Fall Training

It's Fall: time for pumpkins and sled dog training!

With a little help from mother nature in the form of crisp Fall mornings, Fall training should be just around the corner. Fall training is the time we get the dogs out and remind them of all they knew last season. It's a time spent feeling out the team and figuring out just where we stand.

This year, we are excited to announce that Gypsy and Luke, our visiting sled dogs from the 2010-2011 dog sledding season, will once again be joining the Maryland Sled Dog Adventures team. Kiana's Sammamish (aka Sammi or Sammidoodle) is now a yearling and also will begin training full time with the team. Back for another dog sledding season are five year old team/wheel dog, Okemo, seven year old team/wheel dog, Sobo, and three year old lead dog, Acadia.

Also making his debut this season is our new mini musher, Ethan Oliver. Ethan was born in late April 2011 and will be joining us training the sled dogs and during Fall and Winter programs this coming season.

Plans for this season include a full docket of dog sledding programs. All of our weekends are currently booked for the 2011-2012 dog sledding season. We still have a handful of midweek dates left so email catherine@marylanddogsledding.com if you would like to book your own dog sledding program. We will also be running our very popular women's Maine Winter Cabin Adventure again February 17-February 20, 2012. This very special four day long dog sledding adventure is based out of our cabin in Stark, Maine and is limited to just four participants. Two slots remain in our Maine Winter Cabin Adventure.

Our race plans include the Maine Highlands Katahdin Iron Works (KIW) 30 and/or the fun run held January 28, 2012 in Brownville, Maine.

We also plan on spending some time up north in Maine exploring new trails and reaquainting ourselves with familiar trails. Those trips are presently scheduled for December, January, and February.

Stay tuned for updates on all of the sled dogs' Fall and Winter exploits.

Fall Planting and Training

Allium planted last fall for spring blooms

Fall has arrived and here at Maryland Sled Dog Adventures LLC we are busy doing one of three things: (1) training the sled dogs; (2) planting the Fall vegetables and flowers; (3) talking dogs with other mushers.

Yesterday, marked the first real training run of the season for the Maryland Sled Dog Adventures sled dogs. We arrived at the trail head early at about 6:30 am. Temps were at 50 degrees according to the new dog truck thermometer. We quickly set about hooking up veteran leader, Zoe, and upcoming leader, Acadia, both in lead with Sobo and Okemo in wheel and set off for a brisk five mile run which took us from Maryland into Pennsylvania and back. The dogs ran awesome. Along the way, we encountered several challenges, two horse farms that needed passing (Zoe was her usual awesome self, Acadia was decent, Sobo was surprisingly good, and Okemo needs work), several bicyclists that also needed head on and over taking passes, and several joggers. The biggest challenge was the 250 plus people who arrived at the trail head about 5 minutes after we did to run a race. While the spandex clad runners complained about the cold, we hooked up the dogs and headed down the trail in the opposite (north) direction towards Pennsylvania. We cruised up the trail for about 2.5 miles with speeds ranging from 18 MPH to 8-10 MPH. Our moving average was approximately 9 MPH. At our turn around point, just south of the Pennsylvania town of New Freedom, we took a brief break and practiced our line out training. As we headed back to the trail head, we encountered the 250 plus joggers and runners walking up the trail to the start of their race. Miraculously, the dogs stayed gee'd over and didn't freak out. Not bad for the first real training run (besides our scooter run last weekend).

Yesterday also included planting our Fall garden crops. In went the lettuces and garlic which will be over wintered. Our spring planting of shallots was so awesome, I really wanted to do another crop of Fall shallots, however, finding shallots in Maryland for Fall planting is apparently impossible.

Our spring plantings of tomatoes and peppers are still going really strong generating about 5-6 tomatoes per day and an unhealthy number of cayenne, jalapeno, Mexi-bell, green bell, and Giant Marconi peppers. We're also still harvesting lots and lots of fresh herbs.

After planting and training, Eric and I headed up to meet up with a retired musher friend of ours for some dinner and dirt track racing at Williams Grove speedway in Pennsylvania. Of course, sled dogs and fall training were a big topic of discussion.

Today, we're hoping to get planted the spring flowers, allium, tulips, daffodils, and irises, that we picked up yesterday at the store.

First Run of the Season

Dog scootering with a three dog team: Sobo and Acadia in lead, Okemo in wheel

Saturday morning was cool enough for a very light run with the sled dogs and some (heavier) musher socialization. Since here at Maryland Sled Dog Adventures LLC we are frequently running dog sledding programs on the weekends later in the season, we took this opportunity to get together with several local mushers we have not seen for quite awhile. This was also a good opportunity to try out the new dog truck.

New dog truck

Close up of the new dog boxes

Run details: About one mile, Patsy's trail, haw (left) at the road and back around to the North Appleton lot; 3 dogs on the Pawtrekker dog scooter. Acadia and Sobo in lead with Okemo in wheel.

Run location: Fair Hill, Maryland

Notes: Warm, sunny and dry conditions (temps were 55 degrees when we arrived); large group of high school students running sprints right out of the parking lot (dogs did excellent at on-bying and were not phased by the announcer with the PA system). The dogs did not want to on by Eric and Zoe who were along the trail taking photos. Three dog scooter team = scary dog scooter run. Thankfully, I did not wipe out but there were some very close calls and the brakes were pretty much locked up for most of the run.

We didn't get many photos but here are a few that Eric did manage to capture. Note: Eric was standing well off the trail since he had Zoe out for a walk which is why the teams appear very small in most of these photos.

Setting up

Setting up

Chris and Jessica Bannister's (Xtreme weather) dog truck

Chris and Jessica coming back with a seven dog team

Chris Jacobs and Sonic bikejoring

Reggie Brown coming back with a four dog team. Note the dog in team has never run in harness before and has only been with Reggie for three days. He's looking for a good home for him if anyone is interested. He's a lovely, one year old, registered red and white, intact (for now at least) male.