14.03.2023 husky project

It was a rather exciting inside day. Yes I washed, cleaned and cooked but first we spent the morning clearing paths to walk and drive through the snow. 

We had about 20cm of new snow which took a while to clear since we needed enough space for the sleds to start and the dog kennel had to be cleared aswell. It was exhausting but the guests could start their tour after breakfast with no problems.

We had just finished cleaning up breakfast when some of the fix workers came back with a huge load of groceries. Like 8 cardboard boxes which we had to sort and stow away.

Then suddenly johanna came through the door and said she needed everybody for a 'puppy run'. Now we had heard about puppy walks, we did them everyday but puppy RUNS?

Even scarier was that the volunteers that already had been here for a month also had no idea what that meant.

So we got ready and headed outside. Here we saw a double sled with lines for like 12dogs instead of the usual 4?? And then came johanna with Molly? The fluffy housedog that was like 10% husky at best?

We also gathered all the other dogs that weren't on the guest tour, together with all the puppies that had never run before. Yes this was their first test run. Together with the older experienced dogs and some veteran dogs that were in their prime running phase aaaand molly. But actually molly seemed more ready to run than all the other dogs.

The puppies were really nervous, they were unsure when we attached them to the lines and didn't know why all the other dogs were so excited. 

After preparing the sled, johanna and konstantin took their place to pilot the sled and told each of us to grab a line and guide the sled towards the forest. 

We ran forward and had to jump out of the way into the deep snow that we had shoveld so nicely this morning.Then the 12dog sled took off and vanished into a cloud of freshly fallen soft snow.

We were unsure what to do now since they had told us nothing. So we decided to eat lunch, we got out all the leftovers and the toaster but we were barely able to make a sandwich when we got the message that they were returning and everyone had to ready outside to guide the sled back in.

We inmediatly stopped everything and started to get dressed while screaming at each other: 'WE HAVE TO GET OUTSIDE NOW!' 'STOP EATING!' 'MY TOAST ISN'T FINISHED!' 'TURN OFF THE MICROWAVE!'

It was fun.

We welcomed all the doggies back and cuddled the puppies very intensly while telling them how great they did. And they did actually, maple was a little small and often completly vanished inside the snow, oak and cypress did great and elm, well elm was very exhausted.

The older dogs had no problem at all since they had done this many times. Even molly was standing like she had pulled the entire sled on her own.

Dinner went quite well, svenja and marlene are very talented at cooking meatloaf even though they both don't eat meat.

The guests actually thanked us for the time and the food and all of our work. It was a nice goodbye.

Even though we also sadly had to say goodbye to laura and peggy. They are leaving with the guests tomorrow and 2 new volunteers will arrive later in the day.

And then of course some new guests will arrive aswell...