7:30 am. 10 degrees.

Today was the first morning poop has been frozen solid, which means using the hoe as opposed to the rake. Disadvantages of using a hoe are stray missiles of chipped poop may land in open eyes or mouth. Weighs more. Made my way throught the kennel. Eitan called in sick so I was alone and able to say good morning to every dog.

As the sun rose over the kennel, the day warmed up slightly but the frost didn’t melt way, so we took off with sixteen dogs out of the kennel. My puppy, Alma Rose was hooked into the team. She loved the excitement but wasn’t that interested in pulling. She was more interested in prancing at a steady run. So now the training begins. She will be harnessed and attached to several logs and we (meaning I had better tighten up and start running faster than her) will be running up and down the driveway with me in front. Even with two 10 pound logs she runs faster than me. Maybe I had better tie some logs and a harness on and get in shape.

I left Kris with the dogs after the turn around and headed back to the kennel to make food – 80 pounds of raw meat, a half gallon of vegetable oil and two and half bags of kibble specially formulated for sled dogs. Got the mixture ready when Kris returned and needed to head out.

I went over to put away the dogs that had run. As I’m unhooking the second dog, chaos breaks out in the kennel. Everyone is running around. The plus side is the dogs always look to where the problem is. Two males are getting into a spat. As I run over there, I realize why. A line broke and a cute little female is in one of their kennels and getting the male blood flowing. I get the female and the three other femals on the line into empty houses and return to find one of the dogs has a harness over her head instead of her body. I get her put away, then finally the rest of them.

Everyone gets a little extra food since six dogs were leased to race on another dog sled team for the winter. Some dogs can’t seem to put on weight no matter how much you feed them, so their bowls are always overflowing, which is good to see.

After feeding is watering. After each row, I go back through and give the dogs a snuggle, which makes me the slowest dog waterer in the kennel, but it’s worth it.