Baisley Sled Dog Training Center

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Baisley Sled Dog Training Center Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Baisley Sled Dog Training Center, 1064 Chemin Baisley Road, .

05/07/2023

No longer operating

04/11/2019

Due to the death of Gino in May 2019, the dog sled training and tours will no longer be available. There are however, chalets to rent for mushers and accommodations for their dogs should they be in the area for a race. Thankyou, Fran

13/01/2019
La mythique course Yukon Quest :  Entr***e avec Remy Leduc | Dessine-moi un dimanche

Glad to see that our friend, Rémy Leduc is making his way to the Yukon Quest starting line. Remy, Good Luck and enjoy yourself. And always remember, "For some of us, it's not the glory that we seek. Rather, we're out there for the scenery. Just think of what beautiful landscapes you will encounter. Simply put… Enjoy the reward of those many years of preparation to get there and remember, "It is a fact that more people have climbed Mount Everest than people have finished the "YQ".

To Sebastian Schnuelle - If you happen to meet up with Remy and you can assist him, please do. He's one of those "White Hat" sporting individuals. In other words, he's agood guy… = -)

Once again Remy, Good Luck with this lifetime challenge. You will prevail… = -)

Écoutez cette émission qui mêle à la fois l'actualité du jour (sports, r***e de presse et critiques de spectacles) et la réflexion.

26/06/2018
2018 Yukon Quest Journey

2018 Yukon Quest Journey

Follow Allen Moore, Commando, Dutch, Spark, Kodiak, Clyde, Champ, Rodney, Five, Driver, Nomex, Junior, Chena, Felix and Violet on their journey to become 201...

16/05/2018
True North

What it's all about! = -)

What does it mean to be a competitive dog sledder? Tore Albrigtsen (and his pups!) share what it's like to race in some of the world's most challenging environments.

Watch the full episode on go90: https://go90.show/truenorth_s1e01

09/04/2018
Can-Am Crown Dog Sled Race - Ian Dow - Winthrop

This is what it's all about! = -)

This is an entry to the 2018 Winter Broke and Stoked contest. This contest is open to any Maine filmmaker or filmmaking team. The top 10 short outdoor films are…

28/01/2018

This is to be an adventure of a lifetime for this young man, Justin D Allen. Traveling more than 3500 kms by sled dogs, from Churchill, Manitoba to St-John, N-B, will be quite the feat. I know I'll be following this expedition with most interest... = -)

Hi its Justin. I want to share some moments with you on the trail from Churchill to Fox Lake.
A giant thank you to my buddy Claude Daudet for being the best trail boss a guy could ask for. As well, he took on the huge responsibility of hauling all of our supplies that we had issues with getting out before. We could not have done this with out him. There was also a small section from our last stop over before coming into Fox Lake where we had to truck the dogs around a very dangerous section of trail. At the recommendation of Claude who went ahead all night to break it in. He reported lots of broken ice and short broken willows that would have been impossible to pass with out some sort of injury. I'm not willing to lead my team into situations that puts them at risk. After avoiding this section we hooked back up and ran into the beautiful and most welcoming community of Fox Lake.
Nanuk Operations is also working very hard and pushing himself to the limits to document this experience. He is so dedicated that he even joined me for a cold night in a frozen trail groomer at -30•C with camera in hand. Ready to capture the real raw moments as I watched over the dogs while they sleep. We had many reports that there were lots of braves wolves in the area. If you want to see more awesome pictures of this journey make sure to follow his page.
Thank you again to everyone for your continued support!

07/12/2017

When dealing with bo**ies for the sled dogs, think about it - The dew claw can be useful when putting them on as when fastened, the velcro strap wraps over this claw and stops the bo**ie from sliding down. Also the bo**ie doesn't need to be so tight on the leg of the dog. Just one point of view but it works... = -)

The Function of Dewclaws 101

Front dewclaws are typically removed by some at 3-5 days of age, because they are believed to be a non-functional digit that poses an unnecessary risk for being injured.

In standing, the front dewclaw may not appear to be functional because it doesn't come in contact with the ground. However, observing the dewclaw when the dog is in motion tells a different story.

