Well, it has been a never ending learning curve with the acquisition Doug's team after the 2007 Iditarod.
Learning curves have been steep, and there is a natural progression of what they are capable of. 
I suppose the most important aspect is that there will be no favorites this season, there are some obvious no brainers that I would choose if I had to pick my 16 right now. However, that may preclude some very nice 2 y/os that have not yet had the chance to prove themselves.
Well I can say , all the dogs will have the chance this season, to either prove their place in the team, or to not live up to my higher expectations.

Last season I was able to train 28 dogs to have ready for both the Quest and Iditarod. By virtue of "taking it easy" and not necessarily pushing the group , marginal dogs were able to "stay in the pool". It was a learning experience  throughout training, culminating in bringing 14 dogs to Nome. Maynard not finishing in the team , but in the sled was a big disappointment, and not a fun time at all. I was so shocked it was surreal.
It was a horrible end to an otherwise good race. I still think of him, each run and I know his brother Dobie( who he always ran beside) just doesn't seem quite the same this year.I need to find him another buddy.

So, having said that, we have leased out 4 leaders to another musher who is running Iditarod this year. They have been rock solid dogs, but I feel I need to discover the new upcoming blood and determine , perhaps in a confidence building exercise, new leaders the will take the reins.
Those that run competitively, know the value of finishing leaders in a team, dogs that will go on command and  leave checkpoints with ease late in the race.
I have given that up , to force me to develop the younger ones in the kennel some are coming into prime ages, Filbert's litter, from 3 years ago are born leaders. We still have Hawkeye, Hulk, Hena, and Hula. They all lead, though it seems that the males as they turn three seem to now be mature enough to run up front.
We have some others, Jean's litter from 2 years ago we still have all of them, they are out of Blackdog. They are doing extremely well, the males were a bit thin as yearlings so we nutered two of them. Ozzy. a male  and Odi the female arestill intact.
Blackdog was out of commission last season with a broken bone in his foot which we had pinned and kept him cage bound for 6 weeks. He is back and is a great asset.

So what will we be doing different this year?
 Well in a nut shell, the dogs will sort them selves out. Speed will not be tempered, tracks( to help slow and control the team ) will not be used.
Training will consist of fast runs , 100 miles expecting times of 8 to 8.5 hour runs by the end of December.
I know they are capable of this. Do I have 24 that will do it? I doubt it. As a matter of fact, I may have only a hand full. But I will find out which ones they are. 
All of the older dogs that we have, have either won the Wyoming stage stop or finished in the top three. They are athletic, and I want to continue the trend of breeding athletic, quick recovery, and durable dogs that Doug has perpetuated.
This is not an easy decision, as the trend seems to be slow and steady , with Lance, and the followers following his lead. I plan on attempting to take the sport back to the speed level. 
Speed  is a trump card that holds a great advantage over many others. 

The push comes to shove in December when the musher comes to realize what they have ( or don't have ) in their dog team. Many simply take the foot off the throttle and give the team some time off , so their main leader can get some rest.
We have 18 very competent leaders in our group of 24 current  members, the other 6 lead just not with the same zeal , high standards here.

So noting some of the younger dogs.

Clyclone and Hurricane( LenaXEltoro) Ra ra boys super super loud and hyper, both leaders
Odi, Onyx, Oyster, and Ozzy  wow they should be running stage stop! ( JeanX Blackdog) Jean ran on Melanie's winning  team last year.
Brutus and Cleo both great leaders already and sparkplugs at that.( MandyX Earl)
Iza -  Filbert daughter , that someone could have talked me out of last year.. you know one of those slow starters, that  never pulled , but when she did, wow what a dog, Some intensive one on one time this summer, was a last ditch effort for her. It has paid off and she is going to be one of those super dogs. 

Grizzly tracks on the trail

We wanted to share with you some of the evidence of our local wildlife that we spotted over the weekend while working on the trail up to Abhau Lake. Warren, myself, our new handlers Max and Macha, and our handler from last year Annie who is here for a visit, went out to work on the trail and about 10 miles from the house we saw the first of a few sets of Grizzly bear tracks. They were from the day before we were there. We did not see the actual bear, but the tracks it left were large. It reminds us how much we are the minor players in our new neighborhood and has me at least wanting to learn more about the habits and behaviors of the average Grizzly before I actually encounter one on the trail.

The trail we were working on is going to be a great one to run on. While we have had a few minor dustings of snow, about 5 inches or so with the last storm, we still don’t have enough to be running on sleds yet. We got about 26 miles of the trail cleaned up, only a small bit left to go to be ready to run it. We are thinking about setting up our wall tent and stove up near the Lake and use it for the next section of training. It will be about 27 miles from our house, stop over there for a few hours and then return home. All hopefully without encountering any grizzlies!

Since we have worked on the trail I have learned abit about grizzly behavior, mostly that they, much more so than our other neighbors the black bears, really don’t want anything to do with us. That is fine with me. Also, that if the grizzlies are around, the black bears usually aren’t. And since the black bear has the reputation for often being unpredictable, I think I would rather have the grizzlies. On that note, we did some more trail work on Wednesday and there were no new grizzly tracks. Maybe they noticed our presence from the weekend and decided to stay off the trail.

Kate