Hi spiritbrook.
New member. So you raise chickens and mush? dang eh..we must some kinda special ppl. Chickens and (esp) Huskies do not get along. At least from my personal experiences.
No mush no more, but I so much want to do it again. I ran about ten years or so. The show-off friend ran the "I" in 1977 so he has been retired a long time. His last team included Bouviers - a breed developed for cart work and pretty good wet weather team dogs. I lost a friend to C this last year, he completed the I in around 1988 or so the first time (from Oregon) and had gone many times as a judge. Some folks will remember him, Terry Hinesly. Some of my dogs were down from his command leader Indy (as in the race, not the movie) and he got his dogs from the x-wife of the guy who did the dunes art (she is who got me started mushing). So they were multi-generation Siberian command leaders. Terry ended up with all Alaskans, many carrying that bloodline. My Alaskans were all hand-me-downs who were too slow for the "big teams" any more. The Siberian strain was mostly Sepplas and Anadyr and some included a Russian Hunting Laika. She was probably the first in recent history allowed to be registered with the AKC. There was a Canadian one that had that honor for the CKC, both were from Siberia.
The second time I ran the Dune Mushers Mail Run. One of my "hand-me-down" Alaskans is on the deck. He wasn't used to the slow pace of my recreation team. He did well the rest of the run. When he was put in that dark Tervuren was put into lead alongside of the Siberian *****. So that year there were 1 Malinois, 2 Tervuren, 3 chocolate Labradors, 2 Siberians from distance lines, and 2 Alaskans (and a partridge in a pear tree) My future team had 6 Siberians, 2 Alaskans, 2 Tervuren, and a different Malinois.
The most I put together was 14 - on the dunes which is more control for the dogs. I tried 12 on the snow once, lost the team, and had to follow them a couple miles on the road with the truck. Thank goodness nobody was hurt and nothing was broken. On the way home I slid the truck and trailer into a ditch (you shoulda seen the crown they had on the road that year) and had to hitch 6 to run down to where the road cut into a busier road. I had to drop a couple on the way and then try to find them on the way back as they had nested down in the snow. I had brought the cart as I wasn't sure I'd find snow, it came to great use. I got a dog box after that, the trailer was just too much. It was a wonderful thing - built for hunters though.
The few photos of my team can be found here: http://webpaws.net/gallery3/index.php/My-Dogs/Mushing I sure wish I had more. Now I have too many photos of some stuff and still not enough of what is important.
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