'24-'25 Winter Recap

 we started this season harness breaking the 7 ACOTAR pups while the other 7 rugby pups were still nursing on Astrid. Peppa was also nursing on Astrid, but that’s a whole other blog post on interspecies dynamics…

We had no big plans for racing and just wanted to focus on getting the pups a solid start in harness. Neither of us had ever harness broken puppies before, but it turns out generations of selective breeding make it pretty darn easy! At only 8 months old those pups leaned into their harness, ran straight and never looked back (until Annette crashed into a tree and they came to an abrupt stop). 

Runs were short and fun but we went everywhere with them! We made trips to visit friends in eureka and rampart. They ran out to some hotsprings and waited semi-patiently while the humans soaked. They did a short overnight trip in the white mountains. And we even participated in the Yukon Quest 80mile fun run! 

As March rolled around we knew we wanted to make a spring trip to the Brooks range so it was time to harness break the 8month old rugby puppies. Once again, amazed at how naturally the desire to run and move down the trail comes to these dogs. Huge shout out to our veteran dogs who very patiently helped us train this group of young dogs. There is more to being a sled dog than just running. You have to navigate your team mates, figure out how

to get your legs over/under the gangline and tug line and neck line, learn how to camp and eat on the trail, passing distractions, navigating tricky trail and learning commands. Dogs are such social creatures that having older dogs to watch and learn from really made a difference in the start these young guns had in their running careers.

We finished our first season raising puppies with a phenomenal trip to the Brooks range (see other blog post). We started off with a group of tiny unorganized heathens and ended with a team of fluidly moving canine athletes. Our hearts could not be more full watching that growth and learning and it makes us so excited to see what the future holds! Whether it be racing or just exploring the back country, a good dog team makes you feel unstoppable and like you can take on anything!