Dirty Dog Here We Come!

Hi friends! Exciting news - we officially signed up for our first race of the year! We will be racing at Redpaw’s Dirty Dog Dryland Race in Pearson, Wisconsin on November 2nd and 3rd!

Riley will be competing in both 2 dog and 1 dog bikejor sport classes. I will be competing in both 2 dog and 1 dog scooter sport classes. The 2 dog trail is 2.5 miles long and the 1 dog trail is 1.5 miles long. The course is pretty technical with lots of hills and turns. We competed at this race two years ago, and it was super muddy. Fingers crossed for dry time this year!

The dogs we will be racing with are to be determined, but we will be bringing and likely racing Boo and Pence (well, hopefully Pence…more on that in a second).

It sounds like maybe a record year for Dirty Dog? There are 238 entries! If you haven’t seen the list of competitors, here are some notable names you may recognize:

• Ryan Beaber (and other members of his family)

• Melissa Mendelson from Flight Risk Mushing

• Blair Braverman from BraverMountain Mushing

• Betsy Heidt (and MUPPY!)

• Erin Shouweiler from Otter Run Kennel

It should be a fun weekend! Is anyone planning on spectating? If so, let us know!

We’ve been able to train a few more times earlier this week! I ran the dogs on the scooter around the neighborhood on Saturday and Wednesday, and Riley ran them on the bike on Sunday. We only ran a combined 3.5 miles though due to warmer temperatures again. However, on our last run we hit 18.42 mph! That may be the fastest time I’ve seen us do on the scooter so far.

We were able to run 15.5 miles over the last month or so, which is by far the most we’ve been able to train before a fall race in the last few years. The dogs have been running great, especially Pence. Even at 11 years old, she has so much drive. More than Boo a lot of times!

But unfortunately we hit a bit of a speed bump with her. About 3.5 hours after we signed up for the race, Pence started limping. Riley believes he saw it happen while she was on her couch. It appears to be a tweaked shoulder, and I think it’s the same one she tweaked shortly after we got her last year.

The good news is, it doesn’t seem as severe as last year. The plan is to make her take it easy and rest. There’s really not much else we can do. We are hopeful that she will be healed up in time to race. After just about 24 hours, she’s already made some improvement. It doesn’t seem to bother her much, as she still takes off sprinting out the door like a crazy doggo every time she goes outside to potty.

Boo has been quite jealous of the extra attention Pence has gotten due to her shoulder injury. Whenever I try to examine her shoulders, he has to squeeze himself in between us.

That’s all we’ve got for this week! We will catch you all back here next week (or maybe see some of you in person next weekend?!) with stories from our travel north!

-Hannah, Riley, Boo, and Pence