End of Fan Club 2018-2019 Season

Many thanks to all our Dog Fan Club fans for the 2018 – 2019 season. We sincerely appreciate your support and love that you feel the same about our canine best friends as we do! We have kept our Fan Club support program open all summer so that we could have some fun with you and our dogs would get some specials treats. It’s worked out great. But… we are now turning the page for the next Dog Mushing SEASON! We need to revamp the Fan Club – get some new photos of the pooches and update the website. It’s exciting and we will have some new ‘bells and whistles’ for you to enjoy when we open again on October 1st.

In order to officially end the Dog Fan Club 2018-2019 we want to go out with a BANG! So in today’s draw we have randomly selected four dogs that have not yet won a drawing. The lucky foursome are: Amber, Five, Spark and Olivia. I took them on a walk today to show them your L❤️VE!

Congratulations to Katy Hund who is a fan of Amber, Five fan Linda Miller, Crystal Windgassen, a fan of Spark and Kathy Ferrell who is a fan of Olivia. You will all be receiving personalized note cards with your dog’s photo, plus a Fan Club Certificate and a Glam Shot.

Amber has done it all. At 6 years old she has six 1000 mile race starts under her harness. She is a fun and flirty gal but has a shy side for new humans. She loves her summertime bones and walks with her siblings and cousins. Amber tends to boss other dogs around when on a walk, but is mild mannered to her teammates in harness. We really noticed how much she dislikes booties this past season. She will sit in harness and tuck her feet up under her body so that we can not reach them unless we pick her up. (Which is not a huge challenge at only 40 pounds.) You might see Amber running barefoot down the trail more often than not.

Five is a big lovable pup. His head is literally the size and weight of a bowling ball. He is a dedicated five year old racing dog. He has four 1000 race mile starts under his harness and numerous other mid distance races to his resume. He is one of “3 Big Boys” in his litter: Scooby, Rodney and Five. Five’s summertime hobbies include chewing on Kong Balls, beef knuckle bones and bacon flavored nylabones. Five has a mellow demeanor which is nice considering he could knock us all down with one quick leap in the air.

Spark is one of the biggest goofs at SPK even though he is a main Lead Dog. Spark proves that with great success in your career, you can still live every day with an enormous smile. At 6 years old he has seven 1000 mile race starts under his harness. Spark is a nylabone guy, perhaps knuckle bones are too much effort. He also head over heels in love with Tig the Labrador. He always has been. It started as a puppy fetish and now that he is middle aged is is stone cold “in love”. You can see that in the video. ❤️

Olivia the GREAT. She is the ‘Mama of them all’. At 12 years old her resumes reads like a Hall of Famer. She and her sweetheart, Nacho, have produced the next generation of Champions. Olivia is still quite spritely and hasn’t lost her edge one bit. She loves feeding time and tries her darnedest to steal any or all of Nachos kibbles. You can just hear her nagging him “Nacho, dear. No sweetheart those extra kibbles are bad for you. You need to watch your blood pressure remember. Let me eat them for you.” The twosome often romp around the yard together – Nacho following Olivia’s every foot step. They live in the Plaza Pen which is just underneath the bedroom Aliy and Allen call their own.

We have two additional very special Thank You’s. Becky and Jessica were Fans of every single SPK Dog during the 2018 – 2019 season. Thank you both tremendously for your dog love and support. So, to finish it off, we once again randomly selected two dogs that have not yet won a drawing this past season (and excluded the four lucky dogs above.) And… Drum Roll please… the final winners of the 2018 – 2019 Fan Club season are: Cloud and Decaf!

I took these two cuties on a walk today as well. I had to let them know that they weren’t forgotten!

Becky, who is also Violet’s BBF and sponsor, won the Fan Club Draw with Cloud. And Jessica, who became a fan of every dog on March 4th this season, won the Fan Club Draw with Decaf! Becky and Jessica will be receiving a small SP K Fan Club Photo Journal from all the dogs with personalized notes from Cloud and Decaf.

Cloud hasn’t yet come into her own. She has had a few hiccups along her road to success. Cloud is the only dog ever at SP Kennel to have been diagnosed with mange. Yup. Crazy, huh? Then several short months later we realized that her hormones were a little unbalanced so she was spayed. Cloud tried her hardest to make a race team this past season but the stars never lined up. Now that we feel she is healthy, we are looking forward to her becoming one of the Main Racers. So… buckle up Cloudy, you’re in for a heck of a Mushing Season.

Decaf had a lightening bolt season in 2018-2019. (Cloud needs to look no further than this kennel mate for inspiration.) Decaf was not the most talented youngster… to say the least. He tried too hard most of the time and several times rode back to the kennel on the ATV 4 wheeler and then in the sled bag because he just simply ran out of steam. Decaf is one of the very few dogs at SP Kennel who went from trying to complete a 15 mile training run to coming across the Iditarod Finish line just three spots away from the Championship! HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW? This boy is the epitome of why dog mushers, teachers, employers, etc, etc need to give individuals a legitimate chance to prove themselves. Individuals are just that I-N-D-I-V-I-D-U-A-L-S. We all need a little special attention at some time because we are all special. So, let’s have an enormous applause for Decaf!

Thank you to all of our 2018 – 2019 Dog Fans.

HOWL!