Arrived in Togo

Arrived in Togo, MN at my fall training base – Jamie Nelson’s. In the first week and a half we’ve had 23 degrees, 80 degrees, thunderstorms, humidity, dry, buckets of rain, wind, and calm. I’ve gotten my new 4-wheeler, lost the team (for a tiny distance, the bridle on the 4-wheeler gave way and they headed straight for a water hole in front of them), dog team went swimming (several different mudholes), switched their diet to mink, got everyone in the dog yard with buckets, houses and newly graded circles, started everyone on an aggressive parasite riddance protocol, and everyone has 30 something miles already…in other words, the typical start of fall training. You definitely hit the ground running here! Oh, and moved into my cabin, my home away from home this fall and early winter.


The rain continues…sometimes warm, sometimes cool, but nearly always wet. Welcome relief from years of drought which has plagued this area. The ditches and mudholes are starting to fill as the water table slowly recovers. It’s amazing what you notice as you traverse the same terrain day after day at 8-10 mph!


Today was a swimming lesson, although no body actually swam. Turns out that one of the “doggie dips” along the driveway as we make our way out to the main road is a wonderful place to train listening, control, discipline and much more…all the while getting the team nice and wet at the start of the run so nobody overheats. Only today Liz got to get nice and wet too, well above my knees and therefore of course waterlogged boots. Heading out you go through the water hole from the north, so the deep side is on your left, and your leaders must “haw-over” to at least the middle and not hug the right hand bank. Coming back, vice-versa, a definitive “gee-over is required. So when that doesn’t happen…swimming lessons! Many trips sloshing to the front of the team to convince Tie and Rope that they could just STAND, then walk, through the chest deep water without melting. Being huskies they of course did not believe this at first, and it took repeated demonstrations, pushing them over, pleading looks (them to me), stern looks (me to them) and I ended up as wet as they in the process. But when success came, how sweet! Once they decided to do it, they did it with style. Coming back, just one reminder, then straight across, fully geed-over, and never looked back – leading the team exactly like they should!!!

p.s. On subsequent runs, with Tie in lead with other dogs, he’s done a consistently marvelous job at doing the doggie dip exactly as it should be done. Heaps of praise and he knows he’s done well.