Photos From This Winter (part 2)

Quest & Sobe

Snitch & Sirius

Sobe



Spree



Spree & Morgana

Spree & Morgana

Wired & Lottie

Utin & Swift, Snitch & Sirius & Paxson

Wired & Sirius in lead, they are off!

Lottie in lead with Wired, 16 dog string

Photos From This Winter (part 1)

Paxson & Snitch, Spree & Swift, Sirius & Lottie



Obi & Wired, Sobe & Morgana, Merlin & Utin



Obi & Wired, Sobe & Morgana, Swift & Merlin

Obi & Flutie

Paxson

Four Awesome Yearlings

We are thrilled with how our Paxson x Wired yearlings are running.  They all have lead potential, awesome drive, great feet and are very driven.  They are even beating out quite a few adults for a place on the A team (if we ever get snow to race).  First super star is Lottie.  She is just amazing, can honestly say we have never had a yearling THIS good.

Lottie

Lottie

The next littermate is Merlin.  A gorgeous dog with a super build, beautiful type, nice size and a very smooth mover in harness.  Merlin is pretty amazing!

Merlin

Merlin

Super Yearling number 3 is Arthur.  A shorter, stocky boy but still hard driven and he just seems to go forever.

Arthur

Arthur

The last yearling is the crazy Morgana.  She loves to lope.  Even though she isn't our preferred build (too short legged for our taste) she drives really hard and pushes for speed.  She's a crazy little thing!

Morgana

Morgana

Arthur & Merlin

Arthur & Merlin

Wired & Lottie (Mother & Daughter)

It's December already?

We started training in October this year, it's been warm and rainy even though we had two good Holiday snow storms.  We hope we get another storm soon as we are ready to be on sleds!  This year we have 17 dogs in the training pool although Dodge will be retired from racing.  We have 4 yearlings in the pool - Arthur, Merlin, Lottie & Morgana.  All are doing great!  Lottie is super amazing though, that girl is on the A team for sure!  Every dog is doing well and running great!  We are very much looking forward to racing this year.  We plan on doing mostly sprints to 30 milers with two teams.  The two new dogs, Sobe & Utin have settled right in and we expect them to be two of our top dogs.  It feels so good to have a Skor son back in the team!  We are thrilled to have another Watt daughter too in Sobe.  Wired has really stepped it up and is knocking our socks off in lead.  That girl rocks!  We switched to Inukshuk dog food this year and think it's the best food we have ever fed.  The dogs keep excellent weight and are full of energy!  They also don't need to eat as much cups as previous foods to keep weight. 

Yearlings Arthur & Lottie

Utin & Swift leading

Wired & Utin in lead

16 dogs on the move

Dogs are running superb!

Us with our leaders, Wired & Utin

Horseback Riding In The Clouds

We can't believe it's been so long since we have written!  This summer we stayed busy visiting our favorite place, the Castle In The Clouds stables!  We have completely fallen in love with horses again (we used to have 2 as children).  We have become good friends with the staff there and rode often.  Check out http://www.ridingintheclouds.com/ for more info on horseback riding in NH.  We did quite a bit of hiking there as well.  Both litters of summer pups went with us often.  It's the best place to socialize them.  We can't wait to go back next summer!

2010/2011 Post Season News & Thoughts

Snow arrived late this year but it's sure sticking around!  It's April Friday and we are still running on sleds!  Been having a great time running the Paxson/Wired kids in harness.  Wow those pups drive!  They are really amazing! 

This season was kind of an odd one for us.  We lacked ATV and early season runs (mileage) but the team just seemed behind and were not coming together with the spark and drive they had years prior.  We figured it was something they would eventually get over.  For the month of January they did quite well so things were looking up!  After the Profile Falls fun run we started doing some longer 20 plus mile runs and the dogs seemed to tire quickly and were just slow overall.  We figured they would come out of it but they never really did.  Not sure why really, but we hope to not have this happen again next season.  That's one thing about the sport of racing is nothing is ever the same year to year and there are always new challenges.  But that's what makes dog mushing so exciting at times!  We are sure it's something we did (or didn't do) but determined not to repeat the issues we had this year.  They did well in the To The Dam & Back 20 and excellent in the 6 mile Tamworth Sprint race.  They really gave everything they had at Tamworth and we were thrilled with how they did. 

