Jody Puppies!

Please join me in welcoming the newest members of Dew Claw.

Jody with her puppies (photo taken 11-25-11, Dew Claw living-room)

It was it was during the witching hour Nov. 17th & 18th that these beautiful babies were born. Four males and two females, all dark as night at birth. As they mature they will all start to become distinctive: quickly the brownish highlights come out, then maybe an eye color or a personality trait. But at birth they were a wiggle little mass of midnight black puppies.

Jody is the mom, she has been a solid part of the Dew Claw race team her entire life. She came to us as a yearling from dear friends, who had actually named her after me. You can hear the story as I brag about her at the end of this years Yukon Quest on this video. She was one of a pair of amazing little females who totally rocked in wheel. For the record, she is Jody with a Y, and I am Jodi with an I. So people can tell which is which 😉

The father Chase-um is a young male out of Gutcheneckt, and also has a horse like appetite and work ethic. And while I am explaining names. Chase-um is actually Chase-um the second. The first was one of Dan’s first sled dogs ever. A wonderful little female he got from Jimi Hendrick(a Yukon Quest musher who as far as I know could not play guitar). The first Chase-um was a main leader for us for years.  For the record; Gutcheneckt was named after a meat market in Wisconsin where Dan grew up. If I had to spell it phonetically it would look something like this Gootnicked.

Jody's puppies napping

I hope you will like our online photo album for Jody’s pups, with photos from Day 1. I will be adding to it regularly so y’all can peek in and see how they grow: Jody’s Puppies

And don’t think for a minute in all this excitement that we have forgotten about the Little Buggers litter. HA! like they would let us. They are full of energy and fun. We still walk them, although they out run us easily. Giving us lots of opportunity to practice “come here puppies” and teaching them to stick around and stay tuned in to us. Recent record cold temperatures made the daily walks less fun. So we substituted play days in the heated garage.  (check out photos here)

Don’t let the blog fool you. Life at Dew Claw is not all about puppies.

Training is in full swing and the race dogs are doing great. Once again this year we are joined at Dew Claw by our awesome friend Joel, without whom we would be getting a lot less sleep around here trying to find the time to do everything that needs to get done.  Can not thank you enough Joel!!!

The quad training ended last week, and we are now on sleds! It means smaller teams for safety until we get more snow, and can really hook a team down with a snow hook. The snow hook is a critical piece of every mushers gear. Think of it as the parking brake. You set its sharp hooks deep in packed snow and it makes a very effective one. However, with low snow you do not get the same stop and hold ability.  Actually the same can be said of the brake that we can step on to slow the team. Not to mention how rough and uneven the trail is in places without good snow cover. Everything works better with more snow. (not complaining, just explaining) Still glad to be on the sleds, no matter. And all these runs on low snow, I just keep telling myself, are good practice for the rough and tumble windblown sections of the Iditarod trail.

The dogs don’t care. Sled or quad, snow or no, they are just happy to be out there doing what they love. Any time I feel grumpy or low energy, all I have to do is look to them for inspiration.

Happy Trails~