Nov full speed ahead

What the heck is happening to Nov. Jeez too fast. Way too fast. Our training feels behind but I imagine it has to do with the weather. Dog sled racing takes time to keep the ducks in a row sort of speak. It starts yesterday. It means many many things have to be kept in order to get the results you want down the road or should I say down the trail. This is why when a Month of the year is speeding by you feel like you are behind.
I was away from the kennel for a week or so. I was out for medical reasons. Things were in good order when I returned as Rachel and Leanne are forever busy keeping up with the daily chores. Still not enough snow to be on the sled yet. I think this is the reason we feel behind. the dogs have not run pulling the sled yet. This is really late in the year for not being on sleds. I have heard dog teams racing their first race for the first time pulling the sled. The first races are in December. This has never been the case for us out where we live. We are usually the first team on snow and the last on snow in the area. This was another consideration before we even bought the property was snow and trails.
The dogs are looking really good. They are excited to get in the routing of training and they need more running. The boys are growling and fighting with each other because their energy level is too high. Way to high. They are just too exuberant this early in the season. The behavior can set up some pretty bad habits so we watch it doesn't happen too much.
Rachel just happens to have one team of 8 males and one team of 8 females to train this. Lots of dogs for her but we hope to be able to get other junior musher to participate using some of our dogs. You can almost double the amount of dogs you have to keep to get one super dog team out of it. Racing an 8 dog team keep 16 dogs. 6 dog team keep 12 dogs. you could probably keep smaller amounts of dogs than what I am quoting but this seems to be what is working for us right now.
We are still looking for some more sponsorships and we are sending out letters to prospects. the more we get the more races we can attend. I will be putting the dog box onto the dog truck this week-end. It is time to get ready to haul the dogs from one race to the other or even to take them to a different training trail just for something different.
It was a good training day today with lots of stops so Rachel could discipline/teach young dogs on what is expected of them while they have their work cloths on.(Harness). it is all business and they need to know that. It does not take much time for them to learn it. The harder you pull the faster you get to go !. That is a pretty good reward for a sled dog that love to run. We have some dogs that are grabbing snow and that is a no-n0 in a sprint team. This time of year the speed is slower these dogs love to go fast so when it is slower and they get bored they may start to bite at the snow on the ground. This just breaks up the rhythm of the team so you want to let them know that they need to quit doing that.
Both dog teams did very well today and they pulled hard and went quit fast. Having the 6x6 polaris ranger to have them pull is very nice and very comfortable. The ranger has no problem holding back 8 dogs with the brake applied. It is too heavy for the to take off with. This means if there is a problem there is no problem stopping and holding the dog team. Early in the yr. it can be difficult because there is not enough snow for the snow hooks to hold. SO one advantage to the lack of snow is good leader training and ability to control the team better.
I am glad to be back here and around the family, dogs included.