Things have slowed to a crawl around here, mostly due to my body going into revolt. I've been having some low back pain and especially some left hip pain that has left me kind of gimping around. Certainly not in good enough shape to try running dogs on icy trails, which was probably the 'cause of my discomfort to begin with.
Yesterday was bad enough that I resorted to Ibuprofen, which I try to avoid due to some stomach issues. I also spent much of yesterday flat on my back with my heating pad. Today I'm feeling much better, but far from 100%.
My handler, Ted has been a true blessing as he has been feeding the dogs - which means packing the buckets of dog food and/or water.
Today is quite cold, about 30 degrees (F) below zero. My buddy Torus has been hanging out here in the house. He came in this morning and settled into his crate until feeding time. He gobbled his grub and went outside for a couple of hours, and then was happy to return to that nice, warm crate in the downstairs bedroom.
BTW, here is a tip for determining whether your dog is warm enough. Check his or her ears. Warm ears equal a warm dog, but cold ears are an indication that the dog's body is shunting warm blog to his or her core, and a good indication that a warmer environment might be appropriate for a while.
According to the forecast it should warm up some tomorrow, to around 10 degrees (F) below. That may give us a chance to run teams before it chills off again. I have to fly to Los Anchorage Tuesday afternoon and spend Wednesday doing work related training before returning home that evening. It looks like these very cold temperatures are here to stay for a while, so I may be running dogs in temperatures at which I normally do not, but the dogs need the training and I need to work with them when my body permits.
Mostly what we really need is a couple of good old fashioned snowstorms to bring us a foot or two of fresh snow. Nothing could possibly help the trails more.
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