It's Summertime! A Blurb About Heat Stroke and Clicker Training

Tis' the season of hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill, ice cream cones, and fun in the sun!

I know, I know; how can a musher enjoy summer? Shouldn't I wish for it to be cold all the time?

NOPE! Sled dogs can have fun in the sun too! We like to go to the beach, hiking/backpacking, camping. Anything a pet dog can do, my sled dogs do too.


As summer hits and the temps rise to almost unbearable numbers in some areas, one of my main concerns with my own dogs, and those around me, is heat stroke. A couple of years ago, I got first hand experience with heat stroke when my German Shepherd, Ellie, started showing sings of it on a hot summer day in July. She acted lethargic, she stumbled around as if she had spent too long at the local bar, and her eyes were glassy. I quickly got her into the shade and had my dad turn on the hose so I could put cold water on her feet and belly. With in about 15 minutes, she was back to normal, no worse for wear.

I was lucky with Ellie but others are not so lucky. Heat stroke, if not caught in the early stages, can cause permanent damage and even death to a dog.

The quote "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is especially true in this case. Make sure your dog always has access to cool water and shade as the temps rise. It would be a good idea to read up on the symptoms of heat stroke and what you can do if your dog shows signs of it. Here is a link to get you started: Heat Stroke

Another thing that goes with summer is travel whether it be on vacation, to the beach, or to the dog park.

Remember:

Just like you wouldn't leave a child in a car in the summer, don't do it with your dog either. 

On to other subjects; I am starting clicker training this summer! I bought a clicker the other night and I am in the process of learning everything about it. I also signed up with the Canis Clicker Training Academy! I will provide the link and info about it on the right side of my blog when I get a chance. 

I'm especially looking forward to doing clicker training with the sled dogs and the two leaders I will be training this summer, Char and Sydney. 

Well that's all the time I care to spend on a computer on a beautiful day. My posts will probably start to become less and less frequent as the summer goes on and I start getting more and more busy. I will try to come back as often as possible though!

Enjoy summer!

Just A Sunny Day At The Beach...

The past couple of days have been sunny and warm which prompted a couple of trips to the beach. Ellie, my German Shepherd, came along with me and my friend brought along her Australian Shepherd named Fritz. 

Ellie and Fritz had a blast! Ellie is practicing her ninja skills in the first pic! lol

"HIYA!"

 Ellie: "Imma slap your face!"

"OMG" 

I practiced taking some action shots with Ellie. My friend is throwing a stick out into the water for her.

It's super dog! 

Then I did some posed shots with Ellie practicing her "Stay". 

In this pic I told Ellie to sit and she ended up in this wonky position. Then she got distracted by something in the sand. lol 

Upcoming Events

Spring is fully upon us now and with it comes fun-filled activities to keep us busy!

Along with our annual sled dog club meetings, we will likely be attending the ISDRA conference in St. Ignace, Michigan on June 16th and 17th. I am looking forward to meeting some of my internet friends and "talking dog" the whole weekend! The public is welcome also. If you would like more info, please click on the link; ISDRA.

The annual Bark In The Park will also be going on in St. Ignace on June 16th. Here's more info for that; BITP.

So, on the 3rd weekend in June, St. Ignace is going to be completely be taken over by dogs!

I also might attend the Horse and Dog Extravaganza in Alpena sometime in May. They always have cool things going on whether it be horse demonstrations like dressage, reining, a parade of horse breeds, or dog demonstrations like agility, mushing, and also a parade of dog breeds.

I hope to take advantage of more doggy events as the summer unfolds. The horse club I'm in is not going to be active this year so I'll have to fill in the blanks with dogs!

Spring has sprung...and it's not even spring yet....

It is true! Spring is here...and yes, I am happy with that! I'm glad that the roller coaster of a winter we had is over. We're hoping for a better season next year!

Now that spring is (unofficially) here and the temps are a steady 60 to 70 degrees ( I wonder how long they'll stay that way...), it's time to get back in the saddle. My borrowed horse, Dixie, and I had our first ride on Friday and it went very well! The first horseback ride in the spring is always interesting...some horses have a tendency to act like un-broke fools the first ride and then they remember all of their training the second and go back to being themselves.

This, however, was not the case for Dixie! It was like we never stopped riding last fall--she just picked up right where we left off. I'll take that over getting flung around in the saddle any day!

My horse, Buckshot, will be next. I have a feeling he won't be so compliant since he's technically not trained yet. I'll have to take it slow with him...especially after my fall off of him last October. I DO NOT want to come that close to breaking my hip ever again!

*Sigh* I'll say the one good thing about having barely any snow during the winter is how little snow there is to melt come spring. I can actually enjoy spring this year since we're not drowning in mud like usual!
I know, I know...I may be putting the cart before the horse here...there are still a few months of spring left. April showers bring May flowers they say so we have spring rain to get through yet!

Well, get out there and enjoy this early spring everybody! Soak up the sunshine, plant those flowers, rake that yard (ugh), you know the drill...behold spring cleaning! ;D

When life gives you snow...

Well after a very long weekend the results are in!

The Small 'N' Mighty Racing Team came in 3rd place out of 15 teams!

The trophy we got for 3rd place.

Now...for this part, I suggest you brew yourself a hot cuppa' joe, sit back, and enjoy the ride. As they say "It's a loooong story".

So, if you live in Michigan, you're probably well aware that we just got hit with the snowstorm of the year. Two feet+ of wet and heavy snow fell during the night on Friday and into Saturday morning. Some places were considered to be in a state of emergency due to the heavy snow and power outages.

