The Fellowship of the Mush

Posted on April 13, 2012 by mushbaby

It’s been firmly established, I think, that not only do I often like to do things my own way but I don’t mind muddling through a bit of trial and error when it comes to problem-solving. Having said that, it sure is nice to have some backup. And I don’t mean the kind of backup that you kind of want to ask for help but feel like you have to secretly calculate the probability they will actually try to one-up, criticize, or try to put you in your place vs. providing any really useful advice before you decide if it is worth it to actually ask. Which I have encountered with a handful of other hobbies but not, so far at least, mushing. On the whole I have found mushers to be a cooperative and supportive yet laid-back group of people who know how to dispense useful information by way of a casual “hey have you ever tried ABC” or “I noticed you’re having trouble with X, one thing that I’ve found helpful is Y” and it would probably be an agreeable experience to sit down and chat with them over a beer. I’m sure some asshole mushers must exist somewhere, but if they do I haven’t met them yet.

Why this is relevant now is that when last we met I was having some blue thoughts about my metaphorical nibbling beaver. You know, the one that represents Squash’s growing mental and physical mushing superpowers that have him outpacing Maisy. Then Amanda of Hoof and Howl Sled Dogs, who happens to have Linney (Squash’s mom) and to have been Squash’s first momma, casually gave me some advice that required no secret calculations whatsoever. Try shortening Maisy’s tugline, she said, so that her head is about level with his shoulders. The goal is for him to be able to stay a pace ahead of her but for her to still work, pulling with a taut tugline.

I had to do cobble together some of the stuff I had on hand, which is a skill I am cultivating daily. I ended up using my single dog scooter line, with a tugline attached to Squash’s harness and one of my longer necklines guest starring as Maisy’s tugline thusly:

The neckline won’t hold up over the long haul, but it was serviceable as an experiment. Honestly, as much as I like to tinker this probably isn’t the kind of thing I would have ever thought of on my own although I have a vague memory that Amanda might have mentioned something like this once before when Maisy and Squash’s sizes were reversed and she was outpacing him. So I guess it’s probably isn’t the kind of thing I would have remembered on my own, either. But I am happy to say it worked like a charm.

This picture of them lined out is a terrible for illustrative purposes because it’s really hard to see their relative positions and Squash has some slack in his tugline anyway, but I love the picture so I’m putting it here anyway. I think a heron or some other large bird flew off in that direction right before I took this.

I’m still not clear if that specific water is considered the Minnesota River or the Mississippi River. There’s this weird convergence of the two right around here with some little connecting Minnessippi water fingers between them. But anyway, here’s a better picture:

Look at them, both tuglines and harnesses taut, both working hard. And boy, did they work hard and run fast. This is maybe the most coordinated their actual pulling has been since… well, maybe ever. I mean, they’ve always run well together, but it took experiencing them truly pulling in concert for most of the run today for me to realize how much of the time up until now one dog has been pulling more than the other.

Most of the pictures I tried to take today ended up fairly blurry because we were going so fast, and I didn’t take that many anyway. Although I have the camera mounted on a GorillaPod on a belt at my waist, I still have to use one hand to click the shutter, and in all truth I was a little bit afraid to only have one hand on the handlebars a lot of the time today. So I didn’t have a ton to choose from, but I think the next two pictures show their relative positions the best:

Something that amuses me is that when Maisy got her yellow harness I started calling her “Maisy Bee” (because of the black and yellow, see), which somehow morphed into “Maisy Bee-Hind”, and now she really IS Maisy Behind.

Anyway, I think I would like Maisy’s real tugline to be just a touch longer, and I need something more durable than a spare neckline, but those little details are easily put to bed. The real story today is that my wee mush baby team was rescued from my blue, blue thoughts by the fellowship of the mush. That’s some pretty sweet backup.

 

 

 

 

Also…. turkeys!  Of course my trailhead was right behind them and I had to wait for them (in the drizzling rain, I might add) to wander off before I could get started.

“DO WANT turkeys.”

And the turkeys’ tag-team partners on Team Distracting Wildlife… The Ladies…

Ok, NOW I’m done.

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Oh Cluster, My Cluster

Posted on April 10, 2012 by mushbaby

Every once in awhile, when you’re pretty comfortable with how things are, something comes along that changes the game. Good, bad, or neutral, there’s no point in ignoring it. It’s just going to hang around, nibbling on  your status quo like a deranged, confused beaver until you do something about it.

