Bikejoring with Teak February 2009
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This season my plan was to hopefully get out enough times and run enough
miles to earn Flare's WSX title. My mother died in October, though, and one
of my older females had a somewhat difficult time of whelping a litter in
December, with only one surviving pup, so as the season progressed I didn't
know if a WSX for Flare was going to be possible.
I had run Flare with Noona in September, and again in November. We were
able to finally get out in late December and January to finally get the miles
in. Below you can see Flare on the left(a new WSX titlist) and Noona WSX on
the right.
From here I was ready to begin training Miles, a young pup. But the last
week in January, Jonesboro, where we live, had a very serious ice storm
(to see my ice storm photos click here). The park where I usually do my
initial training on foot and on the bike was closed due to the massive number
of downed trees and hanging limbs. I couldn't go there, so had to come
up with some other alternative if I still wanted to work a dog.
I did have one adult male Sam, Teak, that I had been doing some
training with and I decided it would be nice to work with him toward a working
title. These working titles are awarded by the Samoyed Club of America.
In order to qualify a run must be at least 5 miles in length. A dog must earn
1000 points and a standard formula must be followed to determine points.
An applicant must submit all the necessary paperwork plus photos of each
run.
Teak and I fulfilled the requirements for the title, and I submitted
for him to earn his WS. Below are photos of our runs in the Arkansas
ricefields. These photos are taken on different days, but show some
of the experience. One day the dirt road was very muddy after a
heavy rain and the going was very slow; another day we ran into a
stiff cold north wind that must have been blowing at least 20 miles
an hour.
Here are some scenes from this year's runs...
(and as you can see: yes! you CAN bikejor with just one dog!)
Below, left, you can see Teak sitting after one of our turnarounds.
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On the right you see Teak standing facing the bike. We had been
going along this road and had to turn around. Teak thought we should
continue to go forward down the road, though. How he handled his
disagreement with me is that he was willing to stand out in front and
keep his line tight, but he turned his body facing the way he thought
we SHOULD be going! HA!
Our last day out a huge group of geese(possibly as many as 10,000) flew over.
Below is as good a job as my little cheap camera would do to picture a very small
group of them. The geese were all calling and talking to each other as they flew over.
The sun glistened off some, turning them a brilliant white against the blue sky. There
were small groups of 5 or 10, larger groups of 15 or 20, and long jagged V'd lines
as you can see here.
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Here's Teak heading on
the long stretch back to the truck...
and here's Teak standing in his harness
at the end of one of our runs.
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pulling hard to get us started in a stiff wind
continuing to pull hard to keep us going
strong at the beginning of a run
here you can see the rice chaff that is washed over the road after a heavy rain
more than 15,000 power poles were down after the ice storm
you can see some nice - and interesting clouds this time of year
