Burgess Pet Care

The night race was first and we were off like a rocket in freezing conditions. We kept up a good pace, executing the turns well and flying up and down the hills until Shanta took a left turn too sharply and became tangled in the rig.    We stopped for about half a minute to sort this out and were then heading towards the finish line where the trail has been resurfaced in places.  The team slowed down with every section of new surface and picked up speed with the old surface, but we were now within sight of the finish line  and for the last half mile we sped along.

Sunday morning’s race was over the same trail but in daylight and again we flew off the start line.  After the first right hand turn Shanta again slowed her pace and every so often picked it up again.   It becomes obvious that she didn’t like the resurfaced patches of the trail so we ran at her pace. As we near the finish line Rusky and Shanta decided they wanted to go and say hello to a marshall but with a quick word from me we carried on and crossed the finish line.  Upon inspection of the trail the newly surfaced area has been covered with  the size of stones you would find on a railway line.  We finished in sixth place in each race (well done the team) and were still the fastest all rescue four dog team.

Our next race is on the 29 January at Longmoor, over a six mile trail.

The training session with all 4 dogs, Rusky and Shanta leading and the puppies Oska and Storm behind in the wheel, was very good.  Over the festive period we had four good runs with this combination of dogs over some very heavy wet grass and muddy trails.  The last training run was over 5.77 miles which we did in a time of 23 minutes, so I had high hopes for the New Year’s Eve race at Wareham.

We were second to last out in the four dog class and all went well until the half way point at a T junction where we needed to take a left turn.  The 2 leading dogs decided this didn’t apply to them and went straight ahead to say hello to the spectators.  From there on the pace became slow with the temperature rising, as was the humidity.   At the next right turn the line between the front and back dogs became tangled in Storm’s paws.   After untangling Storm’s paws and having a few minutes rest we restarted again but at a very slow pace.   After a left turn the finish line was only about half a mile away but by now we walked and trotted to the line as the dogs were too hot to run at full pace.  The temperature was now 13 degrees celsius at 92% humidity and because of this we decided to scratch from the New Year’s Day race.  Our final time was 23:14:11 with an average of 9.68 mph for the 3.75 mile trail.

So far this season we have only covered nine miles in three training runs.   This race involves a pair of mushers doing two legs each.  I teamed up with my partner, Em, who went out first and put the team into the third spot in our class.  I went out at 10:10 in the number two leg, by which time the temperature had risen to 12 degrees celsius, fairly close to our limit of 15 degrees celsius.   We had a good, uneventful, race and crossed the finish line with a time of 15 minutes 30 second which put us in fourth place.  The Sunday race was cancelled due to the heat and humidity.

The Polaris team came fourth out of our class.  I was the only person to run three dogs, when all the other teams were made up of four dogs.   I was very proud of my team’s effort and look forward to the next race in November.

Mike the musher and his team of dogs.

Burges Pet Care sponsor the Polaris Sled Dog Team and provide them with all their feeding needs throughout the year. All the dogs are fed on Supadog Active apart from Skye, who enjoys Supadog Light.

Here, the dog’s owner Mike, has told us about Shanta – the newest addition to his team of beautiful Husky dogs.

Shanta’s story or how to become a Sled Dog on The Polaris Sled Dog Team…

I received a phone call from Bristol RSPCA Cats and Dogs Home, asking me if I could come and asses a Husky for them that had been with them for about three months, as I am on there help list for Husky’s. So me and my wife Alison accompanied by Skye and Diesel went to visit Shanta.

Alison and my self were shown in to the meet and great room were we meet Shanta and we fell in love with her straight away. We were told how some people had been trying to adopted her but they weren’t following the guide from the Siberian Husky Club of Great Britain that I gave to the RSPCA when I went on there help list.

We talked a bit more and then we asked if we could go for a walk with all three, we introduced them all at the van in the car park and this went well so with Skye and Diesel with me Alison with Shanta off we went. Half a hour later we came back with all three walking next to each other as if they had been together from the start.

We did four more walks with them all and on Friday the 13th of August we fully adopted Shanta.

She is number three in the pack and is Diesels best friend around the house, they play games together and get into trouble together. Shanta has started training with Skye and Diesel in harness ready for the 2010-2011 Sled Dog Racing season, we have covered about 4 miles at present but we shall really start to build up the mileage from this weekend on. Shanta loves her food, she is on the Supadog Active  and has treats of the lite food.

Polaris Sled Dog Team thank all at Burgess for their suport.

Mike, Skye, Diesel and Shanta.