Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Captured at last!

This past weekend, I finally managed to corral Sundin--almost three months after he first arrived here! He was not terribly impressed with this turn of events, but he stopped shaking after a few minutes. Then he didn't let me near him again for three days. I recaptured him last night and kept him in a smaller area so I could run him this morning.

Getting him into his harness was a gong show. I have a large bruise on my hand and the perfect indent of Sundin's teeth in the middle of the bruise! Yup, he bit me! Not very hard though and he was immediately submissive. He still fought having his paws handled and putting his harness on, but I got it on him eventually. He was not a happy dog at this point. His eyes were wild and he was still trying to get away from me. With a very firm grip on the leash, I managed to get him over to the sled.

He instantly calmed down once he saw some familiar things--sled, drop chain, other dogs. I don't think he knew what was going on up to that point and the unknown scared him silly!

Heading down the trail. Sundin ran in swing today beside Pacer. I had planned to run him in lead, but after his little freak out over the harness that didn't seem like such a good idea! There's a lot of pressure on a lead dog, even when it's not a racing team! Sundin did great beside Pacer. Tomorrow I'll try him up front.

"Hey, why are we stopping!??" He turned around every time I stopped them and stared at me--just like his momma does. Pingo always turns and watches me when we take a break.

A happy Sundin after a 15km run. He never missed a stride, pulled like crazy and was completely relaxed when we got back. No problems getting his harness off. He walked nicely back to his pen. He was almost like a normal dog!

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