8 dogs

first time out with 8 dogs. it's a bit different than with 4, especially when there are 4 puppies in the team ;-).
That was yesterday at the Devils Den.

rig training devils den, 11-29-09, puppy team

I slowly figured out how to upload a video in HD. what you can see here is maybe just one percent of the quality of the original video. the original is in 1080p and I'm telling the truth it is blu-ray disc quality! I hope I will getting better with those codecs and settings how to upload a footage in best possible quality. The position of the camera needs to be adjusted too, I know.


The three puppies are fast - they think they are sprinters ;-) that was a 5mile run. Pure Quest, the old lead dog cant keep up with them any more. But he still knows a lot more tricks.

bow hunter

two weeks ago I came across some friendly bow hunters while training the dogs on ATV

the pics are frame-shots from the helmet cam

there is a new dog in town

I named him WaYa (Cherokee for Wolf). now we have three wolfs in different languages ;-)
10 month old, never trained, heavily overweight for a pup, I give him to the end of the year to loose weight and to get harness broken. hope to get him to the same level as the other youngsters by mid February. very friendly to our kids
promising? according to the breeder YES, but we will see.

Here some pictures mostly of him in the big kennel run.

morning run on Thanksgiving day

click to see it in smugmug.

World Championship Dryland in Saguenay/ Canada

some pics:

blog format

somehow the format of my blog is screwed up. I hve no idea why and how. all the additional gadgets
are positioned always below the post. No matter if I use different templates.

If I cant fix it I will change to wordpress.

we tried out the new trail in Pineland, ME where the DESDC has a race next weekend - that trail is just great 15-20 feet wide, no real steep hills no sharp 180, the dogs loved it.

I went out with Luc on the bike, then with Quest, the old trusted puppy-trainer. He trained Wolk, Lobo and Lund on the rig , and than again with Luc, Kaillou, Chinook and Lund.

you see in the clip below how the puppies behave the first 300m, Thanks to Mark for un-tangle them.

Hopkinton 2009

the first little warm up for the season.

1dog bikejoring with Luc.


2dog bikejoring with Kaillou and Lobo.



Lobo created a little bit of a tangle the first 100m. He didnt really understand whats going on but then he was ok for a 10months old.


4dog rig with Luc, Kaillou, Lobo and Lund.
The old guys did their job, the two puppies where a little bit confused and run fast but didn't really pull of course. It was only to show them all of the excitement of a race atmosphere and for that purpose it worked well, good experience for the pups.

The surprise of the day was again Wolk. I did the 1k canicross with him and he not just run great, he did also some great passings. Good job for a 6month old.

puppies training video

a little video of last weeks run (1.5miles) with the puppies.
Lobo, Lund and Wolk.

Surprise of the day was Wolk, who was so excited and eager to run with the older guys.
with his 5.5 months he starts to keep up. no pulling of course but did well without any major tangle.
Don't be worry, the paved part is only 200m long.

resting

after a nice rainy morning run:

puppy training

some pictures from last week training up the "blueberry hills" behind in our backwoods. first time using the ATV.

and here now the first time out with all three puppies:

Quest takes the for a 1 mile ride. the puppies are Lund and his brother Lobo (8.5 months) and also Wolk (5.5 months)

the surprise of this very first trainings run on a rig is actually the little Wolk. he seems to be enjoy the run with the big puppies and the big boss - Quest, his grand grand cousin

more pictures here

Wolk

A week ago the latest member of team SnowRunner arrived at our kennel. Quest and Wolk are "related" they are grand-grand-cousins.


He is 4months old and comes from "Howling Spirit" in Wisconsin.



on a hike last Sunday at the Devils Den

Wolk and Lund

Together with Lund, Lobo and another pup from Germany he will build up the future team.

new kennel run

Two weeks ago, I finally finished a long time project and closed up the fence for an additional 1.5-acre enclosure.

Still I do not know how the solution with the fence going through the brook last over the seasons. We will see.

As for the first kennel, I used again the heavy-duty PP 7.5' deer fence. It is easy to handle and to staple/nail to the trees. I only have to run a couple of electric fence wires.

As you can see in the pictures below the dogs of course, love it in there. It is kind of free running. We let them in only once a day for one hour or so shortly before they are fed.

and also a little video:

new member of the team

team snowrunner has 6 members again:

His name is Lund, he is the brother of Lobo.
They are 6 month old now. He is adjusting nicely.

It took him a few days to warm up to us but he immediately felt at ease with the big dogs and then with Lobo. He is quite the talker and does not let up easily when he wants to play with one of the big boys.

