LEARN ALL ABOUT US.....SUMMER & PRINCE

Our friend Echo posted this on his blog & we thought it looked like fun:)

1. Your age?
Summer - I am three years old - my birthday is 30 January 2004
Prince - I am two years old and my birthday is 1 November 2004

2. Your age when you came to live with your people?
Summer - I was 22 months old when my Mom picked me and brought me back to my forever home with my forever brother:) I was very shy
Prince - I was five months old when my Mom took me home. A bundle of energy I was too:)

3. What color collar are you wearing right now?
Summer & Prince - we don't wear collars unless we are going out for a run. Summer is a green girl and Prince a blue boy

4. Who is your favorite person other than the people you live with?
Summer - My godmom Amanda and anyone else who gives me treats like Aunty Jo. I think Haakon is pretty cool too
Prince - apart from my my Mom my favourite biped is my godmom Amanda and I adore my Mom's friends Kelly and Haakon too

5. How much do you weigh?
Summer - Well that's a rather personal question.....ahhhh...my Mom doesn't like talking about my weight at the moment, it's a rather sensitive subject. Okay I'm about 23.7kg (52 pounds), Mom says I should be 20kg (44 pounds)
Prince - I weigh just over 27kg (for you yankee doodle dandies that's about 60 pounds), pure muscle too if I might add:) Hope lots of you girls are reading this:)

6. Most expensive thing you ever chewed up?
Summer - mmm can't think of anything that I would consider to be really expensive, got bored one day when Mom left us inside for a while and went around the house and collected lots of things and put them in the middle of the lounge floor for Mom, chewed on a few of them too, just for Mom of course:)
Prince - I don't really chew on things, I have lots of toys that I like to make squeek and play with but Mom says I'm not a chewer

7. Do you like other dogs?
Summer - I'm a bit shy so I tend to be a bit bossy with other dogs sometimes. I love my brother Prince the bestest:)
Prince - I loooove other dogs - especially girls. I have lots of girlfriends you know:)

8. Who is your best non-human friend?
Summer - Definately Prince
Prince - Summer, Quiquern, Laska, Aleka, Bella, my grandma Sarah and Teddy

9. Squeaky toys or tennis balls?
Summer - probably squeeky toys
Prince - did someone say squeeky toys? Let me at 'em:)

10. Do you like to be brushed?
Summer - If it makes my Mom happy I'll tolerate it. Like my belly being brushed but not my back legs
Prince - Doesn't really bother me, don't like having my tail brushed though. We thought we might save our fur for our buddy Maximus

11. Peanut Butter or Cheese?
Summer - probably cheese
Prince - definately cheese, don't like peanut butter

12. Do your people cut your toenails?
Summer - Mom hasn't had to yet cause we run round on cobblestones and have some gravel at our place that keeps our nails filed
Prince - Not yet, mine are always really short

13. Any formal education?
Summer - Does an agility class count?
Prince - I passed my teen puppy classes with flying colours:)

14. Couch Potato or Energizer Bunny?
Summer - more of a couch potato although I love to chase Prince & nip at his legs and face and boss him around...he lets me do pretty much anything to him:)
Prince - Definately the bunny......with fully charged batteries!

15. Five nicknames people call you? (see our Nicknames blog for more info)
Summer - Sum Bum, Summy, Best Girl, Pudding, Siberian Rat Bag
Prince - Princey Poos, Princey, Main Man, Elvis, Siberian Rat Bag

16. What's your best trick?
Summer - When I'm off lead I sometimes pretend I can't hear my Mom saying 'Summer come' and keep sniffing whatever I'm sniffing. I like to speak on command - I have a real growly voice and I tell my Mom off sometimes if she's told me off first
Prince - Don't know if you'd call it a trick or not but I love watching wolf or husky programs with my Mom - she says I'm real clever cause I do my big boy howl & watch the whole program with her. I like tricking my Mom and doing zoomies around the house when she least expects it and I like waiting until she's gone out to our compound (house) to lock us up & pretend I'm going to follow her and then take off into the house and hide

17. Do you like kitties?
Summer - At my last house they brought home a cat just before my Mom came to meet me & I let it play with my tail. I'm pretty interested in them now though:)
Prince - Cat, did you say cat? Here kitty kitty kitty....come see uncle Prince:)

18. What did you have for breakfast?
Summer & Prince - Our kongs with some bikkies and mince in them...yum:)

19. Can you hunt and have you ever killed anything?
Summer - I try my best:) When I was at my last home I got out the gate with my friend Pepper & we got into a chicken coup and did lots of damage...I like chicken:)
Prince - Not really that interested in hunting, like chasing but that's about it

20. When was the last time you went to the Vet?
Summer & Prince - In February we had our vaccinations and Summer got her problem diagnosed as 'reverse sneezing'

21. Where do you sleep at night?
Summer - I sleep beside my Mom on our blanket up the top of the bed:)
Prince - I sleep beside Mom on our blanket normally at the bottom of the bed but sometimes it gets too hot for me so I jump off and sleep on the floor

22. Do you like to swim?
Summer - I don't like water very much
Prince - I loooove water, always putting my feet in it to cool me down. Don't like going in too deep though, Mom wants me to swim but I'm not too sure if that's a good idea

23. Can you make puppies?
Summer - I loved Echo's answer - 'I don't think so. Is that recipe in the MaPaw Recipes for Rescue book?'. I can't make puppies anymore - when I was way too young I had 4 puppies
Prince - I'd love to make puppies but my Mom won't let me. One day maybe I will.....I'd have cute puppies and I have heaps of girlfriends to choose from:)

24. Your favorite place to visit?
Summer - Anywhere with food
Prince - Somewhere with my friends and where I can do lots of exercise

25. Do you give kisses?
Summer - Mom says I give the bestest kisses, I'm real good at it
Prince - I give them every now and then but Mom says I'm 'stingy' - do you know what that means?

