Running sled dogs is challenging in the best conditions. This isn’t a hobby, it’s a lifestyle. It’s expensive, it’s time consuming, it’s all encompassing. I’ve uprooted from everyone and everything I knew for this. And on the days we’re cruising through the forest behind our home, gliding for miles on plentiful snow, it’s worth it. Unfortunately, those days are few and far between. In a few more years, I wonder if we’ll get them at all.
Last season, we barely had any snow. From October through March, we spent most of our time running with the ATV. I drove over six hours north, into Canada, to find snow races. This season is starting to look pretty similar as we approach the New Year with our snow all but gone.
Most of our season is spent on wheels. The trails we share with our neighbors aren’t great for wheeled training. They’re steep, rocky, or just plain too narrow for the ATV. When the ground is wet (always), the ATV will leave ruts, which closes off most of the trail system to us. October through December, these trails are hunted, making it unsafe half the week.
This season, our neighbors are logging their land, which has made our one ATV-safe loop inaccessible. We’ve had to stick to the trails only on our own property, which don’t amount to much. The monotony of repeating them over and over is driving us all crazy. We keep tapping out at around three and a half miles.
The dogs are having a tough season. Laika developed two large bladder stones after our last dryland race, which knocked her out of training. She has a checkup in mid-January to see if the stones have dissolved at all with her prescription diet, or if she’ll need surgery. It’s possible she’ll be out the entire season.
Faye is going through her worst ZRD flare up thus far, with a large portion of hair missing from above her eye. It’s slowly starting to grow back, but it’s been a struggle. While this doesn’t impact her running, it is still frustrating. It’s also not great having her bare skin exposed to cold winter temps.
The biggest concern right now is Kuiper. His half-brother suddenly passed away from ARVC, a genetic heart condition that we’ve now seen a few times in our lines. Kuiper is still fairly young for this to be impacting him, but I have noticed some behaviors that worry me. Exercise intolerance is a symptom in this condition and I’ve noticed Kuiper’s tug line will go slack pretty early on in our runs. Usually, you need to worry about pups overdoing it and not pacing themselves at his age. He’s also been much more calm during hookups than any of the others were. It’s hard to know if it’s his personality or a problem.
We’re working with his breeder and other kennels to research ARVC in sled dogs. We’ll also be strapping him up with a holter monitor (basically a 24-hour ECG) in mid-January to see what is going on inside him. Until then, he’s getting benched with Laika.
The rest of the team is still chugging along, but we’ll need to up our miles if we’re going to attend the events I have planned this winter. For that, we’re going to need snow.
I have hope we’ll sled a few times this winter, but the future looks bleak for snow. Sheridan and I have begun poking around on Zillow, looking at properties with 40+ acres of wide open field that we could carve into dryland trails. Hunting for homes with consistent snow in the northeast seems like a fool’s errand. It’s time to make the most of our wheels for what lies ahead.