Anyway, here’s my nibbling beaver, so to speak.

It’s crafty and subtle, but it’s there. There in Squash’s tight harness and Maisy’s loose one; there in the slack in her line and the tautness in his. And it’s not only in this one picture, in black and white and brindle and red and yellow for all the world to see once it’s pointed out to them, it’s something that I’ve been noticing getting progressively more obvious over the last several runs.

What it means is that Squash has finally gotten interested enough in pulling to outpace Maisy on a regular basis, which makes me happy and sad at the same time. Happy because it means he’s finally approaching something like his full potential. He’s a big, powerful dog, but he’s also an adolescent clown and I’ve struggled with getting him focused enough to be truly serious about pulling. Sad because it makes me think thoughts like, “what will happen if Maisy can’t keep up with him anymore?” and those thoughts take me to a very blue corner of my mind.

Well knowing is half the battle, and being a helper is some fraction of the other half the battle…  so armed with the knowledge that a potential team-threatening problem is brewing and being a helper naturally inclined to try to do something about it, I set about to brainstorming. And this is what I came up with:

Don’t fret, I’m going to explain it.

Regular Mush Baby readers (all 3 of you) may remember that when I was getting Pip involved in all this nonsense I purchased a gangline setup meant to add 1-2 dogs behind the leaders. What if, my current brainstorming self got to thinking, I used that setup to line Squash and Maisy up one behind the other instead of side by side. With Maisy in front and Squash behind her, she could set the pace – or at the very least, he wouldn’t be able to totally overtake her and she’d get to run along even if she wasn’t pulling.

So today was the day I decided to give it a try. I started out with just one of my longer necklines (the black and white piece at the end) as the leader line in case Maisy was weirded out by the length of the real leader line. Clearly, she was skeptical:

(Squash’s neckline isn’t hooked up yet in this picture.)

So, I’m not going to belabor this too much, but this was pretty much a horrible clusterf$%k. At times, they seemed to get it… sort of… except that Squash kept ending up with the gangline between his legs because Maisy didn’t actually have any tension on her leader line.

But really, she was more comfortable back next to Squash, turning her makeshift leader line into simply the longest neckline in history:

Ok fine, I thought. Maybe the neckline is too short and is weirding her out, so I swapped it out for a real leader section. Again, they kinda sorta got the idea of it at times, but she still wasn’t out tautly enough:

And again, she was more comfortable back next to him and swapping the line only ended up creating the NEW world’s longest neckline.

And it was just a mess. They were so tangled, I can’t even describe it. We couldn’t get fifty feet without stopping to untangle.

So this was the fatal flaw in my plan: Not that Maisy wouldn’t completely line out or that Squash kept getting tangled in his gangline even when she did. That stuff just comes from novice dogs running with an unfamiliar setup, with practice and training they would learn. The flaw was this: I was thinking that if his pace was faster than hers, she could still run without being overtaken. But the actual problem with this hypothesis is that Maisy’s leader line really needs to be tight in order to take up slack in Squash’s gangline and prevent his legs from getting hopelessly tangled. A mush baby mistake, but no harm done, live and learn.

So ok, I thought. What if I hooked them up the other way around – him in front and her behind?

I tried it, but no photographic evidence exists of this part of the experiment. Largely because I was laughing so hard that my oxygen-deprived brain could no longer tell my fingers how to work the camera. If the run so far had been a clusterf%^k, then this was a super-mega-clusterf#@k. I’m pretty sure the only thought in Squash’s head was FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE and he was just buzzing all over the damn place. A couple of times he somehow ended up behind the scooter and I don’t even really know how or why that happened. I think he may have levitated at one point.

Fortunately, I had brought their normal scootering line along “just in case” something went awry. Squash decided to entertain himself while I swapped the lines out:

And things were better after that:

Although he’s still outpacing her. So, we’ll see what happens. For now, I’m stuffing those blue thoughts away into a deep, dark mind crevice while I keep brainstorming. The next thing I’m going to try is using a different sort of collar (thanks to the advice of, once again, Jessica of Blue Eyes and Spitfire) called a limited slip O-ring when they are running. They should feel the pressure of the neckline a bit differently than they do with their regular collars and hopefully alter their paces to stick closer together.

