Stopping...camping...habits. Getting yearlings ready to race.

How fast time flies. Seems like last week I was sending in my entry form for Iditarod, and now we are under 60 days from the start! Yikes!!

The racing season is in full swing with the first race of the season occurring January 3rd. We entered two teams in the Solstice 100 which took place in Two Rivers. This was a big deal as it was the first race for the 6 yearlings in the kennel. To keep the goofiness factor to a minimum, the yearlings were divided equally between the two teams.

All of the training we had been doing up to this point would hopefully pay off, and it did.

The yearlings (and the rest of the dogs) were extremely well behaved and everyone acted like professionals. Phew...one race down. 3 more to go. But more on those later.

How did we get here with these young dogs? How did they learn how to act like the big dogs?

When the Chistochina River is frozen up and safe to travel on, we put in a 10+ mile trail that allows us to expose dogs to river running in a safe manner that is close to home should anything happen. In this picture you can see a dark line in the middle. That is the main channel of the river that is still wide open.

One thing that we do a lot of is camping. We camp A LOT. And we camp for different lengths of time after different lengths of runs during different times of the day. I wrote earlier about teaching the yearlings how to camp. After they learn the basics, we go out and practice it on the line, meaning no snub line to put them on.

Just like I do in school, a yearling is next to an older dog who will help keep the young one in line. The yearling also looks for guidance from the veterans. The veteran dogs also "get after" the yearlings when they dork off. A quick snap or a low, rumbling growl lets them know they better knock it off.

Camping at sunset in the Excelsior Creek valley.

Camping with one team is a lot different than camping with two teams. With one team, the dogs are just cuing off you, their musher, and the other dogs. With two teams, the dogs start looking at each other and cuing off them. This can be an issue at checkpoints, especially early on in races. This is one of the more difficult things to train for us.

Darrin and I rarely run teams together, at the same time. My work schedule, being a teacher my days are long, doesn't allow for long runs after school. Having only 24 dogs in the kennel this  year, a team gets run everyday. Taking two teams out on the weekend each day would throw this off. Plus it allows Darrin to do stuff around the house and allows me to have the trial system to myself, which is very nice indeed.

The yearlings learn how to camp around the second team.

On the Solstice 100, both of our teams ended up being side by side. We hadn't really thought about that happening. There were some minor issues due to "sugar snow" which made it very difficult to set the leader hooks. Once the dogs received their straw, they all took the cue and laid down.

The older dogs wasted no time cleaning their feet and curling up for a 4 hour nap. This is something that has been a real focus in training this year with the yearlings....sleep, even if you're not tired. Don't play with your neighbor, chase your tail, or chew on anything. Again the yearlings looked at the experienced dogs around them and followed their lead. All of the dogs know the routine when we camp. Doing the same thing every single time, in the same order, lets them know what is going on and what is expected of them. You get food, you eat. You get straw, you sleep. Booties off means we are staying a while. Getting booties back on means we will be leaving soon. The biggest cue of all is the donning of the parka. These guys know that it is go time when we put our parka on.

At a checkpoint there are all sorts of goings on that can easily distract the young dog. This is especially true when teams start leaving the checkpoint.

Thankfully, our teams stayed calm and kept sleeping, lifting their heads now and again to watch a team leave or to check out what all the excitement was about. About an hour out from my departure time, I started my "leaving routine." Slowly I started to boot the dogs, and hooking up their tugs. Casually, I removed the leader hook. About 5 minutes out, I went back to the sled and stood on a hook and the bar brake. Some of the dogs were standing patiently, others sitting, and Kayak, well Kayak was laying down like he does. He is Captain Conserve My Energy. The checker gave me the 5 second countdown, I gave the command and off we went like a shot!

I cannot possibly express how exciting it was to see the team act so professionally! And those yearlings! You couldn't tell them apart from the veteran dogs. All of that training and hard work had paid off.

Yearlings camping at night at a remote camping location.