Paxson was the star dog of the season, frankly we do not have enough awesome things to say about him.  In my eyes he is everything we want to breed for in a sleddog.  He's flawless!  We were really bummed Swift was out for the season as she was running so awesome we expected her to be one of our main A race leaders, next year is hopefully her year!  We bred her to Paxson and she is due the end of May.

We placed a few dogs this spring.  Molly is a great leader and always gives it her all but she has been battling chronic sore wrists for years.  We tried everything on her: wrist wraps, supplements such as glucosamine and msm, even x-rayed her to make sure there was not arthritis but the vet said it's tendon/ligament.  We had to take her off the team in February because she was just too sore to do the longer consistent miles we wanted.  She is now living with Peggy Grass and is doing awesome!  Peggy does less miles than us so we knew she would be a perfect fit for her.  Elaine who has Gator was also looking for another dog so Powder went to live with her.  We are sure Powder will be a great addition to her team.  Qui-Gon was a very hard decision but he is going to live with Erin Kelley.  He's really a A string dog but he has weaker pads and requires booties often and tough feet is a trait we want to keep in our future breedings so we decided to let him go.  He has been doing a lot of leading lately and really doing superb.

Linc has officially retired from racing and more than likely Dodge will be as well.  We will run Dodge on the ATV next season and see how he does.

All for now!

Kim

Groveton Race Recap

We decided to put one 'A' team in the Groveton race.  The trail froze hard overnight but it warmed up in the mid 30's during the race.  I had a hard time picking which leaders to start with but settled on Sirius & Snitch.  The team was Sirius, Snitch, Paxson, Obi, Wired, Flutie, Qui & Harry.  We took off and the team did well for the first few miles.  Then we started going up hills and the dogs were not interested and focused on running.  They would stop and jump off the side of the trail to eat snow and roll around.  After a few times of this I thought maybe a leader change would improve the team, so took Sirius out and put Pax up front.  That helped the team stay on the trail but they were still not really working as a team and seemed to lack enthusiasm.  Bailey Vitello caught as and we chased off him from a bit, but when we lost him the team just really slowed.  At one point I got frustrated with them goofing off up the hills and stopped to do some ' Mushing Bootcamp' methods with them going up the line and pulling on their tuglines and telling them 'everybody pull'.  This helped some as they stopped goofing some after that.  We went through some twisy parts in the woods which the dogs really liked.  Snitch was slacking off in lead after so I tried Wired up front with Pax.  That went well for a few miles then she was being overrun because she was trotting too much. I put Sirius back up front and that went better. Nothing too exciting happened for a few miles, then came the dirt road you had to go down.  It was bare dirt so had to run up it or the sled couldn't move.  Another musher caught me and passed me through here.  I got to the top of this mtn trail where it is all in the sun, Obi was slacking off and seemed to struggle being further up in the team so I put him back in front of wheel and moved Wired up there.  He seemed better there and pulled a lot more.  Obi is one of those dogs who doesn't have some of our other dogs top speed but he is a constant dog who keeps loping after 20 miles so he keeps the teams speed up the further you go.  By this point Greg Vitello caught me and we traveled together quite a bit.  We passed each other back and forth for a bit trying to get our teams to really 'leave' one another but we seemed to be going the same speed.  At one point a few miles before the finish I called my guys up and they stayed in front of his team.  They were loping down the hill and instead of going straight to the finish tried to go right.  Got them going straight and we finished. 

We finished 9th of 12 teams with a time of 2h 29m 1s for 27 miles.  I was very proud of Paxson, that dog is amazing and a super dog.  He always impresses me with his speed, drive, focus and amazing feet.  I have yet to stress that dogs speed, it just always seems incredibly easy for him.  It's a trait we really love and are trying to breed more for.  We expect to have lots of Paxson kids in our future teams!  The team just didn't have their usual 'spark' and 'edge' in this race.  I know they are capeable of more, not sure why they seem bored lately but they are.  Something to improve on and look forward to next year though!  I loved the trail and really hope we can field two teams next year!