I will say, one seed this shocking development has planted in my mind is trying out scootering with Squash alone from time to time. Today did illustrate definitively that he has no problems whatsoever pulling the scooter completely on his own, although based on his brief, spectacularly disastrous stint as leader I’m not sure his mind is in the right place yet to actually try it. Still, as he starts to use those long legs and hunky thighs and shoulders to their full potential I’m curious to see how fast and powerful he can be when it’s all him.

Someday.

SOON.

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All Work and No… Play?

Posted on April 7, 2012 by mushbaby

On Good Friday I inadvertently cultivated my fledgling tradition of going to the state park on a holiday without realizing that it IS a holiday thinking that (as usual) I’d have the place mostly to myself when in fact there were a bunch of other people there. I’ve mentioned before that the distractions this provides are a blessing and a curse, a necessary evil on the road to proofing the dogs to mush in the company of others. I’m glad to find myself at a point where I’m starting to see distractions as a useful training opportunity rather than a disappointing cause for alarm, working them instead of fleeing them.

Speaking of work… at one point we found ourselves approaching two women walking a small dog coming in our direction. I don’t expect the dogs to go On By this level of distraction at this point, they haven’t had nearly enough practice. Instead, I had them pull off to the side of the path to practice a stationary Leave It since it’s easier for me to enforce if they break. They did great, much better than I expected actually. It’s funny, whenever I pull off to the side like this and practice Leave It, it seems to intimidate people… like they’re expecting my dogs to go apeshit. To be fair, it wouldn’t be a total surprise to me if they did, and I am sitting there saying LEEEEEEEAAVE IT, LEEEEEEAVE IT fairly intensely which I guess is kind of creepy in its own way. But really I’m mostly trying to be polite, as I’d imagine getting barreled down on by my dogs with me in tow would be even more intimidating and creepy.

Anyway, when she realized that neither the dogs nor the creepy dog lady chanting LEEEEEEAVE IT, LEEEEEEAVE IT were about to go apeshit on her, one of the women asked if the dogs could meet. I said “Oh, I’m sorry, not when they’re working,” and she replied, “Oh, they’re working?” before moving on. She was genuinely puzzled, which in turn genuinely puzzled me. Wasn’t it obvious that we were working? If we weren’t, then… what the hell were we doing?

When I was in college I had a classmate who had horses. She had a sweatshirt that said, “Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, Work, RIDE” and I always thought (rather smugly, I admit, but cut me some slack I was young) something along the lines of “Boy is THAT effed up. Seriously, how is that even fun? Better her than me!”  These days, I might as well wear a sweatshirt that says “Work,  Work,  Work,  Work,  Work,  Work,  Work,  Work,  MUSH” 24 hours a day, because now I totally get how that’s fun. I mean, it IS a lot of work. It’s training dogs and loading the scooter and dogs into the car and making sure the gear bag is properly packed and you didn’t forget anything and making sure there’s water in the car and training dogs and driving to the park and unloading the scooter and dogs from the car and getting the dogs dressed and training dogs and checking feet and checking handlebars and checking tire pressure and checking brakes and OH MY GOD GLORIOUS BEAUTIFUL SERENITY EXHILARATING WE ARE FLYING THROUGH THE WOODS NEVER NEVER STOP and training dogs and checking feet and undressing dogs and loading the scooter and dogs into the car and driving home and unloading the scooter and dogs from the car and checking all the equipment and taking a shower.

But at the same time… it’s not exactly work. I mean, it is. But it’s also the wind in your hair and your dogs successfully going On By a dad fishing with his kids in the river next to the path and having a blast and bonding with your dogs and fresh air and woodland paths and seeing one dog do what he was born to do and the other dog blossom into a leader and sloppy dog kisses and wagging tails and teamwork and spring breezes and a feeling of accomplishment.

So yea, go ahead and not get it. Better me than you anyway.

