Carting in the Vinyard

Last weekend Sean and I loaded up the van with a few dogs (Max, Ice, Ryder, Hummee, Tinks, Frosty and Blaze) and their harnesses and went up to join the Northern California Siberian Husky Club for their annual fall event "Carting in the Vinyard." It's been a while since we had the dogs out to run...months probably. So, with hotel reservations, a plan to visit a girl friend in Concord and a full tank of gas, we headed out on Saturday morning.

A brief detour past the Santa Fe dam, where the Antelope Valley and San Gabriel Kennel clubs were holding their shows netted us a hitch hiker, an 11 week old Staffordshire named Ridley who needed a ride up north to his new home. (Yes, that now makes eight dogs in the van.)

So we headed north, without incident, and made it up to Barbara's. I finally got to meet Teddy, her Toy Fox Terrier. I tell you, I was afraid I was going to step on the little guy. He's cute, but I'm pretty sure he wouldn't last long at Kaos. We ran and fed the dogs, talked and went out to dinner and then strolled over to Half Price Books, a store Sean had never been to, but found much to his liking. After dinner we loaded all the dogs back up, making sure we had all eight of them and hit the road to Santa Rosa, with a brief detour to hand Ridley over to his new folks. We got in at a reasonable hour, checked into the hotel, walked all the dogs and went to bed, counting on Blaze's "wake up call" feature to wake us up (he did, at 4 am and at 6am). Before going to bed, I even remembered to plug in the crockpot with the Lil Smokies and sauce for the next day's potluck (you'll see why this detail is important later).

Saturday morning dawned bright, clear and cool as we walked the dogs and got ready to find the closest Starbucks and hit the road. As we made the turn onto Hwy 12, I felt a warmth on my foot...oh CRAP...a crockpot full of Lil Smokies and sauce was now 1/3 full. The other 2/3d's ended up on my foot, the passenger side of the car and, happily, in the map pocket on the door. We pulled over and cleaned up as much as we could (guess who forgot to replace the empty roll of paper towels in her van?). As Sean reached into the map pocket to clean out the little wieners, I managed to blurt out "they're hot" just as he yanked his hand out of the sauce. Finding a convenient grocery store, we stopped and got paper towels, wet wipes and ingredients to refill the crock pot, did some more clean up and continued on our way. At this point, we're running about 40 minutes late. No big deal, it's a casual thing and we'll get there in about 20 minutes.

Waiting at an intersection, we saw a truck with a great dog box go by, pulling a training rig. I figured we'd probably follow them to the carting fun and we made the turn....as my brain processed the fact that no one who was attending had a rig like that. As I glanced down at my directions, to confirm we were going the right way it occured to me that we were supposed to be going to Calistoga...yet the directions to Glen Elen, where we were picking up our new sled later that weekend, were on top. Yep, sure enough, not only did I spill our potluck offering on the way to the potluck, but we weren't even going the right way to the potluck! Traveling with me is such an adventure :-)

So, we got ourselves turned around, called to let the carting group know not to worry, we were running way late and headed back out...this time to Calistoga. We had a great time once we got there.

We had a great time with our Nor Cal friends. In addition to running the dogs, there were great games like "bobbing for hot dogs" (the dogs bobbed, not the people), musical paws and doggie limbo. While we didn't win any prizes, the Kaos Krew sure had fun...especially on that bobbing for hot dog game.

Sean took out our foursome with Max and Frosty at lead and Ryder and Ice at wheel. Now, let me just say that Ryder's not the most motivated of working dogs...unless he's following Max or running with Ice. But with those two in the team with him, he's a pulling machine. Frosty's going to make a great lead dog with some training, she's actually responding to commands already even if she can't make everyone turn with her (she's our Littlest Sled Dog). But she's determined. Ice and Ryder, and later Ice and Hummee ran at wheel.

It was Hummee's first time out in harness. The previous trip down to go scootering he'd been a little too young for me to be entirely comfortable running him. I tell ya, this boy has leg and knows how to use it. He threw himself into his harness and pulled like he'd been doing it his entire life.

It was Satinka's first time out as well, other than a brief foray up in the snow a couple years ago. Unfortunately, we'd put her next to Ryder (see the aforementioned description of Ryder's work ethic) so she didn't really get what was going on...but she ran. I don't know how much pulling she did, but she had fun.

The best fun was taking Blaze out with his brother and sister on the puppy run. He put his shoulder into the harness and he pulled. I tell you, there's nothing cuter than a bunch of puppies in harness. Of course they didn't work hard and they didn't go far, but they sure had fun!

I managed not to run the cart into any of the buildings (but it was close) on my trip out; no one fell or otherwise hurt themselsves and we all made it home in one piece. I've never heard my dogs so quiet (is that possible?). They slept, ate and went right back to sleep.

We made it down to Glen Elen to pick up our sled (from the driver of the truck we saw that clued me into the fact that we were going the wrong way earlier in the weekend) and spent some time with Van and his wife, talking about dogs, racing, equipment and other things dear to Sean's heart :-) and drove home with a sled on the van.

Now, I guess, all we need is snow. And maybe a GPS for better navigational success?