Sunday, mass start with all the European hounds and their
humans, plus one husky in the corner, unsure of what was about to happen… He trotted to the start line and stood watching
all the hounds. As they leapt round, screaming
and lurching forward, Kroi stood and watched, with a look of amusement on his
face…. He soon got bored with the
hounds’ antics and turned to watch the spectators on the other side of the
fence. A toddler giggled and pointed at
him, Kroi responded by squeezing his head through the fence and gently nuzzling
the child.
Dogs lunged and snarled at Kroi, he stood and stared, gently
grumbling under his breath, but never raising his voice above a whisper. He walked away from these dogs as they tried
to drag their human towards us. Super
chilled and very relaxed I knew I had made the correct choice – Kez would have
been petrified, worried that every dog wanted to hurt him. Kroi just laughed and refused to accept any
offers of a fight….
As we were called forward, 30 second warning, Kroi turned to
watch the hounds again. Their frantic
barking had become louder and Kroi appeared to find this very entertaining
without feeling the need to respond.
The “gun” went and all the hounds bolted forward, several of
them lunging at each other, humans desperately trying to pull them away. Kroi remained rooted to the spot….
I pressed my stopwatch as he turned to look at me. “On you go then” was all I said and off he
went, well behind all the runners I watched in amazement at the complete lack
of control the runners had over their dogs.
All they could do was flap their arms around and hang on for dear life
as the hounds descended towards the woods at breakneck speed.
We ran towards the woods at a more sedate pace, me laughing
at the weirdness of it all…
We over took the first runner after about 1 mile. Unfortunately she was a runner that shouted
constantly at her dog, which caused Kroi to become rather fearful. He slowed down and ran beside me for a while. None of our dogs respond well to loud or aggressive
voices as they know that it means something bad has happened. It is very rare for Ian or I to raise our
voice. We have noticed how negatively
the dogs respond to even the slightest change of tone in our voice and
therefore try to avoid doing this unless absolutely necessary.
I eventually convinced Kroi to run in front of me again,
just as we turned away from the previous 3.4k course to run on the longer 6k
course. He hesitated as we pulled away
from the route of the previous day, unsure of what now lay ahead… He had never run on this route, whereas I
had run along it about 1 hour prior to the race as part of my warm up/ recce of
the route.
This is when it started getting very interesting….. I did
not instruct Kroi which route to take through the mud and variable terrain, but
he chose to follow almost identically in my footsteps from my earlier run. Did I choose the “husky/ human friendly”
route and he was now following it, was it a mere coincidence and he just
happened to follow the same path, or was there unspoken words between us as we
ran…..
We ran down a very steep section before immediately running
up a very steep and muddy hill. Kroi
surged forward to help me up the hill and I tried to follow. By now I was a little “out of puff” and
struggled to run at speed up the hill.
Kroi slowed down as the steepest section and as I huffed and puffed he
stepped of the course and “visited” a tree.
He glanced back at me as he did this, almost as if to tell me what
exactly was on his mind….;-)
There then followed more mud before we entered a really fun,
wooded section. Lots of twisting turns
and ups and downs, Kroi picked up the pace as we ran along the type of terrain
that we encounter on a daily basis – exposed tree roots and rabbit holes, fun
obstacles to tests our skills. I did
chuckle when I saw the padded trees.
Wads of foam had been strapped to some trees to protect runners that
struggled to negotiate some of the bends.
I wonder if I should fit some permanent foam to areas of concern when I
am out running early in the morning, just in case…;-)
As we re-joined the course from yesterday, I spotted Ian
with camera poised, taking more of his brilliant photographs. Kroi instantly recognised him, ears pricked
towards him. I reluctantly chose not to
speak to Ian and asked Kroi to continue past.
Slight hesitancy, but he did obey and ran onwards towards the finish.
As we hit the final straight we picked up the pace a little,
with a slight detour towards some people with cameras…. Did I mention the detours en-route every time
we saw a camera? Kroi really does get
distracted by anyone with a camera and cannot help but run towards them….
Two races in one weekend and Kroi exceeded my expectations
on both occasions. He ran happy, I ran
happy, mission accomplished.
This weekend we said goodbye to “Superbrat” and hello to “Superstar”. Kroi and I will never win short distance
cani-cross races when competing against hounds purposely bred for this job. Kroi is a Siberian Husky, born and bred to
run very long distances at a very controlled pace. I will no longer try to make him something
that he is not. We will still have fun running in short races,
but our hearts belong elsewhere. I have
been so impressed with his attitude and running this weekend that I am about to
offer him a special opportunity…. It involves a very long run on The Ridgeway
with his big brother….. :-)
(photo courtesy of tzruns)
(photo courtesy of tzruns)
