May 17, 2005
masonic handshake
Yesterday I finally got around to taking new Spanish import Cocú de Cal Segú out again on the mountain bike, this time with old reliable leader Tonya of Seppala. On his first bike trial Cocú had messed around a fair bit, peeing on the trailside and acting like he didn't really understand what we were doing; and, to be fair to him, I was rusty with the bike and had trouble getting it into low gear, so my own focus wasn't much better than his.
Today was a different matter entirely. I'm not sure exactly what happened. Perhaps experienced lead dogs have some kind of secret signal of recognition, a masonic handshake that allows them to tell one another, "I KNOW, and I know you know, too!" However it occurred, by the time the two of them had gone a couple hundred yards together, I suddenly had myself quite a little running machine, and the rest of the run was a matter of driving that bike like crazy to keep from upsetting on the horse-trail ruts. I took them through a route that I knew was relatively unfamiliar to Tonya, and they never missed a single turn command. My intention was to take them for about a twenty-minute ride, but we blitzed the trails at such a speed that we were back at the truck in twelve minutes!
This is great. A few runs like that with Tonya and this new leader should get accustomed to my driving style, voice, and commands with minimal stress. Both of them obviously enjoyed the run greatly. A double-lead trial of young leader LIZZY with Tonya's H-litter daughter HAPPY a few days ago showed that those two could work together quite amicably, with Hap boosting the speed while Liz handled the brainwork; the combination seemed to "click."
With any luck at all, then, I can run HAPPY and LIZZY at double lead for my first-string team this winter and probably use COCU with leader trainee LARA for the second string. Believe me, it's nice to have some confidence about the lead dog situation this far in advance of the season.
To finish with, here's a pretty nice portrait of Little Lizzy Lineout in her newly-mature glory just after a solo bike run. Suddenly, she's gorgeous.
Posted by jjeffrey at May 17, 2005 05:02 PM