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
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