theories

I found an old book on training lead dogs that I've been reading over the past couple of weeks. The training method is based on a system of natural consequences drawn in part from observations of dogs' interactions & socialization with their peers. At this point in my life with dogs, I've read a lot of dog training books, some of which fly directly in the face of this method and others which take this tack a lot further than I (or this author) would ever be comfortable with. I think while there are broad strokes on dog training that can absolutely be applied across the board, every dog and every situation is different and your best bet is to read everything you can, then adapt and hopefully overcome.

I should have known better than to take the boys out on a Saturday afternoon. I think I would be more willing to confront problems with Pico head on if I felt like I had some idea of where to begin to address them, but most of the time I am at a loss. We headed out on Saturday and had a nice run for about half of the hilly two-mile loop of gravel road we've been running. At the top of the hill, I was peddling hard to keep our momentum high and encourage the boys to keep running around the left turn. No no avail. Pico stopped to sniff-and-pee before we'd even started to turn. At the moment he dove into the bushes, dragging Norrin with him, I heard voices off to my right. Just thirty yards down the road, a group of ten adults and a small dog on a leash were approaching us, out for an evening stroll. I looked back at Pico, who was still 100% focused on bush-marking and hadn't seen them yet. I dropped the bike and pulled both dogs back onto the road facing uphill, then ran back hoping to get them moving again before they saw the group approaching.

No luck. The little dog spotted us and started yipping and it was all over. Before I could even straighten my bike, Pico had spun himself and Norrin 180 degrees, arcing the lines down and tangling them around my bike handles and pedals. We were now facing downhill towards the approaching group,  with Pico shaking and yelping and struggling to drag us all into the crowd and managing to block the entire road with the bike and lines. I ran forward and grabbed them both, dragging both dogs away from the little dog as the group passed us laughing and commenting on how nice it must be to go for a bike ride and not have to do any work at all. Pico was in hysterics. Knowing we would never be able to make a successful pass at this point, I turned us around and headed home the way we'd come. Even after they were out of sight, it took several tries to get the two boys lined out and moving forward in the opposite direction.

We were retracing the long straightaway when I saw two dogs on the road at the corner. I knew the second Pico saw them about thirty seconds later because he surged ahead, slamming into his tug line. His movements transitioned from smooth and graceful to jerky and frantic as he fought the harness to gain speed and get to them. I saw Norrin move as far to the right as their neckline would allow, trying to away from Pico's frantic energy. I rode the brakes hard, trying to discourage Pico's crazy bolt, but despite forcing them to a slow trot he didn't stop trying to run, digging his claws into the gravel road and surging with every stride. When we reached the dogs, they bolted into the woods to the right and Norrin managed to mostly block Pico from following them (I was expecting a crash here, if they both dragged me and the bike off the road and into the steep ditch the dogs had launched over before they disappeared.) Once Pico's chase was thwarted by Norrin's bulk and the targets were out of sight, he calmed down and stopped. I had to do some untangling before we could move on, but managed to get us going again pretty quickly.

One turn and a hundred yards later, two more loose dogs appeared in a driveway. We were already nearly on top of them when they emerged, and Pico managed to push Norrin over enough to get a straight shot, bouncing and wagging and yelping and slamming his harness.  At this point, I decided to give what I'd been reading a shot. I dropped the bike, walked over to Pico without a word, picked him up by his harness just enough for his feet to come off the ground, gave him a little shake and laid him down on the road. I held him there until he stopped struggling to go after the loose dogs, then gently let him go and walked back to my bike. I never said a word past my first ignored command of "NO" when he'd first seen the dogs. To my shock, he jumped up, shook himself and lined back out on the road, ignoring the dogs who were now disappearing down the driveway, running forward perfectly the second I straightened the bike and let off the brakes, tail wagging. We only ran another 700 feet up the hill to the house, but he was totally focused on his job for every step of those 700 feet.

