Alaska or Bust

Kolby's grandfather made a dog weight-pulling sled for Maya. As with any project undertaken by Grandfather, the sled is a piece of art. And the sled has a name.

We asked Grandfather to make Maya this sled for several reasons. Foremost, the ranch house that my parents are building is situated on over 100 acres of land and we wanted to find a way for Maya to have enough freedom to roam around off-leash but not enough freedom to run away since the barbed-wire fence around the perimeter of the property is not what we call "Maya-proof". We entertained several ideas like a shock collar (too risky), a GPS collar (too expensive), and a no-jump harness that keeps dogs from being able to extend their back legs far enough to jump up on people and thus would also keep a dog from being able run (too complicated... we couldn't even get it on her). One day when I was killing time at Barnes & Noble (this happens a lot being married to Kolby), I was reading a book about huskies and it went on and on about how they love to pull stuff. It showed these huskies training for mushing by pulling weighted sleds through grass. Apparently huskies LOVE it and to walk/run 1 mile pulling a lightly weighted sled is the equivalent of walking/running 5 miles. So we decided to give it a shot since she'd probably like it, it'd give her good exercise, and it would be cumbersome enough that she probably couldn't make it through the barbed-wire fence at the ranch and certainly couldn't go too far if she did.

Thus, the Alaska or Bust was born.

Maya isn't too sure about it yet. We can't even get her to pull the empty sled more than a few yards. I think it'll take her some time to get used to the sound and feel of something dragging behind her. She gets better at it each time we try, so we're still assuming that husky instinct will kick in any day now! Although, her penchant for laying outside in full sun during the heat of the day until the point where her fur gets so hot it could burn your hand suggests that her Siberian instinct is nowhere to be found these days. We'll see...

Also, I helped my mom create a blog to document the progress of their ranch since it was getting cumbersome to e-mail multiple pictures to all the curious family members. She just updated it this week: http://www.lostcreekranch.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!