Cooker (left) and food bucket (wrapped in insulation) behind the sled. A cooker is used to make water that is then used for the dog food. Hot water "cooks" the frozen meat and makes a nice warm meal for the dogs.

Camping in the high country.

In training we try to expose all the dogs to situations in which we might encounter in a race. This includes breaking trail, taking short breaks on the trail, snowshoeing in front of the team, passing from behind, head-on passing, running on rivers, glare ice and through open water and overflow, just to name a few. Of course, there is no way that anyone can train for everything. (Here is a link to explain more about what overflow is)

Below are some pictures that show some of the experiences we have with the dogs in getting the yearlings ready to race.

No trail? No problem.

In open areas we have around here, like on Sinona Lake, we take the opportunity to call the dogs off the trail and run where there has never been a trail. Sometimes, in both training and in racing, you will come across a situation where you need the team to leave the marked trail to go around either a hazard or some sort of obstacle. For example, overflow, or teams that you need to pass etc.

Cruising along the edge of Sinona Lake

Trail and snow conditions are not always the same. Sometimes the trail is hard packed, drifted, soft, covered in inches, or feet, of newly fallen snow, sugar snow, mashed potatoes....you get the idea. We keep our trails open using the dogs. At times we haul pallets behind the team as they break out the trail. Other times they are up to their knees and elbows in crusty drift snow, breaking out the trail.

The first time the yearlings encountered punchy trail, they were unsure of their footing. They wanted to keep pulling hard but would punch through the trail. Kind of like rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time. After a few miles, they all figured it out.

Camping on the trail.

Dogs love straw. Lots and lots of straw. In racing situations, especially out on the trail, lots of straw isn't always an option. Mushers carry straw with them, but typically not an entire bail all the time. So dogs need to learn to sleep on the straw that they are given, In come cases spruce boughs are also used and provide just as awesome bedding for the dogs.

Fozzie and Norbert in lead, holding out the team for a short break on the trail.

Not all stops on the trail are long, or short, or involve straw. Mixing it up keeps dogs from thinking it's always going to be the same, and makes them tune into the musher and the cues given. In the picture above, we stopped for about 20 minutes. I tossed everyone a snack, changed out some booties and had a little snack myself. You can see in the picture some of the dogs are laying down. The first one is Titan and the one behind him is Kayak, his uncle.

Two teams camped out in the high country

Red the super goof

If you look at the picture of Red, you will notice he only has booties on his back feet. Sometimes we boot all the feet, sometimes none of the feet, other times back feet or feet of dogs who needs booties. There are lots of variable that goes into booting dogs such as temperatures, snow conditions, trail conditions, are we going to cross water soon and so on. 

Glacier and Scooter...happy girls.

Oh Nix

Later in that same run, the conditions changed and they dogs started to snowball. So we stopped and booted all the feet. (As seen above).

Team crossing an ice bridge on the Chisto River.

We live right on the Chistochina River. This allows us to expose the dogs to river conditions that they will likely encounter on races. Rivers change daily with the given daily conditions. These changes keeps us all on our toes as we kinda know what to expect, but not exactly.

We have about a 10 mile trail out on the river that we took small teams out on. We kept their booties off to allow the dogs to get traction on the ice. If they had boots on, they would all look like Bambi on ice out there, slip sliding every which way.

On this little loop there was overflow on top of glare ice, glare ice, snowy patches, ice bridges over the man channel, and open water. I posted some videos of the dogs crossing water on the KMA Kennel Facebook page. Click here to watch.

This weekend as we head down the Copper Basin 300 trail, all the training and preparation will, hopefully, come together and lead the dogs to a successful race. This race is another piece to the training program as we get ready for the ultimate goal of the season, Iditarod. Our goal is always to have as much fun as we can, and keep it fun for the dogs.

Glare ice with pock marked snowy patches.

Jumbo (on the right in wheel) leans against his girl Hopper to help keep upright on the slippery glare ice.

The trail was drifted in in spots. You can see the water seeping in from the right. Later this froze and created some super smooth, slickery ice to cross.