Sherpa. Sherpie. Shei’rpana. A dog with the biggest heart. The toughest head. The most durable body. Smiley Sherpa. Always so full of zest for running, eating, breeding, and life. RIP 8-9-2021 Sherpa was one of the most amazing dogs we’ve had the privilege...
Saturday Will lost the end of his right hand index finger working on his scooter brakes. I figured he’d hurt himself on it, but thought he’d wreck. Sunday we lost one of our greats, Outlaw. Outlaw was a unique dog in so many ways. He was born September...
Who’s Brenda Mackey? This has become a funny tag line thanks to someone asking the question on a recent Iditarod forum after reading my name on the signup list. I come from a family of mushing Mackey’s. I’m a third generation Mackey musher and the first woman in the...
When Minty died last August I needed time to write a tribute for her. The memories we made with her and a young Isabel came to the forefront of my mind. How quickly time flies by in the lifespan of a dog, how children go from the delightful never ending age of little...
I grew up raising puppies. I wanted to be a dog. Literally. I envied the way they could run around on all four’s and interact in a pack. In the spring I’d sneak out at night to crawl into the puppy house so I could sleep with the puppies. My mom would come...
Team work. I’m really lucky to have found a strong mushing partner in Will when we were just kids with big dreams and a decade later able to put those dreams into action. It took us longer to get back into dogs than we thought it would. I remember when Will said...
What an exciting finish! Will passed Travis about 12 miles from the finish line making up 18 minutes on him and adding another 8 minutes to that. I’m glad the last leg was a long one at 72 miles giving Will the opportunity to make up that time. When teams are...
Earlier this week Will and I were deciding what training runs we’d do over the weekend in preparation for our upcoming Willow 300 on February 1st. I suggested we take our 2 eight dog teams (main racing pool) and do the Two Rivers 100 just for training. I was in...
First off a huge thank you to the volunteers who make this race happen. The backbone of this race is put on by the same volunteers who pull it together every year. Kit, Jen, Harry, and Bob. This was DeeDee’s first time as a race judge, but she is no newbie to...
The Willow 300 Leaderboard The Willow 300 is the first 300 I’ve ever finished. I finished the Quest 19 years ago and frankly it was so long ago, I was so young, I feel it hardly counts. Back then to qualify for the Quest you just had to do a 200 miler. I do...