Doggy Days

Since November 1st, I have been working for a local long distance dog musher.  I feed dogs and clean the yard (twice a day) six days a week.  Three days a week I get to run a small team of dogs and the other three days I run the puppies.

There are about 40 adult dogs.  The dog in the foreground in the above picture is Chuck.  He's the keeper of the dog yard.  His brother, Norris, is in the 3rd row over :)

This is Sleepy...one dog from the Seven Dwarves litter.

Two litters of puppies were born in the fall.  This litter of seven was about 5 or 6 weeks old when this picture was taken.

A few of the puppies were just starting to climb outside the cage on their own.

This litter of four was about 3 or 4 weeks old when the picture was taken.

They have all grown so much since these photos were taken.  I will try and take some more recent photos and get those posted soon.

This is Panda, the mother of the litter of 4.

The rest of these photos were taken on different days.  Until there was enough snow to use the sled brake/hook I was running the big dogs with the snowmachine.  Now I run them with the sled :)  It's about a mile up to a lake then we go out several miles toward the Stampede Trail (west).  Dave does 80-100 mile runs with his team and goes out to the park boundary on the Sushana River (past the Savage and Teklanika Rivers).

One picture with the sled.  This was my first day on the sled.  I only took four dogs to get a feel for this particular sled and the trail which is all down hill from the lake back to Dave's dog yard.  Now I run with 6 dogs on the sled.

Definitely a highlight on my running trail...beautiful view of Denali!