What a trip! On 01/28/21 I started driving from Ohio to New Hampshire to compete in the Mike Tierney Memorial Fun Race. My breeder and mentor Jaye Foucher was letting me stay at her place and was going to let me carpool to the race with her. She also was letting me borrow Tira and Mousse, and I couldn't be more excited about it.
On Friday we got the bad news that Jaye's trailer broke down and she could no longer race, so I was pretty sad about that, but she still came with me on Saturday and helped out by manning the ATV to snub teams to which gave me a sense of comfort having a familiar face there. My facebook friends Dawn, Steve, Ashley, and Brianna were also there so it made it a lot less scary. The dogs were SO cold I had to bust our their jackets, they weren't used to negative temperatures, especially when Ohio was 40s and raining when we left. Everyone got a kick out of the spoiled cold sleddogs. For the race itself, it was a 12.2 mile course, and way hillier than I'm used to. For reference, I don't even hit 200 feet of elevation on my 10 mile training runs, and this race had well over 1,500 feet of elevation. Regardless, we went out and we did it! The initial force of 8 dogs taking off caught me by surprise and whipped my hat off, but I caught it and we kept going. and I didn't lose the team! What I didn't expect was how many snowmobiles we had to pass. Given I had never passed them before and was still unsure of proper etiquette, I stopped, hooked down my team, and held them for every snowmobiler to pass. It added a good 30-40 minutes to our time, but I don't necessarily regret it. Of course we came in last, but we finished at a decent pace and the dogs were in good spirits. That Saturday night, Jaye asked me if I wanted to come run dogs with her to get her team out. OF COURSE! I tied my sled to her sled and followed her and her 12 dog team. Now that was scary. I honestly thought I was going to crash anyyyyy minute. At one point we stopped for a minute, and when Jaye went to take off the force DID throw me off the sled. We couldn't stop laughing about it. Come Sunday I decided to scratch the race, Natsu and Ame were both pretty tired still and I couldn't expect them to get up early and run that course again, not with our lack of hill training. I opted to do an afternoon run though for a 10 mile run on some flatter trails near Jaye's with Jaye and Lizzy, and after running behind her and her team, I'd say it was like running on easy or beginner mode. I'm sure it helped that the dogs were still a little tired from Saturday. I had to have Yona ride in the sled for a little bit because she started pulling back on the neckline and she NEVER does that, but after a mile or two I looked her back to the team and she looked fine again. Regardless, I decided to give the team Monday and Tuesday to rest just to make sure no one was injured or would get injured. Monday and Tuesday I just played with puppies the whole time. Jaye had a current litter from Mia and Captain who were 11 weeks old. I was originally on the list to get a puppy, but there was another pregnant female I was waiting to see if she would have enough puppies, so I had decided to unofficially pass until we knew. Still, they were rather tempting and I found myself falling in love with them. I ESPECIALLY loved the three girls Holly, Merry, and Noelle. they were so sweet and cuddly! Come Wednesday we did another run, this time Kelly and Kim came! They are Ame's breeder. I followed Kelly and Kim since they were doing a shorter run, and we did 5.2 miles. I encountered a snowmobiler but when I went to hold my dogs they insisted I pass. They were so nice and cheered my dogs on as we passed, I was grateful for the nice experience!! I also got a lot of nice passes in with Kelly, Kim, Jaye, and Lizzy. All the dogs did fabulous! When we got back to the truck Kelly, Kim, and I hung out and we chatted about dogs. It was SO awesome to connect with the people who bred my first working dog and see all their dogs again. I went down the row and knew them all by name except Ellie whose name escaped me in the moment (though I knew her background, sorry Ellie!) and Pirate who I accidentally called Night in the moment and went wait, you're not Night (sorry Pirate!). I follow their kennel pretty religiously having a dog from them, and love following the dogs at races and seeing all their goofy personalities. It was just an absolutely fantastic time catching up with them. Then on Friday I woke up to a surprise... PUPPIES! Daffy had her litter of puppies while I was still there, how cool is that! Daffy, the mom, is Uta's half sister as they share the same dad. Mousse, the dad, is Yona's son and Chise's brother. I was SO excited waiting for this litter to happen, and it was super awesome to meet them right as they came into the world. Daffy was such a good mom, I was worried I would make her anxious, but she was totally fine with me and let me handle the puppies. I still handled them for less than a minute at a time of course, I didn't want to stress momma out! She ended up with six beautiful, healthy babies in the end. Two girls, four boys. Since it was snowing the whole day, Jaye named them with snowstorm themed names. "Flurry" Sibersong's Snow Flurry, "Ava" Sibersong's Avalanche, "Blizzard" Sibersong's Blizzard, "Nori" Sibersong's Nor'easter, "Drift" Sibersong's Snow Drift, and "Storm" Sibersong's Snow Storm. I absolutely love the names and can't wait to find out which one will be the future Yukikaze team member! We will find out in 12 weeks come May! Saturday I got one final run in breaking trail with Jaye and Lizzy, and then Saturday afternoon I headed back to Ohio. No road trip of mine is complete without transporting a dog though! On my way home I transported the former Kringle, one of the Mia puppies, to his new home in New York, and I arrived back home on Sunday. All in all it was an amazing experience. Racing, training with my inspirations, running on the most beautiful snow and trails, seeing my future puppy be born, it was all just incredible. Thank you for the experiences New Hampshire, I'll be back in May!
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Yukikaze Adventure BlogThis blog is to post the pup's adventures, primarily being sport or racing results. Archives
April 2021
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