Sandwich Race Recap

Sandwich is and always will be a technical, challening (and somewhat scary) trail.  It has tight twists, turns, trees, steep up and downhill sections and side banked trails.  Mushers often fall, get dragged and scared on this trail... but the dogs love it as well as specators & mushers (no one said mushers are a sane group of people!)  With Thurs & Friday having temps near 60 with some light showers we were really questioning our sanity going to the drivers meeting.  They assured us they would groom the trail twice before the race started.  We decided to go Sat and if we got there and the trail was solid ice we would pull our teams.  Saturday we loaded up 10 dogs (two 5 dog teams each) and set off for our 20 mile race.  When we got there we checked the trail with Lidia, Jaye & Rob, it looked fast but not undoable. Poor Rob Cooke, I think we had him scared with our stories of this trail!  We decided to just do it but we packed our helmets :) 

Kelly was bib number 29 and I was 28.  We were in quite a large field of 20 teams.  We decided to mix the A & B string dogs together rather than have a super fast A team as neither one of us wanted to go THAT fast, lol! We only had two 5 dog teams because this trail is too technical (and dangerous) for blind Quest and Powder has been 'off' lately so she was staying behind as well. We booted all the dogs too because of the ice in the trail.  It saves time to not have to worry about someone cutting their foot in abrassive conditions rather than having to get off and boot in the middle of race.

I hooked up Molly, Paxson, Wired, Obi & Qui.  Kelly had Sirius, Snitch, Flutie, Dodge & Harry.  In the chute... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 go.  I am off... the first mile of this trail is the most challenging and honestly very scary.  After that first mile it's a sharp right onto a plowed road around a huge snowbank (which many hit) and then a sharp left back into the woods.  I made it through ok and was proud my team did it correctly. 

Kim at the road crossing (by Shane Buzzell)

Kelly at the road crossing (by Shane Buzzell)

Once in the woods another section of side pitched trails and close trees/corners.  Just before the next road crossing I noticed a bunch of kibble spilt all over the trail.  So either someone crashed and dragged here or someone is being a poor sport and throwing food on the trail to mess up other teams (yes, it has happened) but later found out someone crashed and lost their team.  I got by no problem, Kelly who took off 2 minutes behind me didn't.  She had a huge tangle where her leaders ended up behind her wheel dogs and in a knot.  After this section there is another left onto a road and another right into a field.  Paxson decided he was warm and stopped to jump in the snowbank to cool off.  I could tell that Molly's wrists were bothering her and she was holding back so I took her out of lead and left Pax up there alone.  He decided he didn't want to drive the team hard in single lead so I put Wired up there.  That made the team go great for a few miles but Wired wasn't really pushing to stay in front and kept trotting too much and getting her tugline run over by the rest of the team.  Qui was just behind the leaders and he looked like he wanted to drive hard, so I put him there and moved Wired back.  As I was doing this #2 flies by (Bailey Vitello, an amazing kid in the 45 miler) and Kelly right behind him.  Now the team is super excited and chasing Bailey.  Qui & Pax were trying hard to keep up wtih him and loping well.  Kelly's team was just trotting and we lost her.  We followed Bailey for quite a while, was quite fun chasing his team down this hill where it feels like you are dropping off on a roller coaster.  You just see the team and it disappears down, nothing you can do but hold on!!

