Standoff At The MCK Sled Dog Pen

Standoff At The MCK Sled Dog Pen
Sep 2nd 2008
wolfmoonsleddog
Midwest
Location: Finland, MN
Time - 9:10pm
Temperature: 59 degrees F
Conditions: Cloudy, windy
Forecast: Few rain showers this evening, lows in the 40s. Sunny tomorrow, highs in the 60s, lows in the 30s



There was a red sky this morning. No, not just a red sky, a red glow - everything was glowing red. Then the thicker clouds rolled in and it rained. It seems that I am always blogging on rainy evenings.

We had a good Labor Day weekend at MCK. The weather this time of year goes from one end of the spectrum to the other. You might be freezing in the morning and then ready to go swimming by noon.


Joker

On Saturday we took almost every dog in the kennel for a run, with three ATV teams. Two teams of adults and one puppy team. The puppy team consisted of some older, experienced dogs, the two-year old pups and the yearling pups. Everyone did well but Jen thinks it might be a bit too much to keep asking the two yearlings, Jackie and Joker, to run with the more intense two-year-olds. Likewise, asking the two-year-olds to slow down for the yearlings wouldn’t be fair either. Jen suggested we put together a four-dog team consisting of Jackie, Joker, Calypso and Alex, a 12-year-old husky who refuses to retire. Should be fun!


Jackie (right) with her mother, Noor

The rest of the weekend was too warm to run. Blake has been clearing out an area for a new free-run enclosure that will be over an acre in size! It looks good.

We went kayaking and swimming in a nearby lake, which was a lot of fun. There are few days warm enough to do that. The water was cold but felt good. Yesterday, Jen and I took three puppies to another lake and played with them there. They had a great time and we did too!


Alex getting a bath (with a little help from Calypso)

The funniest thing yesterday was dog bathing. Jen and I washed several dogs in the kennel. We filled up a tub with water and stood the dogs in there, soaping them up and washing them. While we were doing this, Calypso watched interestedly from her kennel pen. We brushed some of the dogs and there were wads of fluff rolling around like tumbleweeds. I joked that we could have one dog at each end of the pen and it would be wild West, sled dog style. We washed one two-year-old pup named Attila (he and his littermates are known as the bad boys and have names like Hagar, Mothra, Ghengis and Kahn) and Calypso went nuts when he was running around.

I let Calypso out of her kennel pen and she and Attila started playing wildly, like only huskies can. Attila is shy around me but not around my little husky (whom Jen calls Puffball). I’d run Calypso with the scooter yesterday morning but she seemed to be getting almost as much exercise this way! Keeping with our Wild West theme, we decided Attila was the outlaw and Calypso was the flirty dancehall girl (”the wild redhead” Jen says) with a thing for bad boys.

It was fun. We finally let Attila back into the male yard and brought another dog back. In the meantime, Calypso noticed the tub full of soapy water. In she hopped, grinning and laughing. “Hah hah, look at me!” Then she dug in the water and stuck her face in it, coming up with soap on her face. We had to stop her from drinking it. When we bathed Alex, Calypso hopped back in the tub with him.

More pics of Calypso:






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2 Responses to “Standoff At The MCK Sled Dog Pen”
David Lukosik on 03 Sep 2008 at 9:29 pm # edit this

Enjoyed the photos and discriptions of kennel happenings. You and Calypso should have fun with the 4 dog team! Do the dogs need a neckline attached to the fence by the wash tub when you give them a bath? My fur kids want to runaway when it is bath time! Are those a pair of Muck boots in the photos? Got a Fall Cabela’s catalog today and found their section on Muck boots. Happy trails! Dave

wolfmoonsleddog on 05 Sep 2008 at 7:38 pm # edit this

Thanks. I think we are planning to try out the 4-dog team tomorrow. Most of the dogs were hooked to the fence. Some needed to be, others probably didn’t. I think those might be Muck boots but I am not sure.

Cheers!

Alice