I know that this method would never work for Norrin, given his sensitive personality and history of physical abuse. But for Pico, with his wild puppy ways and rough-and-tumble day-to-day life, the calm, silent correction spoke louder than any verbal command (or tirade) ever did. He seemed to immediately understand that his behavior was unacceptable and he was expected to get back to work. We haven't gone out again since that incident, but I'm going to be curious to see how this continues to play out.

losing dogs

Dottie and Sawyer went home yesterday. I had those old girls for nearly a year, and they taught me a lot about running and managing dogs and managed to get their geriatric little paw prints all over my heart in the process. The departure was as sudden as Rsta and Arwyn's two years ago. I had been halfheartedly trying to get in touch with their owner, but we'd mostly been playing phone tag. Yesterday afternoon, I got a call that she was in town and could pick them up in a few hours. And as suddenly as that my dog yard was nearly empty. I spent my evening raking up old hay and cleaning out boxes instead of feeding and poop scooping and cuddling.

one last snapshot of Sawyer & Dottie, in my truck on the way into town

Despite my mixed feelings at seeing them go, and returning to a nearly empty yard and frantically lonely Norrin, the timing was perfect. I have a few days to get the yard set up before this winter's batch of loaner dogs begin arriving. After all the uncertainty and lack of response to mid-summer inquiries, I contacted Jodi Bailey of DewClaw Kennel. She ran as a rookie in both the Quest and the Iditarod last year (the first person ever to make two rookie runs in one year, and has a great blog to boot!) and her partner Dan Kaduce is mainstay in the competitive distance world. I met her briefly this summer, but certainly didn't know her well enough to start asking for dogs from their close-knit kennel out of the blue. Yet my cold-call request for loaner dogs was greeted with support and enthusiasm and, after some discussion, four solid eight year old distance veterans! With the addition of a dog from Aily Zirkle's kennel, that puts our team up to seven - just a single dog shy of my pipe-dream winter goal of running and eight dogs.

I've spent a lot of the summer debating and worrying about the coming winter - our last in Alaska for a while; Should I go ahead and buy used dog houses off Craigslist as they pop up, just in case? Should I buy rope from the remainder bin at ColdSpot to make more lines I may never need? Do I purchase a load of bargain used harnesses from the retiring Quest racer at a yard sale, even though I don't know if I'll have any dogs, much less what size they'll need, in four months? Back when I was deeply steeped in religious subculture, I would have called this sort of thing "acting in faith." I don't think I ever actually acted in faith so wholeheartedly a single time in the religious sphere. Yet I did so all summer long on these dogs, though not without a good deal of anxiety. It turns out my blind hope that things would work out wasn't utterly futile after all. And ultimately, having the money trickle out on good deals over the warm months was probably a lot less traumatic for our bank account.  

a summer's worth of combing craigslist ... plus seven dog houses & an 8-hole dog box.

Now it's just a matter of picking up dogs, and waiting impatiently for snow.

This week, a friend's chocolate lab, only three years old, died unexpectedly of complications from a massive bowel obstruction. It was an awful thing to happen, both to such a young dog and to such a dearly adored companion. Molly is heartbroken, and watching her grief brought back some of my own horror and shock at losing my first dog Nyssa suddenly (though not nearly as suddenly) to lymphoma nearly a year and a half ago. I still tear up if I let myself think about her for too long, and I know Molly is going to be a wreck over losing Kahlua for a long time to come. I still miss the two young huskies I ran my first winter on the runners and wonder about their life now that they are four years old and working full time on a trap-line in the Brooks Range. And I know when the time comes to find Norrin a permanent working home, it is going to be so hard to let him go. These dogs work their way into our hearts and our lives, and we are better for them, and grateful to them for what they bring and what they teach us. The ever present corollary is that losing dogs is hard, harder when pets die unexpectedly, but also hard when dogs we build working relationships with go on to other things, or when fosters we love on and work with find a perfect home that isn't ours. Better though, always, to have had them in our lives. 

progress and regress

The sun is setting and everyone is inside. August and Pico are working out their anxiety about having outside dogs in their territory by wrestling in circles around us. Dottie and Sawyer are in a dogpile on the couch, cuddled up as close to Peter as they can get. They are both panting with the heat of proximity, and jockeying for position to give him kisses and solicit petting. Norrin is laying next to my chair, eyeing Pico and Augie but staying out of the tussle and within easy reach of my hand. Eventually he gets up and walks over to the couch, burrowing his head into Pete's hands. Peter remarks on the delight of fuzzy husky cheeks as he scratches them. Norrin closes his eyes in bliss. I am amazed at how far we have come with this fearful beast that he now boldly walks up to Peter and demands attention.