We arrived in Kalkaska on Friday, just as the snow started to fall, and checked into our motel. I unpacked, dropped the dogs, and went to the driver's meeting. Everything was going well and I just figured "Oh, this is kind of nice...we're going to get all of the snow we've been needing and this race will be great!"

haha Right...

Early Saturday morning I awoke from a fitfull sleep (I had a cold which prevented me from breathing all night...) to find that the motel room was very cold...or in other words, the power was out.

"No biggie", I thought. "They'll get the power on eventually."

I got everything ready and we headed to the race site.

The view from the motel parking lot. I know you can't really tell from this picture but there is 2ft of snow there plus whatever Kalkaska had before the storm.

Or tried to anyway. The motel driveway hadn't been plowed yet so, because my mom's van doesn't have 4-wheel drive (that's something I will never understand), we had to shovel a path through 2ft of snow so we could get out.

My mom eventually flagged down a random guy with a plow on his truck and he helped us get out the rest of the way.

So finally we got on the road and arrived at the race site...only to find out that the race had been cancelled for the day due to too many fallen trees on the trail.

Darn. We didn't do much but sit around all day while they got the fallen trees taken care of. We went back to our motel a few times to check on the status of the electricity but it never came back on. We had to move out and look for a new room.

Needless to say, we didn't find one. At every motel either they were way too expensive, they didn't have power, or they were full.

So, we ended up staying with my cousins for the night. It was so nice to see them! and so nice to be able to take a shower! haha

This morning we, again, headed back to the race site.

To put it plainly, the weather was perfect, the sky was blue, and we had a great, one day race! I can't even begin to tell you how gorgeous the trail was. Imagine the most beautiful winter scene you have ever witnessed, then imagine yourself on the back of a dog sled in that scene and you pretty much have imagined the trail today.

In short, it was breath taking. All worth the powerless motel room, shoveling, spinning tires (pretty much every time we parked, we got stuck), blowing snow, and cold fingers in my opinion.

Life is funny that way. It loves to throw you curve balls and if you're not ready for them; you get whacked in the head. You just have to get skilled at catching them and throwing them back. ;)

See? I wasn't kidding when I said the 2012 racing season would go out with a bang!

Over all, it was a good weekend...definitely one that I'll never forget.

Even though this racing season has just ended, I already can't wait for the next one! I think we're gonna have a pretty rockin' team for next year!

So look out 2013, the Small 'N' Mighty Racing Team is gonna take you by storm!

Kinross Classic Results

The results are in!

We placed 5th out of 9 teams in the 4-dog sport class!

The weather was great both days, the trail was fun and the dogs ran awesome. Char got to run in lead with old man Jacob for the first time in a big race. She did pretty good...the trail was slow the first day though so she kind of got bored with the slow pace and got distracted by things on the trail. Char definitely doesn't like to go slow!


Overall it was a great weekend. There is nothing like time spent with great people and sled dogs ~ Nothing can quite compare!

It looks like the Kalkaska Winterfest next weekend will be a go so we'll be heading down on Friday! We're gonna make sure the racing season of 2012 goes out with a bang!

(here are some photos from the weekend)

Sydney soaking up the morning sun at the race site.

My team and I on the trail on day 2.

My friend Mandy and her 6 dog team coming out of the chute.

The Kinross Classic Sled Dog Race: A trip down memory lane

Guess what?

**gasp** we have a race this weekend! Finally one that isn’t cancelled!

Tomorrow we’ll be getting up at the crack of dawn (drinking lots of coffee) and heading up to Kinross, MI to run in our 2^nd to last race of the 2012 season.

The Kinross Classic is kind of a special race for us as that’s where I ran my first “real” race 2 years ago in 2010. (Sure I ran kiddie races when I was little but this was something that I had worked towards.)

I had just gotten Jacob and Salsa, my first Alaskan Huskies, about a month before the race and I ran in the 3-dog junior class with those two in lead and Ellie, my German shepherd, in wheel.

Although I had been preparing for this for 4 years, I don’t think you are ever truly prepared for your first race. I made lots of mistakes ~ the one that I remember most is wearing too many clothes. It was about 32 degrees and I was all bundled up in my new parka and snow pants, hat, gloves, neck gator, and UnderArmour while my competitors were dressed in jeans, sweatshirts, and running shoes. I would’ve fit right in if I was running the Iditarod but for a sprint race? My attire was definitely overkill.

The first hill I had to help my team on I thought I was going to die. I was probably slowing the dogs down more than I was helping them in my abominable snow suit. It was probably about 102 degrees F under my coat and I felt like I was having a heart attack.

I still had 3 more miles to go.

After I thought I would never live to see tomorrow, we finally crossed the finish line and I took every piece of winter gear off and threw it in the truck.

Needless to say I learned my lesson…the hard way. The next day I took note of what my competitors were wearing and did likewise. lol

At the end of the weekend we came in last place. I didn’t care though; I was finally living my dream, a dream that took 4 years to happen, and I was living it. You couldn't have brought me down off of cloud 9 for anything.

I learned a lot at my first race…stuff that I still put into practice today and probably always will. That’s the thing about this sport; you can read all you want to from books, the internet but you will never truly know how to do it until you do it. You learn by doing in this sport, by trial and error.

Your mistakes and screw ups teach you and mold you and your triumphs make it all worth doing.

That first race cemented me into this sport...no, lifestyle, and I don't think I could get out now if I tried.

I'm in it for good, for life. ~

Happy dogs and a happy musher coming across the finish in the Kinross Classic, 2010.