Dog Sledding!!

Wow, am I in a creative mood tonight or what...

I've decided to go ahead with the dogsledding post and just continue on with the Alaska pics post later. And Amber- I will try as hard as I can to convince my parents it is a good idea to take 10+ dog crazy puppy raisers with us on our next vacation- they had a hard enough time tearing just me away from the dogs I had spotted and were obsessively hugging.

And now for the dogsledding:

Sadly, we had just disembarked from the beautiful Diamond Princess, and I was still reeling from the shock of no more nightly shows and 24/7 available food. Thank goodness we had an exciting day ahead of us, including touring downtown Anchorage (which was just like a normal city, plus the gorgeous mountains dotting the background), and dinner before boarding our flight to Seattle and then to Toronto at midnight. The handsdown BEST part of the entire day, of the entire TRIP even, was the dogsledding.

The amazing thing, was we went sledding on a glacier. Punchbowl Glacier, to be exact. We had a ten minute helicopter ride up to the mountain, and back down after the sledding.










Oh come on! You totally would've taken pics of the controls too!!

It was my first helicopter ride ever, and it was so much fun! Definitely prefer it to plane rides. I sat in the front seat beside the pilot both times (it was a small four seater), and the view was incredible!

And, finally- the one thing I'd been waiting for- getting out of the helicopter without getting my head chopped off! Nah, just kidding. It was seeing lots and lots of dogs. Finally back in my comfort zone- 37 dogs, and soon to be covered with fur and kisses. Honestly, I felt so normal after leaving the glacier and finding myself covered in fur.

The dogs were having a rest because they had just finished a run, so one of the guys told everyone to stay in his tent to keep warm while we waited. There, he told us lots of interesting things, such as the guys that stay up there live there 5 days a week, then go to downtown Anchorage for 2 days I guess to stock up and stuff. There are 37 dogs there, and one of the teams were in training for the upcoming Yukon Quest, which is a smaller version of the Iditarod. (speaking of the Iditarod, while we were in Anchorage, we passed by the starting point of it! Way cool!) Also, how lots of people think they use Siberian huskies and malamutes for racing, while in actuality they use husky mixes- in order to better the animal for a racing body type and temperament, they mixed in new breeds, such as border collies, greyhounds, etc. The dogs use up a whopping 10,000 calories a day (compared to our humans' paltry 3,000), so they need to eat that many calories a day in order to maintain their health. They get fed a half pound of beef for breakfast, a half pound of salmon flakes at lunch, and a half pound of chicken for dinner. (In all meals, a certain amount of top quality dog food is mixed in).

And then after the dogs ahd finished resting, we got our rides! We went two at a time, with twelve dogs pulling us and the musher. Ours was so nice. My mom was like to him "She loves dogs" (about me), and he turned towards me with a big smile and said "So we have something in common!" And our ride was awesome. It was about 15 minutes long, with a break for the dogs to cool down, and one quick photo point.

View from the sled-sitting down- after the photo point, my mom and I switched, and I stood while she sat

And then I got to play with the rest of the dogs as the rest of the group went for their turn (my mom and I had gone first). It was unbelievably fun, although my fingers were FREEZING by the time we went back down. I supposed I could've gone into the tent to warm up, but why do that when there are 25 dogs to play with??

L- This dog was the first I played with and definitely the most playful-when I stood up to go see the other dogs, he took hold of my jacket and tugged, and when I finally got it out of his mouth, he nipped me on the butt! haha-- R- This dog had the funny habit of biting that one paw...the guy told us that the vet had seen her and said nothing was physically wrong with her, it was just a bad habit

L- This dog was the most lab-like one out there-most of them looked like they were crossed wtih shepherds or collies, etc. Had all you lab owners/fosterers in mind when I took this picture- look at poor me and Erin, sticking out with our Jack Russell/Golden! --R- This dog was a real sweetie-shy at first, but once he got used to me, he loved being petted and would run out to me everytime I came back to him

Well, Blogger has decided to stop working agian, but since it's already uploaded this many pictures in this post, I can't be too mad- I only have about 3 pics left to show you, and I'll try again tomorrow. See ya!