The weather here has been crazy this week with cold temperatures at the beginning of the week, causing the lake to freeze over, to warm rainy weather to close the week. Even with the uncooperative weather, we were able to get in 4 training days.
This has been another busy week here in the kennel with the departure of Amorook to her new owner Kole Owens and the addition of Angel ( for more info. see her on the Profile Page). Also, I have added Casper to the Adoption Page as I continue to convert the kennel to Sprint Dogs.
Training this week was more for working with & trying new potential leaders. The above photos shows some of the new dogs that got to run at lead this week. All look good & with more training will eventually become leaders here at Miortuk. I couldn't be more pleased with the group of potential leaders we have here to work with.
This week all the 4.5 mile runs were performed without a rest stop. The dogs look great through the run & show no fatigue at the end.
Let's hope this coming week brings us some more seasonable weather!
Until next week........

It was a week that started with sorrow and ended with great excitement of the future.
On Monday, we lost Nanook to an aggressive form of cancer. A tribute to Nanook is posted on the "Reflections" page. Her passing has left a huge hole in my heart!
However, life in the kennel continues and with it great excitement to announce the emergence of some potentially great young leaders. So far this season, we have seen the emergence of Cobalt, Willy, Katie, Annie & Indigo as future leaders of our team. Cobalt along with Max look like they will be the main race leaders this season. The others will continue to get lead time for their future development. There are still a couple of more dogs that will get their opportunity at lead on future runs.
This was a good week for training getting in four days of running this week. On Saturday, we ran on snow for the first time this season. There is a YouTube Video of the second team running on the "Training" page. This week on Thursday the teams ran the total 4.5 mile run without any rest stops. We also ran the distance dogs with Charlie starting to run the dogs.
Charlie continued her training with the pups teaching them to pull while walking with the leash. They are enthusiastic & progressing as expected.
Until next week.......

Finally, we got in a week with four days of training. Although it wasn't easy working around the rainy & warm days. We did have snow flurries on Saturday which made the training more interesting. However, there was little accumulation and most had disappeared by days end.
The above series of photos taken from my Flip Video Camera, demonstrates the development of Vicky, the red dog at wheel. She started off the season slowly and after 100 miles of running this season, has developed into a very enthusiastic performer. She has improved so much that she ran lead yesterday for the last half of the run with Willy. She is an excellent example of a young dog that starts the season slowly and gets better as the season progresses.
As with Vicky, We continue to work on developing young leaders. We now have seven dogs that can run lead so far and still a couple of more prospects that will get an opportunity over the next couple of weeks. 
Both Sprint teams are now running, without a stop, to the half way & then receive a 2 minute rest. Returning the last half also without a rest and there is still plenty of speed left to sprint home the last 1/4 mile when called up. I am very pleased with the dogs performance!
Until next week.........

Yes, this has been a week of changes here at Miortuk kennel. 
Firstly, Charlie arrived here on the 1st of November from England & has started her adventure with Sled Dogs. 
David has decided to leave here and seek another kennel that was more suitable to his desires. David,while here, did a great job in the kennel with the ground work, fixing the houses and keeping the kennel clean. He learned very quickly how to harness the dogs and also had a great rapport with them. I wish David all the good fortune on his continuing adventures.
The dogs also saw several changes here. We divided the Distance Dogs from the Sprint Dogs for training purposes. We are now running three teams: two Sprint Teams of nine dogs & one Distance Team of seven dogs.
With the physical conditioning portion of the season competed, it is now the time to work on the cardio & endurance portion of the training/conditioning program. To accomplish this the Sprint Dogs now have work as a unit. With the two team concept, we can also train more Sprint Leaders. This is a great way & time to try new dogs in the lead position. Above you see Willy & Indigo at the finish of their first experience at running lead. Willy had one short (three minute) leg previously. Both these dogs were hooked up to lead for the last half of the 4.5 mile run. They performed amazingly! Due to the fact that Indigo is so young, she will not get more leader experience until the end of the season. Willy, on the other hand, will start to get some regular running time at lead. On the second team, Katie was introduced to lead running with Cosmos ( this is Cosmos second year at lead). Katie was showing signs all this Fall of wanting to get running up closer to the front of the team. She was great at lead right from the start leading the team from the kennel on her first run. So far this season, we have introduced four new dogs to the lead position. Three of those dogs are two years old & in their second season of running. I believe there are at least three other two year old's that will run lead.
The weather this week has limited our training runs again, allowing us only three runs. However, all these runs were quality runs with some good learning experiences.
Until next week.......