Slowly he is getting used to the leash and we have been trying to take him for walks to see how he responds with the other dogs. It is great fun to see him zipping around the dog yard with the other dogs.

Lund and Lobo

very first live stream test

this is just a temporary test for a kennel camera.
what you see is the view from a first floor window into the kennel. ususally Quest rests in his house on the left.

sad just so sad

That I broke my right hand a week ago and can't train for the next 12 weeks is so unimportant now.

Lars died this Monday.



I hope he had some joyful days in his short life of only five months.

If there is snow on the other side of that bridge I'm absolutely sure he will lead a sled.

It is one thing if a pup dies with 8 weeks or so or if an old dog dies, but in these last three month Lars came so close to us that his loss really hurts.
We will always remember him.

training puppies

that's a picture from three weeks ago.
Quest my old trusted leader in front and the two pups in mini harnesses behind him.
We do 2-3 miles in that combination.
What a fun.

some clips from the Purity Spring race

And here the videos from our attempt to do the 4 dog class at the NESDC Purity Springs "Sled dog classic".
Both clips are pretty long and show almost the whole course. I cut only the really boring / slow sections.
But especially the video from Sunday's run gives you a pretty good impression about the trail and the excitement in such a short event. There were a lot of head-on-passings, passing and re- passing, a crowded turnaround and so on, you will see.
Since our focus is on "longer" skijoring/pulka races, the team is used to running on a heavy tobbogan-sled 8-20miles in training. So, the "short" 5miles was something different for us. But since I still have a stiff knee and can't stay on the skies and I wanted to do at least one more race this season Purity Springs was the choice.

As I already wrote, the temperatures were springlike in the 50's F (10-13°C), but a 2+feet hard packed, well groomed trail and a very dedicated crew made it possible to run even at 4:30pm, when our class started. At that time the trail was of course slushy and chewed up but still in good condition besides some water sections .

Here is the run fom Saturday:



Nothing special to say except I was surprised to see how long the switching of two dogs can take .

Sunday's run:



Much more exciting because first we started in reverse order and immediatley right after the 4dog pros. Therefore there is more to see.
You may realize one dog is missing from the start. Chinook was fine until I put the harness on him and I saw that he limped a bit so no question he had to stay at the truck.
You will see that I took Quest of the neckline because he was pulled a couple of times by the two youngsters and he was "neck-lining". Almost immediately he started to fall back and run next to the sled and I had to watch that I did not run in to him. The last mile or so now there were only 2 active pulling dogs, Luc and Kaillou. A lot of running/pushing for me but that's fine.

With 8 years Quest is actually not that old but he had a ton of injuries and surgeries in his life and runs very stiffly. So I have to accept that he slows down now. But again; he is an incredible command leader.

In the end I'm pleased with the performance of the two youngsters. It was the first time for them in"lead" in a race and they handled it well.
And with our new additions, the two Sepp puppies, there will be an all Seppala Siberian 4dog sprint team next year. So watch out folks

skijoring pictures from Purity Springs, NH

We went to the NESDC Purity Springs "Sled dog classic" last weekend.
Since I myself still can't stay on the skies I had to attempt the 4 dog sportsman class. More of that and some videos I will post within the next days.

The temperatures were springlike in the 50's F (10-13°C), but a 2+feet hard packed, well groomed trail and a very dedicated crew made it possible.
I took only pictures of the skijoring class but they had all classes from 1 dog Junior up to the open class.

On Saturday early morning the trail was still somewhat icy but doable for most of the skijorers.

Here some of the pictures:

Dillon's flying dogs :)

Sadie Therriault, second place over all.


Fran Plaisted


Johnn Molburg,
what you doing with that tounge, Johnn?


Jim Blair


Don Tibideau


Betsy McGettigan


Jim again


Kelley McGrath


Ed Clifford


Elaine Stasney


More of the pictures I took you can find here

liv's ride

befor I post some pictures from last weekends race in Purity Springs, here a very short video from Liv going out with us the Sunday before.



She is a toughy that little girl. First sitting for four miles in the sled and then on our way back she stood on the runners for four miles.









Unfortunately she wasen't allowed to enter the 1 dog junior 100m dash at Purity Springs last weekend because the NESDC requires the kids to be five years old. But she sayd she is rady for next year.

a short video

from the Boston Globe about the CAN AM sled dog race,
Christine Richardson of Canaan, NH came in 10.

lost and found

lost and found the video from Lake Placid last year ;-)



It was a pretty wet and muddy trail, but we had a lot of fun in Lake Placid:

Please welcome

the two new members of team SnowRunner:

the brothers
LARS and LOBO