Thursday, February 03, 2011

Dogsled Racing at Mendon Ponds

A couple of weeks ago I went with some pals to see the dogsled races at this year's Winter Fest. It was extremely cold and I was too concerned about losing toes to frostbite to take very good pictures. Also, dogs are fast and my camera is slow. Especially in the cold.


These people came with six dogs and hooked them up to this chain one by one. I have a terribly cute picture of them adoring a little girl, but one can't just go around posting pictures of people's kids on the Internet, so you don't get to see it. It is super cute, though. They were very friendly dogs.


Apparently there is this thing where you attach dogs to yourself while you're on skis, and they pull you. It is very strange, but it looks like fun. These dogs started off at a leisurely trot, as if to communicate to everyone present, "We were not bred for this, but we have been promised treats at the finish line."


I was the most surprised to see this handsome fellow racing, as my experience with Golden Retrievers suggest they are not into running flat-out for four-mile stretches. His accompanying skier said that this is the only Golden Retriever he's seen doing this. Usually they're so much more interested in being with humans that they want to wrap themselves around your legs rather than pull you. I bet this one fetches, too. Weirdo.


Here's an actual dogsled. The Huskies (or whatever kind of mix they are) were impressively fast. There were never more than three to a sled, but it would have been cool to see a whole pack racing.


Huskies are very adorable, but they remind me so much of wolves that they make me slightly nervous. It must be some kind of primordial instinct. I will probably stick with Golden Retrievers in the future, even if they aren't star athletes.

After the dogsled racing I came home and threw up a lot. So that day was a mixed bag. But the morning, at least, was pretty awesome.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am glad that you took these pictures to share - they are great. The rest of the day seems better forgotten, though.

Perhaps you could blur out the face and identifying clothing of the child and post that picture you wanted to post. You could make up some scandalous caption to go along with the blurred out people, something that would suit the National Enquirer - just to entice readers to visit.