Getting to Know Pence

Last week, we told you the story of how we came to bring Pence into our family. Today, we’re going to tell you a little bit more about her.

But before we start…

Pence was born on June 25, 2013 in Michigan, which makes her about 10 and a half years old currently. Pence’s parents are Utah and Penny, from Bruce Magnusson and Lloyd Gilbertson respectively.

Contrary to popular belief, Pence is NOT named after Mike Pence, the former Vice President who hails from Indiana. Now that Pence lives in Indiana with us, we hear this misconception a lot.

As with Boo’s litter, Pence’s litter also had a theme: currency. Pence is named after the British pence, where 100 pence make 1 pound. Her siblings’ names are Dollar, Kroner, Rand, Lumpy, Dime, and Peso.

In 2016, Pence had a litter for Bruce Magnusson. A couple of her pups, Nortier and Prim, went on to be main leaders for Bruce’s co-managing kennel partner Laura. Prim’s pups are the core of their team now, so she has a lot of descendants running around.

In 2019, Pence went to Ryan Beaber and Sarah Tarlton in northern Wisconsin, who say she fit in immediately. They were looking for a leader to help train their young dogs and lead races. She went on to train several dogs to be amazing leaders themselves. A couple years ago, Pence had a litter for Beaber.

For her career, Pence finished many races as a leader, including Tahquamenon Country Sled Dog Race, CopperDog, Apostle Island Sled Dog Race, Pedigree Stage Stop Race, Northern Pines Sled Dog Race, Doty’s Dusty Dog Dryland Race, Redpaw’s Dirty Dog Dryland Race, and more. These races are more sprint-type races than long distance races like in Boo’s experience.

At some point in 2022, Pence made her way to BraverMountain Mushing with Blair and Q. They were looking for an experienced leader to potentially help their team. She was with Blair and Q for roughly a year before coming to Indiana with us.

Now let’s get in to her personality. In some ways, she is a lot like Boo. She is timid when meeting new people and jumpy at new sounds and sights. She is one of the sweetest dogs we’ve ever met. She loves to run, but also enjoys being lazy and sleeping on the couch most of the day.

Unlike Boo who tends to favor females over males (humans), Pence seems to favor males. On runs, she definitely responds better to commands in a deeper tone of voice over a higher pitched voice. She and Riley have formed a very tight bond, but she obviously still loves me as well.

Every night before she goes to sleep, Pence pounces up on Riley in bed, play fights for a few minutes, and then melts over him for cuddles while he reads. It’s become a nightly routine.

Before we picked Pence up, Blair had warned us that she liked to dig, but that she would only dig one hole and move rocks around in it. It’s like her little project. She wasn’t trying to dig to escape, just for a place to keep her rocks, at least at their kennel. Along with her medical records was a note about Pence from previous owners which also talked about her love of digging: “I am a very exceptional digger, I almost made it to China a couple times with my tunnels.”

Rewind back to last summer real quick. Riley and I bought a house and installed a privacy fence. We planted new grass around the fence in the areas that were torn up in the process, and new grass around the house where it was bare. We spent all that summer nurturing the grass, getting it to fill in and grow. It was looking fantastic. Until Pence came lol.

Once Pence was finally settled in, and she had a bone, she started digging. But not just one hole… like seventeen holes. She just couldn’t find the perfect one apparently. And all of the holes were where we had just gotten new grass to grow, of course. One day, I was out in the yard looking at all the holes, and found a rock bigger than the size of my fist that had been moved into one of her holes. I have no idea how she moved a rock that big by herself, but she did.

Another portion of the note sent from previous owners stated that she had “very high energy and does not sit well in laps”. From the day we brought her home, I’ve been questioning the second part of that statement lol. She has been in Riley’s lap numerous times, and seemed to be quite content. Maybe she just hadn’t found the right lap yet.

Overall, Pence has fit into our family very well. We’ve loved having her in our lives the last 8 months or so (wow how has it been that long already?!). It’s definitely been a shift in dynamic for us, moving from part-time parenting of only one dog to full-time with one and part-time with two. But we’ve loved it, and we really think Boo and Pence love being together too.

Now that Pence has fully recovered, the weather is going to be good for running and we’re getting Boo back soon, we’ll have lots of training and running stories in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned!