Leaders
Aedan, a young man doing a project about the Iditarod asked me about my leaders for the Iditarod. I figured I might as well share this with all of you.
Pretty swamped preparing for Tustumena and Quest fooddrops right now but all is going really well here. Sunny, beatifull day out, -20 C, nice for the eyes but not too easy on the hands.
Aedan, as far as your question goes about my leader, I have a lot of leaders in my team. This is important because for a dog it is mentally pretty tough to run in front of the team.
One of my main leaders in my Iditarod team is Custer. Custer is a very serious though very outgoing and happy dog. He's one of those dogs who always wants to please you and tries to figure out what it is he can do for you. Very smart he is too.
I have another leader Madison who is a little more crazy. Possibly the happiest dog I have ever seen. He never gets tired and always makes you go that little bit faster. He's not all that disciplined though and sometimes he'll just turn around to come socialize with me or the other dogs behind him wich makes for a big tangle of rope, harness and dogs and some good laughter on my part as I'm busy untangling the whole mess.
Another one of my leaders is Case. She's possibly the cutest dog I have ever trained. A very small, sweet lovely little doggie. She has only recently been promoted to become a leader so she doesn't know any commands yet but oh boy, she can run. She likes to be in the front and the boys like to chase her. As for now though she's still more sort of an unguided missile up there. Custer is doing a good job teaching her commands.
My best command leaders and hardest driving dogs are Remy and Sarge. Very, very smart dogs. They go off trail, I can steer them anywhere I want through the powder or over a lake. Anvil is sort of like that too.
Well, I could go on and on about these dogs. But these guys would be the main leaders of my Iditarod team.
Take care everybody, here I'm gettin ready for a grand finale!
Comments
Dear Mr. Sam, Thank you for
Dear Mr. Sam,
Thank you for taking the time to write to me about your lead dogs. I love the pictures of your dogs! I watched the video of the T200 race start today and I saw you and all your puppies. They looked really ready to go! They were barking and sounded so happy. I guess that's because they are bred to race!
I know you don't have time to answer questions right now because you are so busy getting ready for the Iditarod, but I was thinking about your puppies and how long they will be able to race. My Iditarod teacher told us that sled dogs usually live about 16 years and your dogs are mostly young huskies and malamuts so they will have lots of years to go, I guess.
My Mommy made me do my math by telling me that if I grow up to be a musher I'll need to be able to figure out how much food to pack for each drop bag. Hilarious huh?
I need to get back to my schoolwork now,
I'll be praying for you!
Aedan
By the way, it is a bit cold here in Ohio too - 10C this morning - we don't mind because we have warm winter coats sent to us by our grandmother in Canada. We don't have any snow though, but we are praying for some!