This morning as the sun rose, I took Pico and Norrin out on the bike. It was warmer than usual last night. We left our windows open till morning, and there was no need to start a fire when I woke up. I was eager to get on the road and get the boys run before it warmed up any more. We stalled out again at the bottom of the hill. I am starting to wonder if it is because the footing changes here - they put a new culvert in last month, and the road fill they used has bigger, sharper rocks instead of gravel. Maybe they just aren't comfortable running over it at full speed. As soon as they stopped, I hopped off and hauled them around until they faced left.

Norrin, as usual, cowered and backed away as soon as I was off the bike. We have made significant progress with him in the yard. After a summer of treats and love and lots of time spent just sitting with him he no longer runs to the end of his chain or hides in his house when we approach, and will come out to greet us and solicit petting even if we aren't bearing dinner.  In harness, however, he still reacts as if expecting to be hit whenever I approach him from the sled or the bike. I have been extra careful to be gentle and reassuring with him, no matter how frustrated I actually am in that moment, when I'm correcting a direction or an unnecessary stop. If I'm not slow and quiet as I approach, he breaks down completely and we won't go anywhere until he recovers.

At this first corner, they took the redirection quickly, held the line straight and waited for me to lift the bike before launching forward down the long straightaway. The next left - one we haven't had a problem with so far - they took extremely wide, nearly missing it completely. In the confusion, I ran over the gangline for the first time since I started running the two of them with the bike. I was already going pretty slow so it wasn't a total disaster, but it tangled fast into my front fork. It took me a minute or two to work it back out and get the two of them untangled. Once straight, we got up the winding hill fine, passing the left-turn driveway with barely a hesitation after my "on-by" command.

At the next corner, however, we stalled out completely. Pico insisted on marking several bushes and Norrin, although not participating, was happy enough to stop pulling and be dragged along by his neckline, sniffing the clumps. I dropped the bike and got them started again twice, only to have Pico immediately stop and head into the brush. I determined later that the stall-out may have been due to a lack of momentum at the corner. I was a little worried about them turning wide again, and I was also starting to get out of breath myself since I was peddling behind them up the long winding hill. We had similar sniffing-and-peeing stall out at a different corner on the last run, and I was pretty sure that the lack of momentum (they are both corners with long up-hill approaches) had contributed.

Once we were going again, my frustration with Pico was boiling over. As we approached the house with the barking dogs that caused such trouble on our first Pico-and-Norrin run, there was an explosion of barking and howling. This time, I could see at least three dogs running around in front of the house raising hell at our passing. I braced for Pico's reaction, but although he turned his head towards the yard and slacked his tug, he didn't make a move to the right - never even scooted over enough to touch Norrin. Once I was sure we were going to make the "on-by" successfully, I called it out loud with a strong and very heart-felt "GOOD DOGS" right behind it. I was very, very proud of my little ADHD problem child.

The rest of the run was uneventful. When we reached the final left turn, I made sure we had plenty momentum and the boys flew around the corner without even looking sideways at the bushes that needed marking so very badly last week. We were passed by two cars from behind, and although Norrin got my pulse racing a little bit looking back towards them as they approached, he kept to our side of the road and never veered out into danger.

My only other concern was with Pico's overall run. Although he is usually the dog slamming his harness and setting the pace (or needing to be held back) he was having an off day today. For about half of the run - even on downhill sections - there was slack in his tug, and even points when Norrin was dragging him along by their neck line. His gait was fine, and I checked him over when we got home but as far as I could tell (and I really don't know that I know what I'm looking for, still) he wasn't sore or stiff anywhere and his feet looked fine. We took Pico and August to the river yesterday, and they had a crazy romping free run for about an hour. It's possible that he was just a little worn out from that, but it was still very out of character for him to be off his line so much.