Oh, p.s. I’ve finally christened the team with a name and made us a Facebook page to keep the mushing stuff all in one place. Since the vast majority of stuff on my FB page WAS the mushing stuff, I’m not quite sure what’s going to be left, but anyway… check us out at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mush-Puppies/286414148102486

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Wildlife and Other Sundries

Posted on April 2, 2012 by mushbaby

Quite by accident, the other day I discovered where the deer bed down when they take a break from their deer business.  We were scootering, and the dogs were getting tired so I took a shortcut back to the car on the main park road. As I was looking around, my eye just happened to fall upon a doe resting in the leaves. Since the dogs were tired, they were trotting at a fairly slow pace and I got a good enough look to see there were actually 6-8 does bedded down in the same area of woods. Fortunately, the park deer are acclimated enough to people that they realize it’s not worth their while to get up from digesting their morning meal for every single gawker and passerby, and they just stayed put, watching me watch them while the dogs failed to notice their existence.

Now that I know where to find them, I see the ladies (as I’ve come to call them) almost every day. I always pass their hang out driving in and out of the park but we almost never scooter by – up until now, just because it wasn’t on any of our normal routes although now I avoid it on purpose… no need to tempt fate. Deer are not small animals and it doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to see them, but it’s amazing how practically invisible they can be bedded down in the leaf litter. It’s almost as if they have some sort of… protective coloration or something. Here are five of the ladies:

I expect it won’t be long before the undergrowth is too dense to see them at all anymore.

I don’t know why, but I really love this picture. Their harnesses look crappy and they’re not even lined out properly, but there’s just something about it that evokes a mood of everything I love about mushing. They’re done with their pre-run water, ready and eager to go out, and almost look like they’re contemplating deep thoughts.

This was taken during canicross, not scootering. This is one of those moments that doesn’t photograph well, I wish I’d been taking video. Squash was being silly and distracted and running off the trail when Maisy shouldered her way in between him and what he was trying to get at and literally shoved him back on track. He’s almost twice her weight, but she knows how to check him like an NHL enforcer. I guess it’s her way of saying ON BY ON BY! and is part of what makes her such a fantastic partner for him.

And lastly, Maisy answers the question “but do the dogs like scootering?” rather definitively, I think.

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Sir, Yes Sir!

Posted on March 31, 2012 by mushbaby

Maybe you can’t tell by my cool demeanor, but I am super excited right now. Thanks to Jessica of Blue Eyes and Spitfire Racing Team fame (LOOK TO YOUR RIGHT), I have recently become aware of the existence of Mushing Boot Camp. Seriously, mushing boot camp, where I’m hoping the dogs and I will molt from mush babies to mush pupae.  Sure, I shall have to sacrifice some summer camping trips, but… MUSHING BOOT CAMP FOR GOD’S SAKE. It’s worth it. If only to spend several days around people who don’t find it weird to be so excited about such a thing. Plus, I can camp while I’m there if I want to, anyway.

Check it out: http://www.mushingbootcamp.com/index.html

 

So when last we met, Squash feet were being rested due to some wear. In retrospect, I don’t think the picture was all that illustrative because I zoomed out too much in my crop, so I’m reposting it a bit more zoomed in.

Again, he wasn’t hurt or anything, but those little pink circles the arrows are pointing could have lead to problems if I’d ignored them. I’d planned to take a week off but we ended up not scootering for almost 2 weeks — due to real life constraints rather than his feet, although his feet benefitted.

The way this is in the shade, and his pads are a little wet, is kind of reminiscent of late night wrinkle creme “before and after” pictures where someone is frowning and glaring in their before picture and sunshine and roses in their after picture. But, still, you can see those nice smooth uniform pads and the pink circles are gone. BANISHED.

So here are the kind of surfaces we’re sticking to, except for connecting segments of paved trails:

I realize it doesn’t take 3 pictures to make my point here, but I just love how I caught Maisy in pretty much the exact same posture in both of the following two pictures. I also love how Squash can trot while she’s running.

 

 

For the Pip fans: Now that I’ve resolved some contract negotiations with my own feet, I hope to get back to doing some more canicross in the coming weeks. So he should be making some appearances here.

Until then, this is how he spends his time. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

 

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A Brief Segment Containing Embarrassing and/or Humorous Errors

Posted on March 19, 2012 by mushbaby

That is, Bloopers.

In Which “Line Out” Practice Fails

In Which Squash is Overcome by Silliness

In Which “On By!” Is Ignored

In Which “Come Around” is Flubbed but Ultimately Redeemed

Posted in Bloopers, Humor, Scootering | Leave a comment

Safety First!

