YQ: Coming Soon — “Stay Gee!”

Why wait? Here’s a little something to start stressing about right away!

Look at the photo below. The horizontal red line near the bottom shows The Yukon Quest trail running east (left to right) along Baseline Road. Throughout the season, SPK teams finish their training runs along the very same piece of road, then go “Haw!” (left) at the little turn-off in the circle, and follow the dotted line for a very short distance before going “Haw!” again into SP Kennel for their hot meals and comfy beds.

Very soon, the teams will be trotting down Baseline and — as creatures of habit — will expect to go “Haw!” as usual. This time, however, they’ve got to keep going!

To help overcome the hard-wired urge to “head for home” you can be sure that Allen and Aliy have been working with the dogs recently to pass the usual turn-off after training runs.

You can also be sure that they — along with the entire SPK family — will be yelling “Stay Gee!” (right) at the top of their lungs as the dogs approach the turn-off.

Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ray has parked his pick-up in the chute and covered it with camouflage, just to help make the point clear.

The last thing Allen and Aliy want is for the dogs to think they’re done for the day and make a bee-line for their houses! This is just one of the “mental challenges” for the dogs on the YQ and I’ll try to point out a few others along the way… Stay tuned!