Jan 1 06 Creeper Trail

Today we ran the dogs 16 miles. My friend Lindsey and I rode the cart this time. We did some switching up of the leaders to see what combos were going to work best. We started with Cosmos and Kenai then went to Cosmos and Bear then Cosmos and Tucker. Cosmos likes to run the left side of the trail and Tucker wanted to run on the right side of the trail so the neck line was tighter than the tug line so before a fight broke out I moved Cosmos back and up Bear up with Tucker. She ran fine then started slacking off so I moved Kenai up with Tucker when we started off I was about thrown off by the sudden start. All the dogs had tight tugs. Even Cosmos was working hard. Normally Cosmos will sit down and refuse to run in I put another dog in lead. Cosmos seemed ok with having Tucker in lead. Tucker did well and listened to commands. On the way back down I gave him a gee and he immediatly jumped gee into a pool of water (where I normally water the dogs) and he immediatly jumped back haw out of the water. The team went for a swim but Tucker chose to stand on the side and drink. As we came back down through the town of Damascus and had road crossing Tucker took commands well and the team was working well. I was impressed with Cosmos working with the team in a different position.

When we got back we fed and watered the dogs and took off on Lindsey's horses. I was wearing nylon pants due to the wind and mud from the previous days rain so as I rode bare back on the horse I was sliding all over. I won't try wearing nylon pants again. Lindsey was gracious at not laughing at me too much.