Posted on March 19, 2012 by mushbaby

I broke my GorillaPod late last week. They don’t seem like the sort of thing one should be able to break, but unfortunately I have a superhuman ability to break stuff. I replaced it yesterday.

Where I’m going with this is that when stuff breaks, you can repair it (in the case of misaligned handlebars on a scooter that was pulled into a tree by wayward squirrel-chasing scooter dogs) or replace it (in the case of a mysteriously yet irrevocably broken GorillaPod), but the same doesn’t necessarily go for people and dogs.

Scootering isn’t exactly BASE jumping or cliff diving, but there are some obvious dangers, falling off being the most obvious of all. There are so many ways to fall – the scooter can skid out on an unstable surface (loose sand, leaves, or ice) or  just banking around a turn too tightly. The line could tangle up in the front wheel and bring it to a dead stop. You could lose your balance. The dogs could forget what “On By!” means and go careening after a squirrel, turkey, or deer. You might go over a bad bump. Or you might just be going too fast to control the scooter.

Along those lines, I only took this video this morning but when I showed my husband a similar one from last week he said “wow, they’re going fast” – and we were actually going slower in that one, slow enough that I didn’t feel the need to say “Good Lord!” Seriously, the can get going pretty fast, especially on long straightaways. It can be intimidating, especially on pavement.

 

 

I’ve only taken one bad fall off the scooter, the first and last time I actually fell off before I learned to sort of strategically eject myself off of it. Fortunately, it was on a dirt trail rather than pavement and I was wearing my helmet at the time. It was one of those things that somehow seemed simultaneously to happen in slow motion but way too fast to do anything about. As far as I could tell, I was readjusting my grip at the same time that we must have gone over a little bump or soft spot in the dirt and I just lost control of the handlebars. Once the process got started, I couldn’t get control back and rather than go down with the scooter I tried to fling myself off to the side – which was more or less successful except I probably should have tried harder not to land on my head.

It’s a little hard to see, but here’s what happened to my helmet.

My noggin, on the other hand, was fine, despite landing mostly on my temple. I was stunned for a minute, then ecstatic when I saw that the dogs had stopped only about 20 feet down the trail and were looking back at me, then realized my shoulder was going to be very very sore soon, then wondered if I’d be dead if I hadn’t been wearing the helmet.  The funny thing is, up until that point I had been pretty cavalier about the helmet and wore it fairly intermittently. You can be sure I wear one every time, now (and yes the one I fell on has been replaced).

It only took that one time before I learned to hop off much more gracefully. I’ve abandoned ship a handful of times but never actually fallen (knock wood) since then. Once the line got tangled in the front wheel and locked it, another time a squirrel ran out about 10 feet in front of the dogs, once we skidded out on some fall leaves. The trick is to let go of the handlebars and hop off the very instant it becomes clear things are about to go south rather than waiting for confirmation, or the confirmation will be your head hitting the ground. Trust me. And eventually you’ll get good enough at it that it almost seems graceful, you just let go, hop up and slightly to the side, and the scooter keeps on going without you.  The dogs generally stop once they realized you’re not on board anymore or, in the case of the squirrel, when they hit a tree.

The other lesson I’ve learned is that if you brake too fully and/or too abruptly, you and the scooter will still obey the laws of physics. Either you’re going to keep moving forward (I’ve never flipped over the handlebars, but I have smashed into them) or the rear tire is going to whip around so the base hits you in the leg thusly:

I still have a little knot there from the center of that monstrosity, where the edge of the base actually hit me. The edge is surprisingly painful and injurious to be hit by, it’s essentially a skateboard although slightly shorter and narrower, so it’s very hard and somewhat thin which is a rough combination to get hit by. I get little minor bumps from it all the time getting the scooter on and off the back porch and into and out of the car, but nothing like this. That was pretty magnificent if I do say so myself.

So what people sometimes don’t realize is that there are dangers for the dogs, too. The big ones I worry about are overexertion/heat stress/dehydration, foot pad injuries, muscle strains/sprains, and skin abrasions from the harnesses. I check the dogs’ feet and chest/armpits/sides where the harness lies before and after every run. They get water before and immediately after a run when I’m getting the scooter reloaded into the car, and I have rules about how often/how long we will run (as per yesterday’s post). Their harnesses are padded and kept clean and dry.