26. Can you potty on command?
Summer - Most of the time I do
Prince - I will if I feellike it, if not Mom has to wait until I'm ready


That's all about us - how about you tell us all about you???

THE SANDY POINT SCARPER - OUR FIRST OFFICIAL RACE OF THE SEASON

Well our first race of the season is over and the weekend went really well. This was an important weekend as it was our local annual Sled Dog Racing. Lots of time was spent grooming the trails to ensure they were at their best, the Southland Sled Dog Association had fantastic trails yet again.

Last year I didn't run in the Scarper, I spent my time organising, time keeping and preparing race results. This year was quite a different experience.

Scarper 1 (Saturday) Prince ran with a dog he only met for the first time about an hour before the race, Angel. They ran really well for me and came in 5th out of 15 in the 4.5km two dog scooter class. I was thrilled with our effort, thought we did pretty well considering Prince & Angel had never run together before and I had to get my head around the different commands Angel responds to.

Aleeya, Angel & Prince

Scarper 2 (Sunday) Prince ran with one of his girlfriends Quiquern. We didn't have such a good run, finished about 8th out of 12 in the 5.5km two dog scooter class. We had a fantastic start, there were two minute starting intervals in between each team, we had passed 3 other teams by the time we were approx 1.5km into the race. Unfortunately the rest of the race didn't go so well and the dogs weren't too focused on their running. I got stuck two other mushers that were having the same problem so we all went over the finish line pretty much together in a rather slow time.

Aleeya, Prince & Quiquern (having just passed 3 other teams)

Aleeya, Prince & Quiquern

Scarper Fest (Sunday) was Canicross time (running with one dog). A friend was taking Summer in this event and had had several training runs with her which went really well. As Summer got closer to the start line she got really frightened with all the noise and people around and didn't want to run. She ended up watching the rest of the competitors cross the finish line with me in the results caravan.

The weather was wet and cold as it always is for the Scarper. Trails were a little sloppy and slippery but we still had fun:)

Aleeya (on behalf of Team Husky)

OUR TRIP TO NASEBY - SECOND RACE OF THE SEASON - UNPLANNED SNOW ADVENTURE

After our annual local race earlier in the month we had been training hard for our next race - the Origin. The rig races consisted of a 7km run on Saturday morning, a 4.5km run Saturday night and another 7km run Sunday morning. Normally when we train the dogs have a couple of days rest in between but because the Origin had three heats within a 24 hour period we had been training Friday, Saturday and Sundays as well as one night during the week.

The morning of Friday 22 June was supposed to be the day we headed off to Naseby for the Origin (Sled Dog Racing). It's winter here and the weather had been terrible. Little old Invercargill (where we live) even had a mini tornado which blew some roofs off houses & knocked a fence down. Reports were that a lot of the roads were closed because of snow & ice so we decided to wait until early Saturday morning to head away. We didn't expect to get there but thought we would give it a go, we'd go as far as the roads allowed us and if we didn't make it we'd find some snow and take the dogs out for a run.

Saturday morning came & there had been several roads closed overnight. We had three options of which roads we would use to get to Naseby. There were two four wheel drive vehicles with a dog trailer on each in convoy (fourteen dogs in total, thirteen Sibes and a black Lab). Friends of ours (Horana Kennels) who live in Roxburgh had left on Friday afternoon and only got as far as Clyde before they were told they couldn't go any further towing their dog trailer. They also could not get back home as the road was closed. We decided going via Roxburgh was not a good idea and that we would head on up State Highway 1 to Mosgiel. We didn't expect to get past Gore but managed to (we later found out the road was closed just after we went through) and eventually got to Balclutha driving at a maximum of 60kmph (about 37mph) all the way. We headed out of the Balclutha township to find the road ahead of us closed. We turned around to find the road behind us closed. There was only one thing to do - off to the local diner for some food and refreshments (doggies got treats in the trailer). We were told that the road to Middlemarch was closed as well as the road to Dunedin, they were our only two routes to get to Naseby. After a short time we heard that the road south was open again so decided we would head back home & find some snow on the way.

We turned off the main road & drove for a few minutes until we found a nice long side road that hadn't been used with lots of snow. We got the dogs, sled & ganglines out & went for a run. I went as cargo on the sled for the first run with a seven dog team and two mushers (thought it might have been quite a fast run and wanted to slow the team down a bit). It was lots of fun and meant I could take my camera and get some 'butt' shots of the dogs running for you all to see:)

There were two other runs, four and three dog teams and plenty of fun was had by all. Some of the dogs had never seen the snow so were very excited and bouncing around in all the new white fluffy stuff.

Hope you enjoy the photos:)

Aleeya (Team Husky - Prince and Summer's Mom)