Leaders? What leaders ...

... we took a team out for a run tonight and have yet again been reminded that we DO NOT have any reliable leaders.  Here is the team as it was when we left the yard: 

Jasper & Shelby
Kako & Sherman
Rallie
Gus
Marco & Zena

Here is how it came home: 

Jasper & Sherman
Kako
Rallie & Shelby
Gus
Marco & Zena

We made it almost to the turn around before we started having major leader issues.  Shelby's head just was not in the game tonight and Jasper was easy for her to influence to do the wrong thing.  So, we pulled Shelby back to be with Rallie thinking Jasper would be better off as a single leader.  Not so much.  So, Sherman, ever ready Sherman, was put in lead with Jasper.  That worked, for the most part.  Sherman thought it was okay to just stop and pee on the bushes!!!! Which caused tangle after tangle and one of those resulted in Kako having the tug line around her neck!!!  Scary!  Thankfully, we stopped and I was able to clear that before she was in any danger.  After that, we made it home without any other major issues.  

Look like we have lots of work to do!!  Tom wants to run two small teams at the same time to try to get leaders trained up.  Because right now, with the teams the way they are, we are are NEVER going to be able to go anywhere with these teams!!  There is NO way I would trust them to get us into the cabins in the White Mountains!  

In other news, we go the big enclosed trailer moved closer to the pens so the next cold snap we have the dogs will have a warmer place to sleep.  We will put them in there overnight so they have a chance to thaw out and be warm while sleeping.  

We are on the downhill side of winter now!  We are gaining daylight every day and it won't be long before we have nice long days with some good temps for running teams.