I was planning on getting up early again tomorrow and taking the boys out, but I am wondering if I should give Pico a break and take Sawyer instead. Although she's not much better for pulling than he was today, it is cool enough now that she'd probably do fine just going along for the ride and we can always just run a flat out-and-back instead of tackling the hilly loop. And besides, her protests at being left behind on the last few runs have been heartbreaking.

bikejoring the boys

I didn't realize how much I dreaded hooking Pico up to the bike until Saturday morning rolled around. I kept finding little chores and distractions inside after feeding the dogs, but with the temperature slowly rising towards 45 degrees I was running out of time. I finally went out and pulled the bike, lines and Norrin's harness. I dug through until I found Pico's harness and threw it into the pile. As soon as he saw the bike come out of the shed, Norrin started flipping on the end of his chain and yipping like a puppy. I harnessed him up and clipped him in. He stayed lined out with the lines slack, and watched over his shoulder as I went to get Pico.

Pico stood perfectly still while I slid him into his harness. I was heartened by this facade of calm. The second he was clipped into his tug, (Lesson #1: Don't Let Go. Apparently this applies to bikejoring and sledding both.) Pico lunged down the driveway dragging Norrin and the bike with him. No lack of drive there. I barely caught the bike as it went flying past, handlebars and pedals making trenches in the dirt. Norrin wasn't about to be dragged again, within seconds he had spun around and was matching Pico stride for stride at a full run. I learned my first true lesson in bikejoring as I grabbed for the seat as the bike flew past and flipped the bike onto it's wheels, running at the same time to catch up and grab the handlebars. Lesson #2: Grab the brakes hard and hold them there before you lift the bike onto its wheels. I managed not to lose the bike, by some miracle or accident, and paused the forward momentum long enough to get myself into the saddle. We were down the driveway and halfway down the hill before I'd taken half a breath.

Much to my relief, the two driveways that usually house loose dogs were empty. We made it to the corner, but neither dog payed any attention to my commands to haw. After stalling out at the corner for a minute or so (I kept hoping Norrin would remember our previous two runs and turn left, to no avail) I got off the bike and hauled the dogs around until they were pointed in the right direction. With a quarter mile of energy burned off, they waited patiently at the end of their lines (instead of turning to follow me back! progress!) but the second I reached for the bike they lunged down the road. I dove for the brakes this time, yelling whoa, and managed to get back in the saddle before we were tearing down the straightaway at a full run.

Once I could breathe again, I pulled out my flip camera to try and catch some evidence of my boys pulling like old pros. As soon as I had the thing out and on, however, I realized that bikejoring one handed was only going to end in disaster. It went back in my pocket after just a few seconds, and in my few seconds of one-handed riding I became acutely aware of our speed and my tenuous balance on the rocky dirt road. I was frantically scanning the woods on either side, trying to see anything that might catch Pico's attention before we had a chance to crash. We made it to the end of the straightaway in one piece. My fingers were freezing, and Norrin wasn't even panting yet. I decided to try the two-mile loop instead of turning them around on the straightaway.

This time, the boys turned left with no prompting and headed up the hill. Pico stopped once to mark a bush but they both hauled forward as soon as he was done and I only had to help on the uphill a little bit. They tried to take the next left down a wide driveway, and it took some hollering and rearranging and untangling before we were past this gap and on our way again. At the top, they took another left and we were more than halfway home.

There was a minor disaster when some dogs started barking off to the right. Pico slammed into Norrin and started to climb over him to get to the driveway in question. I yelled and slammed on the brakes and managed to avoid hitting them, although the ensuing tangle took awhile to sort out. I ended up dragging a frantic Pico, a spooked Norrin and the bike past the driveway. I had to wait Pico's distraction out. When he calmed down, I lined the boys out again, ran back to the bike and we were off. The rest of the short trip home was uneventful and in consequence utterly blissful. The boys pulled perfectly, never stopped and took the last two left turns like they did it every day. Pico even ran past two penned up horses with no more than a sideways glance and a second of slack on his tug.

Run number two at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning was slightly more smooth and less gut-wrenching. We still stalled out at that first left turn again, but I corrected it more quickly this time. The boys followed the loop well, making the second left and only hesitating at the first driveway that had caused the tangle on Saturday. At the top of the hill, with the previous dog-tangle in mind, I decided to try something different.

