Fall Training Continues

It’s beginning to look a lot like winter around here. I don’t dare to become to optimistic after last year but it is sure looking better so far. We have had snow on the ground here for over a week now and evening temperatures in the low twenties. It is suppose to rain tomorrow night and the next day so that could be the end of this round of snow but maybe it will hold up and become our base for the next snow. I have our new sledding trail just about ready for the season. A little more brush work and a temporary bridge for the stream crossing and I’ll be in great shape.

We ran a cart tour for a group of elementary school children yesterday. I had a great time and I think they all did as well. I did my digital slide show here in the cabin then we all went out into the dog yard to meet the pups. We harnessed and hooked up two teams with the help of Lauren and were able to take five children out at once. We did one of our typical five mile runs but stopped at the half way point to switch passengers. The dogs did great, they are loving the cooler temperatures and the snow on the ground always gets them excited.

Today Aiko (my twelve and a half year old Siberian) are off to visit Out and About; a local sort of day care for the elderly. Aiko became a certified pet therapy dog this summer. It’s his retirement job as he winds down his dogsledding career. I am going to be doing my slide show for them today so it will be a bit more work than the usual petting session.

That’s about all that’s new around here today. Keeping busy working with the dogs, a little drafting here and there and hope we can keep up with the bills!

Getting Started

I just started my day by setting up this blog. Now to begin recording the trials and tribulations of life with my family (both human and canine) here in rural Vermont.

A little about our fall training. I and the two women I hired to assist me with tours this winter have been running the dogs for eight weeks now. This fall has been very nice for training with cool temperatures being the rule. This is the first year I have had someone available to help me train on a regular basis and it is really paying off for the dogs. They are much stronger at this point in the season than they have ever been before. They are also running much more smoothly as a team. It's always a little rocky starting up with the dogs having been on vacation for a few months and new helpers. The first week brought a few minor injuries including some badly bruised shins for me (I'll save that for a later date...) and a some bumps and bruised for the help. We have around 120 mile logged so far with most of that being five to seven mile runs. We have done a few ten mile runs but I don't think we will go much higher than that for dry land training. I'll wait until we are running with sleds to bump the mileage up much more.

I'm very excited about the trail I have access to this winter for tours and training. I hope to have around fifteen miles of groomed trail for training and longer runs right at my tour location. It was a bit of a process setting up this site and took most of the summer sending emails back and forth. I had to rebuild a bridge in order to access the staging area and still need to do some work on the starting area in order to be ready for sled tours. The trail itself is in pretty nice shape but could use a little bit of brush work. I hope to get out there over the next week to do this. We could be on sleds any time now. It is raining right now but the forecast is calling for snow tomorrow!