For example, today everyone was back to their chipper selves, so I decided to do a little Gee-Haw work. Because we don’t cover much distance when that’s my focus, I don’t mind that it’s on pavement, but pavement really is harder on their paws than soft ground. It’s is fine for long leash walks or even canicross where they aren’t actually pulling as much, but when they are pulling the scooter there is a lot more force and friction put on those paw pads and surface matters. There are trails I won’t use at all because they are packed dirt covered in small gravel – which would be like running on sandpaper. I don’t reject paved surfaces out of hand, but I do limit their time and distance on it.

Anyway, here’s the kind of thing I’m looking for. These pads aren’t actually injured, but if we don’t cool it that’s where they could be headed. It didn’t photograph well at all and it’s hard to see, but there are a few round pinkish spots where the top layer of the pad has been a bit worn on two of the toes. I want to stress that he is not limping or painful or having any problems, but continuing to run these paws right now could be bad news. That’s the whole point of checking their feet so frequently, to catch “hey this minor thing maybe could turn into a problem” before it actually turns into a problem.

 

So that’s at least a week off from scootering for Squashie, then I’ll check his feet again. If he’s good to go we’ll have to stay on soft surfaces and/or use some protection – booties, Musher’s secret, or athletic tape. Like the unsightly calluses that humans spend so much time and money obliterating from their feet while our skin dutifully insists on building the protection up again, his pads will toughen up over time as we are going more regularly, we just have to be careful with them.

I don’t really have a way to end this, so here’s a picture of the dogs riding home from the park today.  (Don’t worry, in the spirit of Safety First we were stopped at a stop sign.)

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And on the Seventh Day…

Posted on March 18, 2012 by mushbaby

Rest is a relative term around here. For example, today Squash slept in until seven-thirty and (sadly) that is note-on-the-calendar worthy. And everyone is pretty much lazing around here now – but after spending “only” a few hours playing in the yard and going to obedience class. Again, not your typical day-in-the-life-of around here, but not what most people would truly consider a day of rest.

Normally Squash is very busy. He always needs something to do. If he’s not scootering or canicrossing or going for a walk or going to class or chewing on a bone or playing with his ball or barking at the world or rolling around on his back or digging a hole in the yard or playing chase or tug or wrestling with Maisy… that is, if he has utterly exhausted all the other possible ways to fill his day and he simply doesn’t have anything else to do, then he’ll fill his time by pacing around the house. And eventually, he sleeps. Sometimes not until after he’s reached a mental state that is the equivalent of an overtired, overstimulated toddler’s delusional I’M NOT TIRED I’M NOT TIRED mania.

At first the pacing concerned me because I worried something was worrying him, but then I realized he’s not me (and I stopped pacing over it). Then the pacing concerned me because it’s kind of annoying, but then I learned to ignore it – because it was really learn to ignore it or go mental.

In contrast, the main reason for this unusually lazy(ish) day is that the  the last several days have unseasonably (nay, freakishly) warm and humid and we went scootering both yesterday and the day before — albeit early in the morning before it warmed up too much (I guess it’s not all bad that Squash is an Early Riser). Yesterday the dogs were getting a bit droopy towards the end of the run; I felt bad and didn’t want to overwork them, so I hopped off and ran the scooter for awhile to give them a break. Like any athlete, a mushbaby-dog just needs some good old fashioned down time to recharge after that kind of hard, tiring workout.

(Maisy and Squash would like to remind you to always, always bring post-run water, kids!)

Anyway. Since we are doing this stuff for fun, I never want to cross that “overdoing it” line, but I find it a fine, fuzzy line to pin down and walk. Getting stronger and better conditioned means working hard, but working too hard is counterproductive if it means overexertion or injury. I know time and experience will (eventually) give me better judgment, but for now some days I feel like I’m being a wimpy chicken while other days (like our droopy day yesterday) I feel like a slave driver.

Last summer and fall I would not scooter two days in a row or more than three times per week (usually two). Over the winter(ish), when it was cool, I would go two days in a row if the trails were ok. As the weather continues to warm up I may drop back down to not going two days in a row, depending on the weather, or at least keep the runs shorter or mainly work on commands (like the gee-haw parking lot practice from the other day) on the second day. We will live and scooter and learn (and hopefully actually skijor, sigh) together, but I will probably always err on the side of being a wimpy chicken.