We lose Bailey and now starts the head on passing, LOTS of it (we are almost at the half way point).  Quite scary as the trails are very narrow, with sharp bends and hills.  Passing goes ok, but Qui slows way down when teams come at him he didn't seem interested in driving hard in lead anymore either (seemed to be the 'thing' of the race so far except for Paxson).  Molly wasn't holding back anymore so I put her up front.  Kelly & I had a blast running our teams together (she caught back up).  We turned into the big field with the church and our teams ran side by side through there, loping and edging each other on.  The spectators seemed to love it and we had a blast!  Back into the woods with some more scary head on passing, but this time with the 45 milers.  We see Becky T, Jaye, Kasey, and Rob.  Poor Rob, I think Wired was too far left and kind of ran him off into the soft stuff.  Sorry Rob!  Kelly & I were both kind of surprised we had not caught anyone yet.  The teams were doing well, but were a little flat compared some of their recent training runs.  They were doing a lot more trotting than usual.   We really had to keep on them to get them to lope.  Molly is holding back again in lead because of her wrists so I switched leaders yet AGAIN and put Obi up front.  That was by far the best combo, Obi was really driving the team and we picked it up some.  We finally caught up and passed 3 teams the next few miles.

Windy fields (by Shane Buzzell)

We come out of the woods and hit the fields and OMG I have NEVER been in winds like this in my life.  Kelly's team was next to mine and her sled literally blew sideways right into mine.  It was so windy it felt like you couldn't breathe.  It was hard to see and the wind was so strong little snow and ice blew into your face and really stung.  The dogs had their ears flat and eyes squinted.  They could barely trot the wind was so strong and they would get moved around, again I have never seen wind like that (strong enough to push us and the dogs around).  I swear it felt like 60 plus!  Snitch & Obi were quite amazing and really put their heads down and tried to lope into the wind.  We couldn't wait to get across and it felt like forever as it was impossible for the dogs to move fast, plus I was getting tired of feeling like I couldn't breathe.  It was like sticking your head out of the car window on the highway!  Many mushers later commented they couldn't get over the wind there and how it felt like Iditarod or Quest!

The rest of the run back went good (got by the kibble spilt on the trail this time).  Our teams loped together over the finish.  Overall we had a good time and it was fun to race together!  Kelly finished 6th with a time of 1hr 44m 55s (paid to 5th, darn!) and I finished 7th with a time of 1hr 47m 02s out of 20 teams.  My 2 super stars were Obi & Paxson, Kelly's were Sirius & Snitch although no complaints with anyone.

Kelim's Swift, SD, CGC

Swift was born in our first litter sired by Skor.  She loves nothing more in life than to run.  She's a hard driving leader who is always 110% focused.  As a leader she is really everything we look for.   She is one of the dogs I trust most in lead and when there is something we need to get through or around we like to put her up front. She has her dad's markings and 'look', at times when they would walk by in the yard we would call them by the wrong name. 

                Skor & Swift (father & daughter)

Skor to Kluane was a fabulous combination, we were frankly dumb not to keep more from that combo but we had no idea how good it would be :)  We hope to repeat it in a way by breeding Swift to 'basically' her nephew Sirius this spring (Sirius' dad is very much the same pedigree as Swift).  All of Swift's 6 littermates are main race leaders... which we think is a pretty extraordinary trait. 

 Swift is very smart in obedience but she hates to sit still.  She's just a great dog!  She's a very nice mover and we would show her, except she is just a hair too tall.  Bummer!

Swift LOVES to swim too!  We think she's a pretty special girl!

NorthWapiti's Skor, SDX

Gone unexpectedly, never forgotten, greatly missed...



Skor was a super star dog in every way - a great leader, never tired, great feet, super appetite and work ethic, excellent mover, could really trust him with anything. Those things made him an superb sleddog, but other things made him just a special dog. He was very gentle, a real lover and not a fighter and he was just so responsible yet incredibly loving and trusting. We miss him greatly and often still find ourselves fighting back tears. His daughter Swift looks so much like him so we are reminded of him every day. In the past buying adult dogs from other kennels has not often worked out well for us, so I wonder how lucky did we get to share some great years with this wonderful dog - very lucky. We can never thank Mark & Karen enough for sending him here. He was our 'Grover' and will be remembered forever.

Here are some more of our favorite photos of him.



Skor as a baby pup




Great Leader




Handsome boy!




Skor with his brother Crunchie




Skor & Quest




Skor playing




Skor's excellent movement




Skor & Kelly