood tests and ECG tests on all the dogs. Then of course mushers meetings, banquets and the pageantry that goes with Iditarod.
I am happy to note though that we’ve been running 80 mile runs now and are consistently running 50 to 60 mile runs in between. The team is strong, good attitude and I just genuinely love being able to go into the back country with these guys. They are almost ready for Iditarod.
Almost but not quite. As a side note to Chet, Bernie and Iggy. These guys are on my main team and are learning to camp still. I’ve found this is where their personalities do follow their namesakes. Iggy never stops barking and is always ready to go. Never resting. Bernie is a big strong and reliable character who I count on and always has something to say about the quality of the water when we camp. And Chet is something else. He’s a quiet dog who is always thinking about something. And then just as he seems to have the thought in place as in the books, it’s gone. You can see this process happen every time with him. So, he get’s distracted easy and forgets we’re resting when camping. Time will get all these guys ready though.
Which brings to mind a quick story that happened the other night….
While out training with the dogs I often stop through the kennel to feed or snack the team and then leave right away. I want the dogs to get used to being able to come into a safe place like home or a check point and then be able to mentally leave it when asked to. While doing this the other night as I was preparing to leave to finish an 80 mile run, out of nowhere Twig came running up to me. Twig has been my all star leader and is the daughter of Annabelle as well as the mother of Mae and Josephine who are all leaders. (feel free to insert a joke about strong female leadership here). At any rate I haven’t been running Twig much this year as she is getting older and I presumed slower. Somehow though she had gotten lose from Phil’s team who was also running at the time and tracked me down. At the time I was unable to get off my sled and secure Twig so off we went. All of us together.
What makes this memorable is not so much the act of her coming to me or staying with the team and maybe I’m the one reading too much into this but when Twig was running again with me, her pups and up front…. She just expanded happiness to the whole team. You could just see the joy in every step she took. Reasons why I love to run dogs.
So, that’s about it for right now. Things are coming together. The training wheels for Phil are slowly coming off as he learns to balance and I’m looking forward to this year’s Iditarod. Maybe Twig has one more in her with the main team after all.
Thanks much for your support and friendship and following run on sentences, fragments, run ons and so ons.
AJ
12:39 am on January 15th, 2015
Rebecca and I have spent months at this point teaching Philip how to run these guys and more importantly how to take care of them. Our mantra to him before this current race has been “1300 miles to Nome not just 1000″. It has been an interesting experience training my own team and also Phil. There’s been a few moments where I would grab the too excited version of Phil and tell him to settle down, other times where I would make suggestions and still other times of direct and guided instruction. I’ve never had a brother as I grew up with sisters but I would probably best equate the experience to something like teaching a younger brother how to do everything from tie his own shoes to ride a bike.
Still much remains to be done. While training, taking care of the kennel and concentrating on preparing for my own races before Iditarod I’m working on drop bags, preparing two schedules (one for myself and the other for Phil) and all the other ins and outs of getting ready. Upcoming in the next couple of weeks is the Knik 200 and the Tustemena 200 if there is enough snow. On top of that we have blood tests and ECG tests on all the dogs. Then of course mushers meetings, banquets and the pageantry that goes with Iditarod.
12:41 am on January 15th, 2015
I am happy to note though that we’ve been running 80 mile runs now and are consistently running 50 to 60 mile runs in between. The team is strong, good attitude and I just genuinely love being able to go into the back country with these guys. They are almost ready for Iditarod.
Almost but not quite. As a side note to Chet, Bernie and Iggy. These guys are on my main team and are learning to camp still. I’ve found this is where their personalities do follow their namesakes. Iggy never stops barking and is always ready to go. Never resting. Bernie is a big strong and reliable character who I count on and always has something to say about the quality of the water when we camp. And Chet is something else. He’s a quiet dog who is always thinking about something. And then just as he seems to have the thought in place as in the books, it’s gone. You can see this process happen every time with him. So, he get’s distracted easy and forgets we’re resting when camping. Time will get all these guys ready though.
Which brings to mind a quick story that happened the other night….