Baby Steps
October 12, 2002

Seavey's Iditarod Racing Team--Tyrell Seavey

Tyrell preparing to leave on an evening run.  20 dogs are harnessed to the four-wheeler.  The team stretches for nearly 100 feet!

            Tonight’s run was a great reminder to me why I am so addicted to sled dogs.  Of course, this run had the usual compliment of tangles, towline chewing, fights and all-around unruliness, but that is perfectly normal when training wild and excitable pups.  It was the picture-perfect image of the dogs, shrouded by the mist from their breath, traveling swiftly, silently into the dusk.  It was great! 

I had Blue and Zeus in the lead position and they were awesome.  Blue will be my main older lead dog throughout training this year.  Some of you may remember him from my 2001 Jr, Iditarod team when he was awarded the Blue Harness Award for his outstanding performance in the lead of my Championship team.  He is the oldest member of our pup team at 7 years old.  Zeus is one of the two-year old trainees.  He is a little goofy, but, as long as I maintain my sense of humor, we work well together. 

Yonkers feeling dejected that he is being left out on his day off.

My main young lead dog this winter will be Yonkers.  I have been running him in single lead for quite a while now and he is getting really sharp!  Yesterday morning I took him on a new trail, so every turn was foreign to him.  I got to see him taking commands “from the hip”, not just doing them from memory.  Let's just say that after that run, I was pumped!  He hit all of the probably 20 corners on the new trail on my first command.  I have never seen a young leader learn so fast before.

Jim and I keep track of the mileages of every run that we do.  I was just totaling them up and came up with some interesting factoids.  Right now each dog has 51 miles, which they have accumulated over nine runs.  Between Jim and I we have racked up 204 miles!  This part of training is very labor intensive. 

Tyrell harnesses Viking in preparation for the evening run.

Later on we will be doing up to 50 milers straight, which needless to say are my favorite. I also enjoy camping with the dogs.  Of course, when I say “camping” I really mean a 4-hour rest in a snow bank, which often includes lots of fun little adventures--like trying to build a fire in 10 feet of snow, or trying to feed sixteen crazy pups in 10 feet of snow, or trying to piece back together ninety feet of chewed, twisted, tangled, mauled towline, you guessed it, in 10 feet of snow.  I have had many memorable camping trips with sled dogs, and have learned a lot about working with and taking care of these athletes from the more experienced mushers around me during these “pit stops”, plus a few new words…

Until next time,

© 2002 Ultimate Iditarod, Snowcrest Racing Sled Dogs, Seavey's Iditarod Racing Team
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