Emmy runs lead, Robin runs with her....
and I'm too tired to come up with the rest of the Kaos Lyrics, so you'll just have to live with it. This weekend we went camping with a group of friends who are also bording on the edge of sanity...or is that teetering on the edge? Camping, dogs, below 40 degrees, freezing wind and a front coming in that is going to mean rain, and lots of it .... I think teetering is probably a better call.
After our midnight arrival (courtesy of Robin, the fence jumper...but that's another story) and set up, we woke up to a beautiful Saturday morning at Red Mountain. Friends started arriving Saturday morning and after breakfast, we hooked up the dogs for our first run of the weekend. With my hand on injured reserve (yet another dog story) we hooked up Ice & Frosty in lead, Emmy & Robin, Satinka "I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it" and her son "Needs a good home of his own" Tipton, and Blaze and Ryder at wheel.
Of course, the first part of every run is a white knuckle, e-ticket adventure (we don't have that much control yet) but they soon settled down, allowing us to watch them work and move. It didn't take long before we stopped and started swapping dogs around. Ryder moved up to lead with Robin, Emmy came back to wheel with Ice and Blaze moved up with Frosty. And we were off again. Of course, that may have been our third swap around...but that's what we ended up with. The dogs ran great and we finished the five miles with Robin & Ryder in lead, starting to follow directions (always a plus).
After that run, we went back to camp and sat around complaining about the cold and I finally tucked in for nap. After waking up, feeding the dogs and having dinner, I went to bed in my toasty warm, Iditarod proven sleeping bag (Thank you Karen!)
Sunday dawned (Sean even took pictures to prove it) and once again it was time to crawl out of the toasty warm sleeping bag and face the day. We started the run with the same arrangment we ended with Saturday, but stopped to move Emmy up into lead with Robin and Ryder back to wheel with Ice.
There's just something about watching the dogs do what they love that sends shivers up your spine. And then, when you get them situated on the team to where they're working at 100% (or in Blaze's case, as close to 100% as he's willing to put out) it's just perfect. Of course, the best part is that when they need corrected, Sean's the one who jumps off the cart and runs up and down the line.
I couldn't be more proud of my Emmy. Of course, since she's out of my first litter, she's always going to have a special place in my heart, but watching her dig in and work in harness all I can think is "wow, she's amazing." And she's so calm on the line waiting to run too...