So what to do in between scooter days? Cross-train, of course! Just like human athletes, doing the same workout day after day works the same muscles day after day. And resting from scootering doesn’t have to mean resting completely.

Walks and canicross (ok, ok, old picture),

ball-chasing,

stick-chewing,

yard laps,

Maisy-playing,

bone chewing,

pacing (inside or outside),

and (not pictured) standing in his kennel barking (which he’s doing as I type this for some unfathomable reason) all have their place in the life of a ridiculously busy dog.

I do have a point, other than wanting to post a bunch of pictures of my dogs (which I do love to do), and it is this:  Like kids, it’s important for dogs to have some unstructured/unforced play time even if they also play a sport. It’s good for their brains and it’s good for their bodies, and some kinds of exercise are (relatively) restful compared to the strenuous workouts. Although it sometimes feels this way, I don’t HAVE to take my 16 month old Alaskan husky scootering every day to keep him happy, he’s better off with some balance in his life (and so am I).

 

And lastly, occasionally they even rest. Although… that’s a relative term.

Posted in Dog Talk, Health, Scootering, Training | Leave a comment

Scooter Love

Posted on March 13, 2012 by mushbaby

Well… I saw my first robin a couple of days ago, the final red-breasted nail in the coffin of the winter that wasn’t. But at least the trails are finally completely clear of  ice and snow, so when I leaned over and whispered “scooter” in Squash’s ear this morning I really, really meant it although I was mostly goofing off.  I didn’t realize he really knew the word and I didn’t realize how happy it made him, so I was surprised but pleased when he went completely bonkers. He likes it, he REALLY likes it!

There is a little group of adjacent and partially connected little mini-parking lots at the park where we scooter. Even though I prefer to run the dogs on soft surfaces, I don’t mind pavement for short runs or parts of runs and for training commands.  So the plan for today was to use these little parking lots to do some Gee-Haw practice. We did pretty well, I think.

We did three short runs like that before moving on to a nice longer run mostly through the woods, which was a good workout for them as the ground is still quite wet and soft. I also switched to a shorter neckline which I was extremely happy with. Tangles with the neckline have been a frustration for me but for some reason I can’t remember I had been reluctant to use the shorter one. Call me reluctant no more.

Thanks to daylight savings, we were at the park earlier than usual for scootering and there were turkeys and deer everywhere going on about their usual, unaffected-by-daylight-savings-time morning business. This can be a blessing and a curse – the wildlife is great motivation for the dogs to run and it’s nice to have distractions to train against, but it can make for a wild ride and there’s always the potential for the dogs to get over-the-top excited and out of control. For example, immediately after these pictures were taken (in which, by the way, you will note that Squash has incredibly hunky thighs),

a small group of deer walked across the path at the crest of that small hill ahead of us. Normally, I help the dogs up hills by either kicking or hopping off and running beside the scooter, but their eyes and brains were full of deer and they rocketed up that hill like Popeye on spinach. It was amazing and exhilarating but slightly frightening, and once at the top they wanted to shoot off into the woods instead of staying on the path. We ended up at an impasse on the top of the hill, with them lined out like a compass pointing towards the true north of the retreating deer and me leaning back like some kind of bizarre half-woman, half-scooter counterbalancing cyborg. Obviously I came out ahead in the end or I would still be searching through the woods for my wayward beasts, but for a few minutes at least the outcome wasn’t certain.

When we made it back to the parking lots we took a couple more Gee-Haw spins around before heading back to the car. This picture isn’t that great, but it makes me happy. I almost never get to see their faces, and it’s nice to see them looking so happy and filled with Scooter Love…

And my happy, tired boy ready to go home after a cool down and water break, ready to rest up until the next time I whisper “scooter” in his ear.

Posted in Equipment, Scootering | Leave a comment

Nice. Trot.

Posted on February 25, 2012 by mushbaby

Nothing new going on up here. Got some snow, thought it might be enough to ski, snow mostly melted. Story of my winter!

But I did want to share this picture. Squash has this lovely floaty trot that, much like Bigfoot, has defied all my intentional attempts to capture it on film.  And then one day this week we were just fooling around in the yard with the ball with the camera on “burst” setting and this showed up:

 

 

He just has this free and easy movement, just glides over the ground. Dog movement geeks, behold. 🙂

 

Posted in Dog Talk, Squash | Leave a comment