JJ

Well I had another good eight mile run. It went so well it was over pretty fast and I was like, "Wow, I can't believe its over, I though eight mile runs were supposed to kill an entire day."
That's not how it is supposed to go , but has been my experience as often as not, so far.

Now my goal is to add dogs till I get up to six and then start packing on serious miles and get the team in condition. I hooked up Pumpkin and Jack in lead, and JJ by herself in wheel. I felt this would be the best way to really work on JJ and get this girl straightened out.

Here is the difference between JJ in wheel and two yearlings in Wheel:

I hardly peddaled at all the whole run. (for you non-mushing folks enjoying this blog; No sleds don't have peddals. Peddaling is kicking your foot to help push the sled along!)
With the yearlings I peddal a lot. Too much, in fact. I may be teaching them bad habbits. When the going gets a little rough and the sled slows down the yearlings look back as if to say:
"Hey, Bub, why aren't you peddaling?"
When JJ is hooked up and things get tough, she puts her head down, spreads her feet out wide and digs! You go girl!
I still peddaled a little though as JJ doesn't have as many miles on her as these other dogs, I was kind of tapping into her latent conditioning from years of racing and also her time running and playing in the back yard.

We are finally working things out with JJ. First I would like to say, all of the problems I have had with her are my fault and not hers. She is an awesome dog. The musher is the person responsible for the training and conditioning. The dogs don't make mistakes, mushers do. Dogs do what they are bred, trained and conditioned to do.

JJ still tried to drag the team into my back yard, but I was able to pull her back out onto the trail. I ran her just with the two other dogs because three dogs is all I am confident dealing with right now in a serious tangle. I am moving at my own pace right now. We did have a couple really bad tangles but I worked through them.
Part of the problem is Jacks inexperience. He won't hold the line out in the few seconds I need to untie the sled from my truck when I start off. He turns around and wants to play.

This makes JJ nervous and then she trieds to bail and pull the whole rig back to her house.

But we are working things out and I still have hope of eventually putting her in lead with Pumpkin to give Jack a break.

Once we gott on the trail though JJ was great. He tug was tight as a piano wire the whole time. I got a chance to see a fine dog at work doing what she was born to do.

Pumpkin is getting really good on comands too. The training is there, but is just coming out as she gets used to me. We went the other way on the Looop coming back home. Gee instead of Haw, this is just a little trick to do to keep her sharp.