Racing Adventures

I got a few pics a couple of the races we made it to this season. After the incident at Kortright we still managed to make it out to Haliburton and Apsley where Ronan raced.

The beginning of the race Day 1 at Kortright



Ronan showing his intensity as a lead dog!



After the incident I couldnt steer the sled properly while my arm was healing. Ronan, true to his nature wanted back in that harness whether or not I was coming along LOL A friend of mine was nice enough to let him run lead on her team at Haliburton.

Me hanging on to Ronan at the start while he sings to the world that he is back and raring to go! You can see healing scabs on the left side of his face from the fight. The vets did an AMAZING job of patching him back together but I'm pretty sure he will have a lasting scar. The dog next to him is Natalie and the two dogs in wheel are Demon and Nikki



And they're off!!



This was Day 2 of Haliburton



The way home form Haliburton was....interesting. The coolant line blew on my truck stranding us on the side of the highway. I'm a CAA member but because of the trailer it would have cost $800 to tow us back to Kitchener (we were still 2 hours away). Thankfully they sent us pretty much the most amazing tow truck driver ever!!!! He was able to fix it right there on the side of the road with my tools for no charge!!!! We poured all the dog water into the radiator and he escorted us to the nearest Wal-mart where he helped us get coolant and put it in the truck for us. What should have been a 3.5-4 hour drive ended up to be an 8 hour adventure!

Me and the tow truck driver



Parked at Wal-mart. The dog in the middle is Tundra, my friend/dog handler's 8 month old pup. We're hoping she will be running next to Ronan next winter.



Isn't she cute??? Ronan adores her!



Hopefully I'll get the pics from Apsley soon!

She is adorable. Ronin looks fantastic as usual. So sad I didn't get to visit in person.

Ronan looks none the worse for wear...what an attitude he has! Hope your arm heals quickly!

I LOVE that second pic and sounds like you had quite the trip!!

What was the previous incident? I keep missing threads on here . . .

You quite the pretty pack going on there And they're all workers to boot! I'd love to see the pictures from as many races as you can bear to post

That is very cool, beautiful dogs!

GLad your friend let him run. Real sorry about your arm.

Great group! Your dogs look absoutly amazing, as usual.
I hope your arm heals quickly.

Now THAT is what a happy husky looks like.

Great pics!

And I, too, am curious as to what happened. But I hope all is well now!

Dekka, we're sad we missed you too!!!! Vanessa and Tundra were looking forward to meeting you! BUT I'll see you in a couple days none the less

Zoom, that dog is something else!!!! Even right after the fight, although his face was gaping and bleeding everywhere he wanted to keep going down the trail. He was so upset that he had to turn around and go back to the truck!

Sis, that's my favourite one too! Ronan looks so animated!

Valkyrie, thanks! I'm a big believer in keeping working dogs employed LOL

Romy, nah can't you tell that this sport is abusive and all us mushers just beat and starve our dogs to make them run faster?? LOL

For those that missed what happened, I had a 3rd dog named Skelator (the one next to OC in the Kortright pictures). Ronan and Skel HATED each other from day 1 but I was able to keep them seperated and they still worked fine in harness together during training. Day 2 at the Kortright race though we had a bit of a hiccup on the trail which turned into Skel and Ronan getting into a HUGE nasty fight. This was no minor argument, this was the fight to end all fights. I jumped between to separate them (remeber this was on the trail so all 3 dogs were attached together by their harnesses and collars so I had to act fast or there would be even worse damage). I did manage to break them apart and keep them apart until help arrived but Ronan and I still had to go to the hospital (well, him to the vet of course). I wrote a more in-depth post on the incident here http://www.chazhound.com/forums/t93424/

How'd you get involved in dog sledding? Taught? Picked it up as you went? What type of training was involved if any?

I have thought I'd like to give it ago for the longest time. I may not have huskies but I've got some pretty eager Border Collies. Hmmm, the possibilities!

Paige, Border Collies are actually quite popular in the dogsledding world, especially in sprint racing! They are super smart, fast, reliable and if you fall off the sled they'll actually stop when you tell them to! LOL Some Alaskan Husky lines have infused Border Collie blood too. BCMoffat on here runs her Border Collie, Cricket in harness and he actually does quite well! Took a little extra training than the Huskies for him to "get it" but once he started figuring out what was being asked of him he soared!

I started out 6 years ago with OC and a sled LOL I taught him the commands myself and to stay out front. My dad introduced me to a local musher after his basics were down and she let me hook him up with her experienced dogs. That's the best way to train the dogs, let them learn by doing it with ones who already know! That year the sledding bug bit and I itched to go farther and faster than I could with just one dog pulling me around. Enter Ronan and things just kept progressing from there. If you can find someone who is already involved in your area who will let you hook your dogs up with theirs things will be a LOT easier. Also if your dogs are trained to heel or loose leash walk, you'll need to do some extra training to break them of that when in harness. The thing to remember is that not all dogs (whether or not they are Husky) are cut out to want to pull. Also sometimes they just aren't cut out to be leaders so while they might cower or seem disinterested pulling on their own or without another dog in front of them, they might suddenly be the hardest worker on the team if you find another dog to tuck them in behind. Skelator was like that. I tried putting him next to Ronan one time but he kept darting from side to side and hardly put any weight against the harness. His tail was also straight down the whole time and he was nervous. I went back to the yard, switched lines so that Ronan was up front by himself and Skel was behind him and it was as if I hooked up a whole different dog!!! He threw all his weight against the harness, his tail was up, he was eager and excited, etc.