Reflection... And call for sponsorship!!!

We're back at Alta campsite and chatting about the race and the team etc. Milos was really happy with the team this year and he said they looked really good even at Levajok. It was only the two shoulder injuries (probably old injuries from LGO) that meant he dropped two dogs and he didn't want to carry on with just 6. He's a big guy probably weighing twice what someone like Elisabeth Edland weighs and it means 6 dogs would have to work super hard to get him through. He was still keeping good speed with 6 or 7 dogs but with my accident it just wasn't going to work for us. 

One common theme has cropped up for a couple of years now and that's about the need for sponsorship so we can dedicate a team of dogs and one musher to racing and not have to run the dogs with tourists. We love the tourism - it pays our bills and allows us this incredible lifestyle - but there's no denying it's difficult to keep the race team in shape when they are out in small four dog teams every week being driven by beginners. But even more than that, it ties up our time to give them additional training. When we're working with tourism so much (and February is the busiest month) we don't have time to train long distance... And even if we did, we can't take the dogs because they need rest after a regular tour. 

I believe we have an almost unbeatable long distance team at the peak of training in December. Our dogs ran a 180km training race with a 21kmph average back then. But since Christmas their training has been little more than 40km day trips with tourists. Us too! We are busy with overnight tours, coffee tours and day trips throughout the season. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but if we can do well despite this imagine how we could do with some financial backing!!!

So, this is our call for sponsorship. If a millionaire with a few thousand rattling around in their pocket just happens to be reading then do get in touch!!! ;-) Or if anyone has any good ideas or contacts please do let me know how we can make this happen! I would love our dogs to be able to reach their full potential. The right breeding is there, the right training know-how is there, the conditions in Kiruna are good... It's just the time for training and the financial backing to free up a dog team for racing. 

Finally, I would just like to add that we already get great support from Royal Canin for dry food and this helps enormously. And our dogs love it! I'm not just saying that because we're sponsored, they really do love it! We hope that relationship will continue for a long time to come. And we've recently added Canada Goose to our sponsors too. They have provided us with jackets that we are evaluating. We would like to thank them both for their support... Without them we'd be pretty cold and the dogs hungry!! ;-)