FREX AT THE FAIR!
We had the great honor of being invited to bring sled dog demos back to the Common Ground Fair in Unity, ME. We did 2-3 demos a day and had crowds of up to 150 people each time and for a person with heavy public speaking anxiety, I think it went pretty well overall. A little stumbly on my part but the dogs made up for my shortcomings with their bold, beautiful shining personalities and absolute love of all of humanity.
Each demo started with how I got into mushing, with a little rescue dog (Tink) who was never meant to be a sled dog and me, who had never been a runner. So if we can do it, you can too, and your dog doesn't have to be born a sled dog to love this sport.
We had all our gear out and talked about the monosports you can do with just 1 or 2 dogs (canicross, bikejor, scooter, skijor, kicksled). We ran a little canicross and a demo scooter run, then hooked up the 6 dog team and talked about each position (lead dogs, point / team dogs and wheel dogs), what you'd ideally want in each spot, and also how you balance it all when you don't have a deep bench to pull from.
The Frex of course provided plenty of comic relief by just being themselves. The Clip, Cha, Nacho assisted by screaming to run the whole time I was trying to talk (we had specific volunteers dedicated to petting them to try and curb this - thanks Mom), Tink decided rolling around in the grass was more fun than canicrossing showcasing exactly how we started vs where we ended up and Bolt acted like he was being perfection then trotting off to try and eat people's sandwiches when I turned my head. We rolled with it and I think we showed that you can be a racing team but still be casual.
After every show we did a dog meet & greet and people were able to give all the lovings to the team. People took pictures of our gear (we hope they get the bug!); kids took turns driving the Fritz Dyke training cart while other kids pulled it around and they learned pretty quickly it's heavy; we met other mushers we had seen only on FB, we talked with retired mushers and they shared their stories, we talked with hopeful someday mushers, human of the Frex even got to meet some of her day life clients in person!
We also got asked a LOT of questions, here's some of our favorites:
"What breed are these dogs?" We answered this one about 150 times! Short answer: purpose bred sprint sled dogs, not an AKC breed. Long answer: I wrote a whole post about it, What Breed Are They?
"When do you know it's time to retire a dog?" When they tell you or when their body can no longer handle it - we modeled this with Bolt, who sometimes is still in and sometimes is not - before each of the team runs, I asked him if he wanted to come. Mostly, he said no thank you, but one set of spectators got the special privilege of watching him opt in. We talked about how Hannah has all the drive but her body isn't what it used to be so putting her in team with the energy of the youth wouldn't be fair. Instead, the last demo, when everyone else was exhausted and done, I asked her if she wanted to demo cani and she nailed it.
"Where do they live?" In the house! They're house pets who also love to run.
"I'm a 200 lb guy and I have a 55 lb dog, can we do this?" Can you pedal? Then yes! You might need to pedal a bit more than if you had two 80 lb dogs but you can definitely get out there.
"Do you have a favorite dog?" My live answer, as best as I can recall - "Cha is my favorite for snuggling, Nacho is my favorite for saving me calories by breaking into the freezer and eating all my food, Ig is my favorite for wearing wigs and sunglasses and looking like a rockstar, Clip and E-Claire are my favorites for if I actually want to try and win a race, B is my favorite for dancing, Hannah is my favorite for spreading love, and Tink… I can't even talk about Tink because I'll cry" (and I almost did)
Thanks so much to the Common Ground Fair for having us, Liz and all the other volunteers who helped us figure ourselves out all weekend and to everyone who came out to see the Frex!
We found ourselves in some posts from spectators!
And a few we were able to get our hands on:
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