There are two different schools of thought regarding talking to your dogs while they are running. One group holds that you should stay totally silent and let the dogs focus on their job. You should only give commands, and very rarely praise, while on the runners. The other school holds that chattering away to the dogs is fine, encouraging even, letting them know that you are behind them, they are doing well. They believe that when you give a command, the dogs can recognize the change in your tone, and if your previous training has worked they will listen.

In general, I chatter to my dogs while we're running. It has worked for me so far. I had been chattering away to Norrin & Pico the day before we hit the barking dogs. We were near the top of a long hill and I was trying to encourage them to keep up their momentum. As we rounded the corner this time, I started to wonder if my chatter had alerted the neighbor dogs and started their barking, leading to Pico's lunge and subsequent tangle. Today, I stayed silent. And it worked. The boys pulled hard to the top of the hill and the houses on both sides stayed silent. We flew past the site of the tangle and were on the homestretch.

The most interesting moment of this run came just two driveways from home. Even though we were running quiet, there was an explosion of dog barking from the right again. This time, as Pico turned to lunge Norrin braced himself and actually managed to body-block Pico without breaking stride. I could hardly believe what I was seeing in front of me, but Norrin actually leaned into Pico's lunge, bouncing him away, and kept running at full speed. Pico slacked his line for a second, looking over Norrin's back towards the barking, but the second his neckline went taunt he faced forward and kept running. It reminded me of Leo's reaction to Pico's inappropriate behavior last winter. I was encouraged that Norrin had taken the initiative and done the right thing by not letting Pico bully him into stopping.

I believe that getting over my fear of bikejoring will prove critical to how the season ahead shapes up. The value lies both in allowing the dogs to stretch their legs and get back into working in harness long before we'll be able to hit the trails, and allows me to have close contact with them, watching their behavior and the little nuances of communication that I miss when they are ahead of a whole team. Mostly, it's allowing me to bond with the dogs in a way that is totally different than running them with the sled. I am working on learning how to train them in this mode, reading forums and books and talking to as many experienced mushers as I can sit down with. I hope it does serve us well, even if we still have some crashes up ahead.

gun shy

With the return of night to the north country and the subsequent dip in morning temperatures, the dogs are growing restless. Sawyer, after a quiet summer, has taken to shrieking with the smallest provocation and Norrin's howling has reached a fever pitch. Without enough dogs (or cash) for an ATV for fall training and far too many cars around for free-running, the only option left to ease the building tension was hooking the dogs up to my bike.  But I had my reservations.

Pico at five months

Two years ago, when Pico was eight months old, I was attempting to harness train him. We were in Texas at the time - I was finishing up my Paramedic internship - but I was determined to have my pound pup ready for the trails when we returned to Alaska. I dutifully found sticks logs and chains for him to haul around on our late-evening walks in the sticky Texas heat. He took to his harness like a fish to water, but even with me running along behind him he was getting bored with my slow human pace. I borrowed a bike from my cousin and set us up to bikejor, so he wouldn't lose his drive. Our first run was perfect. Pico tore around the loop like a seasoned sled dog, staying up front and relishing the speed he'd been craving all summer. Just as we circled back around the house, a white tail deer sprinted across the road. Without missing a beat, Pico took a hard right, tearing after the deer with every ounce of power and speed in his lanky half-grown puppy body, slamming the bike into and then over my ankle and leaving me in agony on the side of the road before I was even sure what had crossed our path. The sprain was the worst I've ever had, my ankle turning black and swelling to the size of a football. When I finally went for an x-ray when I still couldn't put weight on it eight days later, the doctor was as surprised as I was that there were no broken bones under all the stubborn swelling. Months later, I was still nursing the very sore and unstable ankle.

