Buffypups first time running in harness

 Feb. 2017

So, a big thing happened yesterday.  Remember these little trouble nuggets? They were born June 14th, so they're 8 months old tomorrow.

[PIC GOES HERE SORRY]

The time had come for them to put on their very first harnesses and run with the big dogs.  Mazel tov, pups!

How they grow.

[PIC GOES HERE SORRY]

Spike grows, too.

[PIC GOES HERE SORRY]

Owen the Taxidermist and I brought the dogs to some nearby trails. We took two 4-dog teams and ran them 12 miles fast to wear them out.

Then we put harnesses on the three pups we'd brought along:  Clem, Spike, and Anya

[SHORT VIDEO OF CLEM]

Spike is so huge already that he needed one of our biggest harnesses.  Here he is with littermate Anya.

[PIC OF SPIKE AND ANYA SORRY]

And here's Clem and Anya. They've seen the big dogs go running so many times but have never joined in.

[PIC OF CLEM AND ANYA]

Since I've never harness-broken a dog before, I just... put on harnesses.  And clipped them to the line.  They were fine! Or so it seemed

[PIC GOES HERE SORRY]

srsly, look at these handsome goobers

We put Anya on Owen's team, and I took the two handsome fellows.  My mistake was putting them together.

Their mama Pepe was leading them, and luckily she's unflappable.  But within 20 feet Spike had somersaulted onto Clem and they...

...had gotten into a very fluffy growly dramatic tussle in which no dogs were even the slightest bit harmed

At this point I could not go back, but couldn't really go forward either.  And it was clear that Clem and Spike should run next to adults

So, basically, I promoted Spike to CEO on his first day as an intern, aka made him a lead dog with his mama

Spike is a very nice dog but he was suddenly in formation with other dogs, restrained by many ropes, and it was alarming to him

but after a minute or so he figured it out!  Here he is running in front, getting the hang of it.  He's on front right, Clem is back left.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

[SHORT VIDEO]

You can tell they're pulling hard, though, based on how tight their lines are.  And the sled was going a solid 12-14 mph.

After a quarter mile or so, I moved Spike back so he was running with Clem again.  I hoped they'd both learned from running next to grown-ups

I mean, they were both still running like drunkards in a British play, but they really seemed to get the going-forward thing

This is after I moved Spike back again.  Look at them go!  And Anya is the back right (your left) dog in the team behind them.

[SHORT VIDEO]

We ran around 1 mile total, then headed back to the truck.  Wanted to keep it short and sweet, leave the pups wanting more

Here's the final team btw with mama husky Pepe and uncle husky Kid in lead

[PIC GOES HERE SORRY]

When we got back it was time for LOTS of cuddles to congratulate our new runners.  Here Owen's son does the honors with Clem

[PICS GO HERE SORRY]

And that's the story of hour our baby sled dogs started learning to pull.  THE END.






































































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