11.30.08
Posted in Dogs Running In Harness, Main Street Trail at by Administrator
Today started with me taking Jive over to Fetch for the Rally match. I wanted to see where she was at and what I needed to work on to get her ready for the Rally O trails at the Halifax Kennel Club shows in Feb. She got a score of 94 out of 100. Considering I haven’t worked with her in months she did really well. We still need to work on quicker sits and going around me to the right.
As soon as Jive finished in the ring we headed home to pick up the boys and head out to the Main Street Trail. I wanted it to see if yesterday was a fluke or if these two really can climb the monster hill AND this time I took my camera. Well, what I realized today was that yes they can do the monster hill (with a number of stops) but also that this trail is not just about one big monster hill, it is ALL hills, one after another. The difference is that the monster hill is just steeper and more continuous then the other hills. I truly can not be more pleased with these two, especially Pippin. He is now officially my “hill eater”.
The Monster Hill
You can’t see the very top of the hill in this picture. For more pictures from the run click here.
Here are a few videos of the dogs. The first one is my “hill eater” Pippin working up one of the hills. The other two are of the dogs doing the final section of the run, still able to run at a good pace.
nov30th2008endofrunpart1
nov30th2008endofRunpart2
Again I just could not be more pleased with these two. We will continue to work on this trail aiming at fewer stops while doing the hills. Maybe some day they will take the monster hill with no stops! 
I ended off my doggie activities for the day by taking Levi over to the seniors’ home for a vist in his role as a St John Ambulance Therapy dog before heading home for lunch and to figure out more about how to do this blogging stuff. I’m still working on how to personalize the look of the blog but for now I’m just using one of the available ”themes”.
Brenda
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11.29.08
Posted in Uncategorized at by Administrator
A few years ago, Karen Ramstead, an incredible woman who runs the Iditarod with her purebred NorthWapiti Siberian Huskies told me that I didn’t need to have a large team to do distance running. So in the past few years I have done up to 12 mile runs with two Siberians hooked up to my bike using something called a Springer. * But this has been on the “Rails To Trails” trails which are fairly flat or have very gradual hills. I have also been doing a shorter 3 ½ mile run with the dogs on another trail that does include a few pretty good size hills. This trail could be a 4 ½ mile run trail if it were not for a “monster” hill at the end of the trail that I had my doubts two dogs could take me up.
Today I found out that YES THEY CAN!
Now you need to understand that when I’m running my younger dogs I do not peddle (so much for me getting exercise!). I don’t want them to learn that if they slow down I will jump in and help them. Although I will never be able to test my dogs to the level that Karen has, it is still very important to me to do the best I can to test the dogs that I breed as seriously as I am able to in harness. So, when they get tired and slow down too much, I don’t help, I just stop, don’t say anything and wait. Normally within less then a minute they are pulling and wanting to go again. As training continues and they get in better shape I’m able to slowly increase the distance and speed with less stopping. But there is only so much you can expect from two dogs and I thought this hill was too much. Well today Pippin and Jive proved to me that they have both the physical and mental ability to take on the monster hill.
The day actually didn’t start out well at all. I wanted to do a longer run so went to the BLT Rails to Trails trail thinking I would aim at doing an 8 – 10 mile run with the dogs. However we had an early snow storm last weekend and while much of the snow is now gone by about 1/2 mile in I decided the trail was still too snow covered and icy to run the dogs with the bike (the dogs were fine, I’m the chicken). I was bummed. People think I love it when we get snow but when there is snow down then I have to organize getting together with other people to put together a bigger team to either run on the sled or ATV. This is fun (click here to see pictures of our snow run last weekend) but not always easy to organize so with just two dogs it is normally easier for me when we have cooler weather but without the snow.
Anyway, determined not to waste the day I packed the dogs up and went over to the Main Street trail which is often plowed. This can create some pretty good ruts in the crusher dust road but at least it is passable with the bike. Having already run a mile on the BLT trail I figured I’d take them to the bottom of the monster hill and back. Not as long a run as I had hoped but as I said this trail does have several good size hills even without the monster hill.
However, before I knew it we were about 1/3 of the way up the monster hill. I have gone this far once before with Jive and Pippin but then turned around in part because they were tired and in part because I was nervous about facing coming back down the hill if we did make it to the top. 
I stopped for a couple minutes thinking about what to do. I almost turned around when both dogs started pulling telling me they wanted to continue so up, up and up we went until we finally reached the top of the hill. I did have to stop several times but each time after a brief stop the dogs were ready to continue. When we finally did reach the top I discovered that the top of the hill wasn’t the end of the trail! It went down again, although not as far down as we had just gone up, before reaching the highway and end of the trail. I took the dogs down the hill to the end of the trial and stopped for a water and rest break before heading back.
Going down the monster hill on the way back was not as scary as I thought it would be. The dogs are reasonably good about listening to my “easy” command although I also had the brakes on the whole time just to remind them. <g> We still had several other smaller hills to climb on the way back but the dogs did well and arrived back at the van still moving at a good speed. I watered them again and put them back in the van. Then I hooked up 10 year old Levi and we went for our 2 km run. I peddle with Levi so we both get some exercise.
Next time I do the run I will try to remember to take my camera and get some pictures.
Brenda
* For more info on using the Springer with a Siberian read this review.
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Posted in Uncategorized at by Administrator
Welcome to my blog. I have a news page on my website but I just wasn’t getting around to updating it so I thought I might try a blog format to see if this works out better. This blog for the most part will be about what is happening in my life with my Siberian Huskies. I do a variety of activities with my dogs including running them in harness, showing them at conformation dogs, competing in agility, regular and rally obedience trials and just having fun with freestyle dancing. Several of my dogs are also St John Ambulance Therapy dogs so I volunteer with them visiting seniors in at a nearby seniors’ residence. I also occasionally breed my dogs, thus the kennel name, Chimini Siberians. I’m totally new to blogging so I’m sure this will be a learning experience but I hopefully it will work out and be a good way to keep people up to date with what is happening.
Brenda
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