Ahh....Quiet and Crashless

I finally recovered my courage and wherewithal last night enough to take the dogs out for a run with the sled (by myself.)  When I got there I was pleasantly surprised to find, for once, that there were others at the trail at 9 pm on a Thursday night.  In fact, one of them was Eric.  He had just done 14 miles with an 8 dog string on his Hans Gatt sled.  After some pleasant chit-chat I began to hook my dogs up and it struck me -- What nice dogs I have!  I don't mean to brag here...I just mean that they're exactly what I had in mind when I began putting my team together.  What I mean is:

 

• Zed is a calm, composed, and totally collected leader.  He takes commands well and has impressed me with his smarts and his willingness to run single lead and hold the line out when I'm hooking up. 
• Balu is my happy guy who can also run lead and not much ruffles him. 
• Calvin wants to be up front but he doesn't have all of the knowledge yet -- but he will learn.  He is eager to please and is bonded to me. 
• Clover is a true work-horse and is sweetness all over.  She likes to ride in the car standing in the cargo area with her back feet and with her front feet resting on my shoulder (most of her weight is on my seat). 
• Indi is still reluctant to do a whole lot but he does what I ask, and he is so danged cute and such a great house dog that I just can't complain about him. 
• ALL of my dogs stand nicely when we stop on the trail.  So far there is no harness banging and I haven't even really needed a snowhook.  (Of course I have set one.)  They stop when I say "whoa" and they wait for me to tell them it's ok to get going again.
• They are all learning to be quiet at feeding time.

I can't complain!  This is my "dream team".  That's not to say that they won't run my sled into trees, or leave me behind on the trail if I dump the sled even if I'm screaming "whoa!" ...I'm sure they will.  After all, they're dogs.  I just mean that I love these guys and they are everything I had wanted and more.

 

Our run last night went great.  I think my dogs think they're part of a sprint team -- they loped for all four miles that we ran.  <grin>  Somehow I think that they'll slow down when we get back to doing 10+ mile runs.

 

In other news, Bonnie has told me that DeeDee's temperature is down to 98.5 F.  I see her whelping in the imminent future!  I'm gonna be a grandma!!  I will post pics as soon as they are available.

 

Happy Friday!