Christmas Day 2006

This is what Roxy & I were doing today. We went for a ski-jour across Mary Lake near where I live. The dog next to her is Harmony, an x-quest dog & she was teaching Roxy what it means to pull. Roxy was schooled today! The art of pulling!

Here we are comming off the main road, around the corner to the road that goes down to the lake. It was a bit of a turn with the dogs so I had to balance myself well to make it around. The loose dogs here are Tessy (husky on right), Cody & Jenny (labs).

Half way through we decided to switch Harmony with Bella. Bella is the white dog pulling me here & Roxy is behind her. Bella is a much stronger dog than Harmony & pulled with greater strength. Bella has not been in the quest as she is only 2 years old, like Roxy. Mike is in front of me with two more x-quest dogs. Alison is taking the photos. Ali & Mike live upstairs in the house & are my landlords.

It was a fun day outside. I learned that Roxy will never be a strong pulling dog. She likes to coast & just cruise alongside the dog that's doing all the pulling. It was so funny the day I started teaching Roxy to pull. I hooked her up to a toboggan with a piece of split wood in it. I went in front & called her towards me. Once the line & sled became taught, Roxy was like, 'this is crazyness! what am i doing pulling this thing?' She stopped instantly and looked at me. Not a moment later she was sitting herself down in the sled and said in her puppy eyes, 'I'm just not pulling!' So I gave her a little push & played around with her. That was enough for her that day. As you can see by the above photos, she's much better & I'm happy shes at least keeping up with the sled dogs! ;) Who knows, maybe she'll be pulling next year?! Maybe its Roxy's New Year resolution!? Take care & happy holidays.