I was understandably a little wary about hooking dogs up to a bike again. But it has been a long, hot summer and Norrin's discontented howling has torn me up. On Tuesday, with mid-morning temperatures hovering at 55F, I enlisted a very skeptical Peter to help me get the bike and dog hooked up and lined out. Norrin, despite his restlessness, was about as excited as Peter. He wouldn't line out, and kept looking back at me (and the bike) with palpable anxiety. I have no idea if he's ever been hooked up to a bike before, but I was starting to wonder if he'd had some previous bikejoring experience as traumatic as mine. With a good deal of cajoling and lots of false starts, we made it to the end of the driveway. The quarter-mile downhill ahead of us got him moving on his own, but no matter how slow I went he was still leaving slack in the line, trotting slowly and taking time to sniff clumps of grass and mark them at appropriate intervals.

At the bottom of the hill, a loose dog appeared in a driveway. This helped pick up the pace a bit, and my heart started racing as Norrin finally took up the slack and started to pull. I braced for a crash or a dogfight, but when we reached the dog Norrin stopped dead but didn't give chase. With a little encouragement, he moved on past the driveway. Now he'd had a taste of tension on the harness, he picked up the pace as we rounded the corner onto a three-quarter mile straightaway. A second dog appeared, but he passed her without breaking stride, suddenly focused on the road. He broke into a ground-eating lope and I gently rode the brakes to keep the lines taunt but let him stretch his summer-stiff muscles in the cool morning air. We turned around about a half mile out, and Norrin's tongue was hanging to the ground by the time we got home. We'd need to start much earlier in the morning for the next round.

Wednesday morning, the temperature was 45F at sunrise. I reconfigured the bike and hooked Sawyer up next to Norrin, thinking having her alongside might help with his confidence and help encourage him to keep the lines taunt. I also believed that her steady, focused run would help mitigate some of the fear I had at adding a second dog's power to the potential disaster equation.  Once we got going down the driveway, this instinct proved up as Sawyer moved forward long before Norrin and stayed ahead of him, pulling him along by their neckline to the end of the driveway. At that point, he bucked up, took up his slack and pulled steadily for the rest of the mile-long run. Sawyer, for her part, was ecstatic to be out and about, but she was certainly not planning on doing any work. As soon as Norrin started pulling, she dropped back to his shoulder and no amount of cajoling or braking on my part could get her to take up her slack.

So after day two I was left with Norrin, who clearly needed another dog to give him the encouragement and confidence to run and motivation to work and Saywer, my small, old girl perfectly happy and steady next to Norrin but not working if she could help it. Saywer's age also gave me pause, as I was hesitant to make her run at an all out sprint to keep up with Norrin's long easy stride or push her to go too far, pulling or not.

I had one other possibility to try: Pico, my lanky, energetic, distracted three-year-old boy who spent the winter trying his best to drag the entire team off the trail at every possible provocation. My ankle ached with the thought. 

spring trails :: part II

 -- spring trails :: part I --

Two weeks after the big move, I got a call from a coworker at the community college. She said a friend of hers had a 'situation' with a sled dog, and the dog needed a new home - even a temporary one - as soon as possible. This did not sound good at all. 

The 'situation,' as far as I understand it, was this: The friend's cousin runs dogs, and one of those dogs had gotten into a fight last fall and been torn up pretty badly. The cousin wasn't interested in patching the dog up, so the friend stepped in and arranged surgery to repair the dog's body and then spent most of the winter nursing him back to health. The friend used to run dogs, but now mostly raises chickens and rabbits. This dog was pretty lonely in her yard, but was getting along well enough. She had been trying to find it a home, but without much success. The friend also had a small, geriatric poodle. She had owned this poodle for all of its 18 years. A few days before, the poodle got out into the yard. Nobody saw what happened, but they think the poodle was irritating the rescued sled dog, yipping and snapping as small old dogs will. They think the sled dog (who had coexisted with chickens and rabbits and children all winter without incident) finally snapped at the poodle in self defense. Instead of nipping the poodle, however, the powerful seventy pound sled dog snapped its neck. The poodle, the beloved old dog of the friend, died instantly. The friend was understandably devastated. Even though she was sure the sled dog hadn't meant to kill her poodle - he had only bitten him once, never shaken him, never chewed on his body - she couldn't stand to have him in her yard for another day. She could hardly look at him. She needed some one to take him, and do it as soon as possible.

