Your NW Fix for 18 January 2012 - Bet

Howdy Ho everybodies!!!  Its time for your picture fix for today!

Now that Irving is convinced that all of the imaginary spiders in his dog house have frozen to death and has stopped howling, the Pretty Curly Tails are getting into the swing of training, and the Musher, Musher Mark, and Donna Photographer Minion are getting some sleep.

Yesterday was a very important training day for the Pretty Curly Tails.  They have to practice things that they may encounter on the trail so that when they pop up in the race, they are ready for it and know what to do.

Today's exercise started out with the very important: look stunning in case a photographer shows up to take pictures exercise.  Donna Photographer Minion played the unexpected Iditarod Trail photographer, and popped out of nowhere and started snapping pictures.

As you can see, the Pretty Sled Dogs are very well trained, and have natural talent for looking stunning and beautiful (I helped by doing some modeling poses on the off season so they'd get it just right).

In this picture you will see just how well they listened to me when I instructed them to look at the camera, but with a "come hither" look, tempting the photographer to stay and take more stunning pictures of them.

In this picture you see the ears back, using the" look at us working so hard and yet making it seem effortless because we are amazingly beautiful and are very fluffy" look.

Finally we have the "oh, what a coincidence that the sun is shining in just the right spot as to make us all shimmering and have golden halos because we are just THAT good" look

Here is an obligatory "behind the scenes" Musher photo shot just before her camera turned into a ball of ice... again.

Once they had completed the scenic tour of the Alaska back lands (or whatever they're called), it was time for the "HOLY POO WHAT JUMPED INTO THE SLED BAG" exercise.

I don't know if you know this or not, but it isn't uncommon for wild animals such as Mooses, penguins and the occasional Sasquatch to leap into sled bags during the Iditarod.  The race coordinators try to keep those things quiet because then tourists will want to have wild things leaping into their sled bags and it'll just get way out of hand...

Here is Musher Mark as the "wayward polar bear" asking the Musher if she'd like her windshield washed for the price of some frozen fish.  Polar bears are annoying like that.

When the Musher says "um, no thanks", the Musher Mark Polar Bear quickly mentions that the sled happens to be going the same way he needs to go, and before you know it...

... it makes a very ungraceful landing in your sled bag.  It is well known that Polar Bears are not graceful.

The Musher tries to dislodge the Polar Bear, but to no avail.  Polar Bears have very sticky feet (which is how they grip bottles of soda)...

There is nothing left to do except hope you drive past a soda machine on the trail and the Polar Bear jumps off.

Ok, I totally made that whole last part up... Polar Bears don't have sticky feet.

- Bet