Sun Nov 5 Fayth's First Driving

Today Fayth came down and I had her to harness up the dogs and put them on the gangline. We let her pup ride on the cart with us. He loved the ride. Since going up my driveway is the hardest part I had her and the pup to ride till I had the dogs on the road and stopped. Then Fayth drove the dogs and gave the commands and did the braking and steering. She did an excellent job especially for the first time at driving. As we passed one house the dogs ran over into a person's yard to see the dogs. I had to get off and take the leaders back to the road. Cosmos snapped at me and I jerked my hand away. I stopped him and watched for a second and realized it was redirected aggression that was meant for the other dogs. I whispered his name and got his attention and he looked at me with a smile and I gave him a nice warm petting and we were ready to go again. We ran them to the point on the road where I have decided to turn them around and we started back. We ran past the dogs again and did well this time. I did a lot of running so Fayth could do the driving. At one point to get up a hill I ran out ahead of the dogs and made them chase me. This reminded me of an old trick I used to do so I told Fayth and we decided to try it. We got just shy of my house and we turned the dogs around again to run back past the other dogs. When we got there I jumped off the cart and ran out ahead of the dogs and had them to chase me and keep there interest on me instead of the other dogs. Sasha was the only one who even looked at the other dogs but I called her attention back to me and we ran on past. Sloppy Joe finally blew out the booties he has been wearing. So he will get a new pair. I noticed that Cosmos right rear toenail was bleeding so we took care of this and I will give him a few days rest. I will return him wearing booties. I think Cosmos got this injury when he stopped to poop and the other dogs ran up on him. I see today that he out got out 2 plops of poop and had not finished his business before receiving the tailgater. In the meantime I will try Kenai and Bear in lead. I think Kenai knows the commands as I have worked with just him before and I will be patient and work with him on it. Bear is a fast little girl who I think will make a great lead dog so I want to see how she will perform as well. She is very focused on working. The team today was Cosmos-Kenai, Bear-Yeti, Sasha-Sloppy Joe, Ulric-Dancer. We ran 7 miles total. I may add another dog from the rescue into the line up for this week. Since I will be running the team slower without my trusted lead dog I will have to fill another space. I will put him in the team position and see how he does. If he does well I may move him up to Swing. I'm looking forward to seeing how he will run. I have a musher in VA who wants another good runner so I will check him out. I have actually already put him into the kennel with the race team. So I now have 11 dogs in the same large kennel. I watched them today and they are doing well together. It is incredible how they accept others into the "pack" and love to run together. But I need this for when we travel together since we have to be in close quarters.

In case I have forgotten to say who Fayth is I wanted to say it here. Fayth is a 15 year old young lady who called me on the phone one day and said with a direct tone in her voice that let me know she meant what she was saying..."I'm Fayth and I'm 15 years old and I just got a 5 month old Siberian Husky and I want to train it to run the Iditarod. Can you help me to train him?" After I found out who had given her my number I knew she was really serious about this. I may have stuttered knowing the long road from a 5 month old pup to the burled arch of the Iditarod but I said "OK, I'll help you train". I have since learned who else she has been talking to and I see that she is serious about this and is taking the initive to make these contacts. Very impressive for a young lady. She has been coming down each weekend and helping me with the team and doing shots and learning every aspect of what it takes to get the dogs hooked to a cart and ready to run. It is also nice for me to have someone local to talk dogs and mushing with. It keeps me on my toes to make sure that I am correct in what I say and do. But I have always found the best way to really learn something is to teach it. It is wonderful to have her and her family here on the weekends. Her father has really helped me with some things I needed to do but have been unable to do. I look forward to more training time and questions to keep me on my toes, or even keep me off the cart and running to get my body in shape after so many recent injuries have taken me down.