My personal goal for this season was to have less stress, and I am woefully failing in that regard. Thus the lack of blogs - there simply has not been enough time!
Have to say training is going just fabulous. I am exactly where I wanted to be but didn't expect to be, since I tend to set the bar a tad high. But since early November the weather gods have just been more than cooperative! We've had snow on the ground up at camp since the 2nd weekend up there, cushioning the dogs' feet. Then an early winter storm dumped enough snow on us locally the first week of December to see us on sleds, and the temps have stayed cool, we've gotten a few more inches of beautiful white stuff here and there since then, and now today we're looking at receiving another 6+ inches. Trails up at camp this weekend were fabulous, although we did a lot of trail breaking through snow the depths of which I've NEVER had to ask my dogs to break trail through before. It was tiring for them, but excellent experience. At times they were breaking trail through snow drifts that were above their heads, and yet they leapt right through them.
I hope this is the beginning of a wonderfully snowy season, but in New England you just never know. Meanwhile I'll get the most out of it that I can.
So yeah, training is great. But personally? Oh boy. I've got 2 or 3 client's-from-hell on board right now, and one in particular is the cause of 99.9% of my stress. If I could get out of this project I would - but it was supposed to be finished by mid-december and we're so behind schedule that I'll likely be still dealing with this project the day before I leave for Beargrease next month. I have more work than programmers, business is booming beyond what I feel I can control, and I'm working until 10 or 11 each night. Which means of course I have very little time to spare for myself, or to finish making booties, or do many of the other tasks that need doing. When I start thinking, "I shouldn't shower today because I could save a whole 15 minutes of shower and hair drying time", you know it's bad! :P
Meanwhile, back to happy news. Somehow my plan went from raising 6 puppies this year to raising 7 or 8. The number is still up in the air, frankly. I had the chance to purchase a 4 month old NorthWapiti puppy a month ago and jumped on it, so that made puppy #7. Then I'm having a bitch of a time trying to narrow Myst and Anthem's litter down to only 2 so at the moment I'm actually debating growing up 3...
Kadee's pups turned 6 months last week and they got their first hookup in harness last weekend. They're all still very fat, despite being on a diet for awhile. Guess they'll eventually work it off or outgrow the baby fat.
That's all for this month. Can't promise to update this any more frequently since time is so limited, but I'll do my best.
Happy Holidays everyone!
-Jaye
