This Much Country by Kristin Knight Pace

This Much Country by Kristin Knight Pace

Author:Kristin Knight Pace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: None
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-03-04T16:00:00+00:00


Part 7

Build It Yourself

Like many litters of sled dog puppies, the three pups we bought from Jeff were named by a theme. These pups were “the meat cuts litter”: T-Bone, Kabob, and Porkchop. T-Bone was a brawny, black and brown boy with long legs and a deep chest. He had a mohawk of black fur rising up between his shoulder blades and running along the nape of his neck. He deeply loved food. His sister Kabob was black and white with black speckles on her white legs. She had a stillness about her that was preternatural. She stared calmly right into our eyes and gave very slow, sweet kisses with her pink tongue. Porkchop was the wild card. She was small, gray, and lightning fast, and her head was tiny. She rarely came when called, and instead skittishly patrolled the perimeter of the dog yard just out of our reach. We began calling her “Littlehead” as a joke, and eventually the name stuck. These three dogs would be the foundation of our sled dog kennel and their parents, Merlot and Clipper, were invaluable members of Jeff’s Iditarod team. We knew they were going to be good, and we knew that they and their children and their children’s children would make up our race team for many years. We were thrilled. But one thing was missing.

The connection I had with Solo was something I had never experienced with another dog. He had a direct line to my heart, just like Moose and Maximus, but he worked for me. Not like an employee. Nothing like that. More like, he loved me so much and was a phenomenal athlete who knew the pride I felt for him when he did a great job and that was his number one goal—to feel that pride. It made him happy to make me happy. And it made me happy to watch him run and do what he was born to do. We had accomplished so many firsts together. We did our first campout together. We ran our first race together. He was the first dog I ever leader-trained one on one, where I tied him to my waist and ran through the wooded trails and taught him every command he’d need to know.

“Haha, OK, buddy, I love you, too,” I had said, when he kept turning around and running back to me. He had his harness on and I had attached a twenty-foot line to it, which I connected to a belt around my waist. I had gathered up about ten feet of the line in my hand, but the other ten feet were stretched out between me and Solo’s tug line. Except, of course, when Solo would turn around and jump up on me, slathering my face with slobbery kisses.

“All right, go back out there now, we’re working,” I told him. “Line out.”

Solo dutifully trotted to the end of the line and leaned forward, holding it taut.

“Good boy,” I said.

He turned around to look at



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