Moya Pulls the Kicksled

Teaching a dog to pull a sled is not an easy thing.

Sled dogs start training while they're still puppies, dragging pieces of snow machine track, and then training trikes, and all sorts of steps in the process until they become contributing members of a dog team.

We, however, have no earthly idea what we're doing. And a dog that couldn't care less if she puts you in a tree, as long as she gets to run. So it's a wonder, yet again, that everyone survived and had a blast while working on more of Moya's training. She did well pulling the plastic toy sled several days ago, and today she got to pull the nice kicksled. She still gets easily distracted and therefore needs to wear not only her pulling harness but also her EasyWalk harness, with someone running alongside her to keep her focused and on the road.

You might have already seen my earlier post about the moose in the yard. Well, it's still out there, just this time it's across the street in our neighbor's yard. Here, the whole gang is in the photo, with James guiding the kicksled and Jim running with Moya. Rosie the neighbor's corgi is joining in the fun and the moose has decided he'd better leave the area. Intrepid Rosie was ready to take on the moose alone, and Moya would have been happy to help her, but the moose couldn't be bothered to "play" with the dogs, thank goodness. You'll probably want to enlarge this photo by clicking on it. 

Jim's steering the kicksled while James runs Moya up our street.

And coming back down the street. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Crazy Dog Face of Joy. She's not tired one bit. Delighted, but not tired. As our vet describes her: "Built for speed, that one."

Moya says "This is EASY. Why does there need to be eight of us to pull a sled?"

So pretty. She has frozen whiskers but they didn't show up in the picture. In case you're wondering, it was 14 degrees at the time.

 Jim takes a turn keeping Moya in the road while James has a ride. Being pulled on a sled by your own dog... awesome.

I'm taking a turn on the sled seat while James steers Moya. This is what it looks like from the passenger's viewpoint. Gosh, it was fun!

Time to call it a day and go inside to warm up.

Good dog, Moya Moo. Good dog.

The end of summer was busy!

Hello there! Did you think I forgot about you? Um, well, I sort of did. But it's just because it's been so busy around here for the past couple months. Here, let me catch you up:

After Big Jim's visit, a college friend of ours came to visit with his son Jonathan (more on that in another post). They were here for a little more than a week, and it was so nice to see them again. 

We went to the gold panning club's claim on Crystal Creek to get some buckets of silt and dirt to sluice and pan at home. It was so lovely and lush out there, but far too mosquito-y for us to want to stay longer than we had to. Here, Jim shovels the dirt from the bank while James screens it:

James is panning:

And I'm just sitting on a fallen log hoping the bugs don't eat me entirely.

Might as well take James' picture, too.  teehee

We made a trip to Homer once the summer's unusually rainy weather cleared up enough on one of James' days off so that we could actually SEE Kachemak Bay rather than just see the rain clouds. We took Moya with us.

Moya's first time on the Homer Spit was basically just us trying to keep control of her while she pulled us all over. Moya loves the beach and going for walks and it's not easy steering a dog as strong as she is! We lost her dog tags somewhere on this beach.

Jim and James have a little Captain in them, haha, in front of the famous Salty Dawg Saloon on Homer Spit.

Just gorgeous. Just simply gorgeous.

My big summer project was helping James work on his Dagorhir costume for his college role play group. I think we did pretty well, considering that neither of us knew what we were doing but did it anyway. He's got several mix-and-match costume pieces now and he can dress according to his mood and the event he's attending. I love this picture:

The vest and boots were made with elk that was a gift from my brother. There's plenty of elk left for me to (if I have time) make myself an outfit to wear while manning my craft fair booth this fall.

A more Barbarian feel to this outfit... ghillies, and a belt made from a wolf leg and paw.

A close-up of the Awesome Boots of Awesomeness:

A close-up of the ghillies:

And, through the miracle of time travel, I can show you how James will look at his first Dagorhir event. He's the one in the brown tunic and elk boots, with his back to us.

We've been eating a lot of quail eggs this summer, too.

Before we knew it, our summer was over. James had to go on back to college, where he will expand his horizons and have a grand ol' time. Here we are at City Diner in Anchorage, having dinner before seeing him off to the airport:

Have a great semester, James. We'll see you at Thanksgiving! We love you!