02 Dec 05 Team Order Tundra / 23.4 Miles                   Toast / 23.4 Miles Dirty / 23.4 Miles                       Mack / 23.4 Miles Crazy Willy / 13 Miles                Zorro / 10.4 Miles Ewok / 10.4 Miles                   Wolf / 10.4 Miles Fawn / 15.6 Miles                      Ducky / 10.4 Miles Rocky / 23.4 Miles                 Ajax / 23.4 Miles Distance approx. 2.6 miles/8 Degrees NOTES: Ok enough is a enough already!  Tomorrow Im going to the store and buying a darn face mask.  My face felt like it was going to break in a million peaces when I got back. Tomorrow Im going to switch it up a little.  Just for fun Im going to put Ducky out in front with Tundra.  I am going to move Zoro also.  I will probably put him with Ewok.  Other then that I will leave it the way it is.   Tomorrow is going to be the last day I am able to run the dogs for a while.  We have a big exercise on base all next week so Ill be tied up at work for the week.  It sucks because I am making really good progress with the team.  After the break I plan on running them on the 2.6 mile coarse a couple more times.  Then Im finally going to up it to at least 5 miles.  I think there ready to go for it now but with my current work schedule it just isnt permitted.  Overall another great run.
		09 Dec 05 Team Order Tundra / 26 Miles                  Toast / 26 Miles Dirty / 26 Miles                      Mack / 26 Miles Sunny / 5.2 Miles                               Crazy Willie / 15.2 Miles Lena / 2.6 Miles                       Fawn / 18.2 Miles Ducky / 13 Miles                 Zoro / 13 Miles Wolf / 13 Miles                     Ewok / 13 Miles Rocky / 26 Miles                Ajax / 26 Miles Distance approx. 2.6 miles/18 Degrees NOTES: Ok so I did something crazy today and hooked up 14 dogs.  It went really well until we hit the turn around point then it went south really fast.  When they were making the swing around to the right for some reason Toast came back around to the main team and got into a fight with Dirty.  Man what a mess we had on our hands.  By the time we got them seperated Dirty was down and wouldnt get back up.  We unhooked her from the line and pulled her out.  She is Ok but has some bite marks on her legs.  We carried her to the truck and took her back home.  The run back home was fine.  I think Toast might be in heat at least I hope.  I cant think why she decided to do that.  But I will say that that was too many dogs without a good strong leader up front.  So Im going back to running 6 dogs for now.  Maybe run two teams we will have to see.
			10 Dec 05 Team Order Tundra / 28.6 Miles                 Ducky / 15.6 Miles Mack / 28.6 Miles                             Crazy Willie / 17.8 Miles Rocky / 28.6 Miles               Ajax / 28.6 Miles Distance approx. 2.6 miles/32 Degrees NOTES: Well I’ve been itching for a while now to try Ducky up front.  I really think he will make a good leader someday.  He did pretty good up front.  The important thing is that he at least kept running forward once we got going.  But because hes just a pup he was runing into Tundra and Tundra was really acting like a fool up there tonight.  He was just going out in the boon dox.  So I put Mack up front.  Yeah big mistake he was just as bad plus he has a bad habit of just stopping.  So then I put Ajax up front.  Boy was that a mistake.  He got into it with Ducky.  Luckely Ducky was Ok.  So I put Ducky back in the team a and Ajax back in wheel with Rocky.  Then I had Tundra and Crazy Willie up front.  That sucked too.  Crazy Willie wants to stop all the time.  But I finally made it home.  Not too sure what I will try tomorrow yet.  I do have to figure out a way to run two teams though so we will see.
				11 Dec 05 Team Order Tundra / 31.2 Miles                  Toast / 28.6 Miles Ducky / 18.2 Miles                    Mack / 31.2 Miles Rocky / 31.2 Miles                 Ajax / 31.2 Miles Distance approx. 2.6 miles/35 Degrees NOTES: Ok well today I went back to basics and Im glad I did.  This was a much more enjoyable run.  Every thing went well with Tundra and Toast up front.  I am still waiting for Dirty to heal before I put her back in the main team.  Ducky will replace her until then.
					13 Dec 05 Team Order Ducky / 20.8 Miles                 Toast / 31.2 Miles Tundra / 33.8 Miles               Mack / 33.8 Miles Rocky / 33.8 Miles               Ajax / 33.8 Miles Distance approx. 2.6 miles/30 Degrees NOTES: Today was Ducky’s first day in lead.  The start was sort of ruff but Toast did a really good job keeping him in line.  He did a really good job pulling but he kept trying to push her off the trail.  If anything I learned that Toast is by far my best leader.  She gets out front and works really hard.  I think Ducky will make a good leader some day if I just remain patient and stick with it but I want to be careful and not burn him out or allow him to have a bad experience in lead.
						15 Dec 05 Team Order Tundra / 36.4 Miles                   Toast / 33.8 Miles Wolf / 15.6 Miles                       Mack / 36.4 Miles Rocky / 36.4 Miles                  Ajax / 36.4 Miles Distance approx. 2.6 miles/18 Degrees NOTES: Today was by far the windiest day I have ever taken the team out.  I made a promise that I would take them out when the wind is blowing over 35 mph.  But this would of been the second day in a row without training if I didn’t.  So I decided to tough it out and give it a go.  Because the conditions were so tough I decided to stick with what I know works, and that is Tundra up front with Toast.  I threw Wolf in the team to give him some exercise.  Well it wasn’t as smooth as I would of liked it.   Im not sure what was up with Tundra today but he was acting like a but head.  He kept trying to stop, luckily Toast wasn’t having any of that.  But then at the turn around point Tundra decided to come back into the main team and get into it with Wolf.   No one got hurt but MAN that makes me mad.  So I again am thankful that I have Toast to help out with keeping the order.   Tomorrow I just may try Ducky up there again.
							16 Dec 05 Team Order Ducky / 23.4 Miles            Toast / 36.4 Miles Tundra / 39 Miles          Mack / 39 Miles Rocky / 39 Miles          Ajax / 39 Miles Distance approx. 2.6 miles/10 Degrees NOTES: Ducky was up front again.  It was a horrible start.  Right from the get go he was refusing to run for some reason.   Toast did a good job dragging him across the road but then they got tangled up with the rest of the team.  So we untangled them and went again.  I think what it is is that he has so much puppy in him that he wants to play.  Im amazed at how much Toast will put up with from him.  But she does seem to want to teach him witch is good.  After a while he finally get a little tired and then settles in and pulls hard and does really well.  So I wont run him for a while now.  I do want to try Fawn up front again with toast.  I started the year out with that combo but I didn’t like the way Fawn always looks back.  Toast is a much stronger lead dog now so I am interested to see how Fawn reacts to that.  We will see.
								26 Dec 05 Team Order Toast / 39 Miles                   Fawn / 20.8 Miles Tundra / 41.6 Miles            Mack / 41.6 Miles Rocky / 41.6 Miles           Ajax / 41.6 Miles Distance approx. 2.6 miles/48 Degrees NOTES: It has been so warm lately that I haven’t been able to run the dogs.  Can you believe that it has been in the high 40's and low 50's for the past week?  It’s the end of December for goodness sakes.  Well today I tried Fawn up front.  It is really aggravating to have her up front.  I can only imagine how Toast must feel.  But I will try her up front again and see if she improves.  Fawn just doesn’t pay attention like she should.  She spends way too much time looking back and running off trail.  I also notice that Toast isnt as confident running up front with fawn.  The thing of it is that I really need Fawn to run up there I just don’t have any other leaders right now.  Tomorrow I plan on running two groups and extending the coarse out.