Today and yesterday has brought warmer weather. I do not remember being this warm in Nov. IT feels different to be this far into the winter and not have that really bone chilling weather. The dogs don't mind and we think it is okay too. Except the snow part of the weather we enjoy it being warmer than other years. We need some snow. I saw the neighbor out with his snow mobile today but I think there still isn't enough snow.
Still isn't enough to control the teams. What I mean by that is you cannot hold them when stopped. It is also harder to slow the team down by using the brakes. This is all control when you are attached to 6-14 dogs that act like your house dog on a leash when they want to chase after a cat. It is important that Rachel feels secure when running the dogs. There is a way to hold the dog team and that is by putting a snow hook around a tree. The snow hook has two hook shapes turning off like a sheep's horns. Three inch diameter or larger tree would be good size to hook to. When you put the snow hook around a tree one curl of the snow hook itself sits on the ground at the base of the tree or as low as possible. The other curl of the snow hook goes around the tree itself..one side of the hood sits around the tree and the other on the top of the ground this way it holds itself up right. IF you put both curls from the hook around the tree it would just roll off if the line did not stay tight. The line is attached directly to the team of dogs. So it is your snow hook attached to how ever many dogs you are hooked up to. Sometime when the teams are really large we use double snow hooks to hold the team of dogs. When the snow is deep enough and packed well you can stick the hook right into the snow. That is what they are meant for. if you do not have the snow yet but are still tempted to train with the sled you have to find a tree when you need to stop. This can be a problem. When you commit to a tree you have the snow hook in one hand ready to set on a tree. You also have the brake on the sled which does not work well on low snow conditions either. When you make the move to set the hook around the tree you have 4-14 dogs tied to the snow hook you are holding in your hand. That is like taking 4-14 dogs for a walk. the only difference is these dogs want to and are trained to run like hell and not to stop . stopping the team then becomes a bit of a chore for Rachel. This makes it bad if Rachel has to stop the team for a tangle or whatever reason. For now we will stick to having the dogs pull us in the six wheel ranger. Then we will still have some control.

The dogs themselves look really good and are conditioning easy. Rachel spent allot of time with them letting them loose to run during the summer this has kept them in very good shape. It is nice to see the dogs in such good shape early on in the season. The plan is to run two team s of eight dogs tomorrow. Talk to you later.