My coworker knows we aren't planning on staying in Alaska past next winter and aren't looking to get any permanent sled dogs, but she also knew I would probably be willing to take in a dog that needed a temporary safe haven. I talked to the friend, who assured me that the dog was sweet and had been in harness and had no true dog aggression issues that she had seen. She also said that she though he had done some leading on her cousin's team, although she didn't think he was a command leader. She added another piece of information that sealed this dog into our yard, even though I was already planning on taking him: he is the son of Brent Sass' famous lead dog Silver. We arranged to meet downtown, and by the next afternoon I was headed home with a huge, shaggy black sled dog cowering in the back seat of my truck, and a huge pink dog house strapped down in the bed.

The dog came with the name Eagle, and we quickly figured out that he didn't know his name or respond to it at all. Peter, ever the Animal Naming Savant, decided that he would be called Norrin - the given name of the Silver Surfer, a tragic hero of Marvel Comic fame.  I don't know if renaming sled dogs is bad luck or bad form (like with boats) but I love the name Norrin and it suits him perfectly, given his lineage and unintentionally destructive history. And since we've renamed every animal we currently own (Duncan was originally Franklin, Pico was called Angus at the pound and August came to us with the very unfortunate name Ernie) I figure we've got enough bad luck coming to us if it is. That same afternoon, we found a Silver Surfer action figure laying in the dirt at the dump, and that coincidence overrode any apprehensions I had about the new moniker.

Norrin, a few hours after arriving at the house.

With Norrin in the yard and the new house settling into some form of order, I retrieved Dottie and Sawyer from my friend's dog yard and prepared for a trial run. The huge trail dropping right out of the yard was too tempting to pass up, even as the snow softened up and the creek ice thinned out. With the disaster that Pico had made of leading, I had no idea what would happen but was determined to try anyway. The day before the trial run, I strapped on snowshoes and attempted to pound down the snowed in trail between our house and the main trail system. It wasn't very pretty, but with no snow machine to pack it down it was the best I could do.

Norrin looked terrified when I hooked him up front and went back to get the other dogs. He cowered in a remarkably small ball of fur on the snow while I got everyone else snapped in. This was, at this point, his usual stance in the yard but I was beginning to wonder if he would pull in harness at all. With nothing much to lose, I pulled the snowhook and hollered to go. Pico took off down the trail and the girls nearly ran over Norrin before he jumped up and turned to run, but he did run. My snowshoe job hadn't done much but mark the trail. Norrin and Pico ended up having to plow through deep snow for nearly a quarter mile of trail before it opened up onto a more well traveled path. But once Norrin got his feet under him and started plowing through the drifts, he didn't stop or let his line slack for a second. He powered through the trail and stayed up front - keeping ADHD Pico in line - for the full four miles of our first run. I was flying high when we plowed back up the soft trail towards home - I had a leader again! - and the trails from our new house were spectacular beyond anything I'd hoped for. They were tree-line boulevards to Goldstream's rutted goat trails.

Norrin & Pico rocking the lead

We ran six more times before the creek ice got too bad to cross. I was in heaven, although Norrin with his dense northern coat struggled with the spring temperatures and we ended up running mostly at dawn or dusk to keep him cool. It was a mellow, happy end to a weird season of highs and lows and plenty of lessons to take into next year.

Dottie & Sawyer's owner left the state for the summer, and we ended up keeping them through the hot months. All the dogs have had a long break from running, trying to stay cool in the relative northern heat and shedding mountains of dense white undercoat. They come inside before dinner some nights, cuddling with us on the couch and terrifying Augie to no end, then running loose to stretch their legs before settling down to eat. I have learned that dog noses swell incredibly when assaulted by mosquitoes, what medications prevent bites, how to deal with hot spots and infections and that racing dogs will turn their noses up at drinking water no matter how hot and miserable they seem.

Pico, resigned to his fate after three minutes of brushing.

We are now into September. The mornings are almost cold, and the dogs are getting restless to run. Dottie and Sawyer will probably return to their own kennel soon and Dottie, at least, has run her last season. I have been recruiting more loaner dogs for the winter, hoping for a team of six or eight, but without much luck. I don't know what the winter will hold, quite yet, but I am holding out hope for miles and miles of trail up ahead. Whether those miles are run with three dogs or ten, only time will tell.