New Trail Adventures and Fall Training

We are upping the mileage as fall has finally arrived! The dogs have tons of energy to burn off, and spend their days running laps around the yard and chasing squirrels. They love the cool weather, and so do we. It's perfect for rig training, canicross, and weekend hikes.

A few weekends ago, Nick headed to the Katy Trail in the Jefferson City area. Joy was running the Waddell and Reed Kansas City Half Marathon, so Nick took the opportunity to meet up with another team in the area (out of St. Louis) to work on running together, passing, commands, etc. It went very well and the dogs behaved nicely. It was a good chance to work on passing another team on both the right and left side. Sometimes, dogs will struggle with passing on a certain side (for whatever reason), so this was a good chance for us to work before Rig Rondy in November.

Last weekend we tried out a new trail in the Carthage, Missouri area. We went running and dryland mushing on the Ruby Jack Trail. This is a rails-to-trails trail similar to the Frisco or Katy Trail. The surface was a bit harder, but it was absolutely beautiful. The dogs ran well and enjoyed having a chance to run in a new area. We noticed a lot of houses right along the trail - what a perfect spot to live!

We are also gearing up for Rig Rondy hosted in Woodstock, Illinois. Both Nick and Joy will be participating in canicross, Nick will be doing the 4 dog dryland race, and Joy is part of a relay team which includes canicross, bikejoring, and dryland mushing. We had a great time at this event last year and are really excited to go back. We weren't able to participate in the rig race last year as we did not have enough dogs ready to compete, so this will be a fun adventure for us as well.

We are also excited that we will be featured in a special magazine/newspaper section called "Country Neighbor" that is distributed to several Southwest Missouri areas including Buffalo, Marshfield, Bolivar, Stockton, West Plains, and Christian County. This is really cool for us, as it gives us a chance to provide a little insight into our hobby and dog-loving family. We had a great time allowing the reporter to watch hook-up and go for a dryland ride.

Stay tuned as we post more updates about our fall training. We'll share some more photos and videos of the dogs as well.

Hello, Fall!

Fall has finally arrived. It's nice to have more than one or two cool days in a row. This means we can really start training.

You probably noticed we haven't posted much over the summer, but that's simply because there isn't much to say. We run on days that are cool enough, and we play at the lake or go camping on the weekends. Enough said.

So, here's what we have been up to lately:

September 26: Run for the Paws Benefiting Loving Paws Adoption Center
This is one of our favorite dog-friendly 5ks. Ruger and Nick took 1st overall. Denali and Joy took 2nd overall (1st female and 2nd dog awards). This was also Prudhoe's first 5k. He ran with Nick's cousin, Allison. It was a great chance for him to be around other dogs and feel the energy a race provides. He listened very well and ran great!

Training
We have been training on the Frisco Trail and are headed to the Katy Trail this weekend. These trails are pretty shady as well, which helps a bit until the weather really cools off.

Lakeview Trail at Stockton State Park
We frequent Stockton State Park quite often, and the ~8 mile Lakeview Trail is a great place to train. It's quite a bit more technical than the rails-to-trails Frisco and Katy. Nick had a wreck on the rig and we have it on video. Unfortunately, the video doesn't really capture the situation in its entirety.

So, what do we have coming up? Well, we are looking forward to Rig Rondy in Illinois in November. Nick and Ruger and Denali and Joy will be doing canicross. We have titles to defend! Plus, Nick will be entering the 4-dog rig event.

We'll be posting more frequently now that fall is here and we are back into our training routine. So, stay tuned for our dryland/mushing/canicross adventures.

 Start of Run for the Paws

 Nick and Ruger Post-Race

Joy and Denali Post-Race 

Allison/Prudhoe, Joy/Denali, and Nick/Ruger after the run