Five tendons attach to the dewclaw and play an important role when the dog is in motion. For example:

-When a dog’s lead leg is on the ground during the gallop or canter, the dewclaw is on the ground to stabilize the carpus

-When a dog turns, the dewclaw digs into the ground to support the structures of the limb and prevent torque

If a dog does not have dewclaws, there is a higher potential for the carpal ligaments to stretch and tear which could result in laxity and arthritis over time (OUCH!). This can then result in more stress being generated through the dog's carpus, elbow, shoulder, and spine as it tries to compensate for the lack of digit.

On the other hand, the rear dewclaws do not have associated tendons and are considered non-functional (though they may be required for some breed standards to be present).


In speaking with many vets, you would be surprised at how few dewclaw injuries they see.

So- given the front dewclaws' functional use, why are we so quick to remove them?

In dogs, the most common injuries seen by many rehab providers and vets occur in the shoulder complex, yet we don’t see shoulders being removed. Food for thought!

Here are some cool videos if you'd like to learn more about the functional use of dewclaws in dogs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp2xHj_NJn4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4XflsMEk-k

04/12/2017
Skijor With Your Dog

Interesting read!

Great information on when to use bo**ies from Andrea Schneider on the Alaska Skijoring & Pulk Association page: "Yes, bo**ies are not for keeping paws warm, they are for protecting paws from snow and ice build up and splits/cracks. B***y dogs only when you need to, but always when you need to. Dog paw pads are composed of a special blend of fats that stay liquid/soft at very cold temperatures, compared to the rest of body fat on dogs. This special fat helps prevent frostbite and freezing, and with their body's counter-current circulation (that all canines have), dogs—especially sled-dog breeds—are well-suited to exercising and being outdoors in cold temperatures. A BBC article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/16426276) and the National Park Service's Science of Sled Dogs page have some neat info on dogs' adaptations to cold environments."

16/11/2017
Dr. Peter Dobias - Natural Healing for Dogs

I have to agree with this article! = -)

If you have any friends, who still doubt raw food is good for their dogs, THIS ARTICLE MAY BE HANDY to convince them and help them understand why raw food is good for dogs, from the inside out.

08/11/2017

Hey uncle Gino Roussel! Maybe you'll cross paths with the big guy on the trails!! 🎄

19/10/2017
Understanding Why Dog Mushers Drop Sled Dogs While Racing

Most interesting article for you distance runners. Thanks Amy!

During a mid or long distance dog sled race, it is quite common to see the size of a dog team drop over the duration of a race. This is completely normal and is the result of mushers looking after the well being of their dogs.

31/08/2017
Eagle Lake Sled Dog Races

Upcoming race! = -)

Rules for entering eagle lake sled dog races
Race rules and Entry forms will be up on September 15, 2017 at 6:00p.m. Website will be up same day. We will post rules on here also so you can read through before the 15th. Website will also be shared on here as soon as I get the name.

You will fill out the entry form online and submit it. If the entry form doesn't work (Amy is a paramedic not a web designer) you will submit a email to [email protected] with: your name, email, which race you're entering, date of birth and phone number.

We are accepting the first 25 applicants for each race. After the roster for each race is filled a wait list will be established by date of applications received.

Once you receive the email that you are on the roster or wait list please print all forms required and send payment and forms to: Holly Dionne
26 Newton Ave
Caribou, ME 04736
If you are on the wait list, your payment will not be processed until you are on the roster.

You have 14 days to submit all forms and payment to above address. If we do not receive all forms or payment within 14 days, you will be taken off the roster.

29/08/2017

Under Dog 100 - Sled Dog Race

Registration opens today!
Email: [email protected]
Registration fee is $250.00
Start: April 6th, 2018
Musher's meeting: April 5th, 2018
Location: Yellowknife, NWT , Canada
7 dog maximum
100 miles
Distance race format

27/08/2017
Sled Dog Central

Sled Dog Central

22 New Races have been added to the Sled Dog Central 2017-2018 Calendar.

Sorry for the delay in getting these races posted - we have built a whole new race submission process. Check it out! Submit your race Today.....

07/07/2017
Parajumpers Stories - Twin Mushers

Something to ties up till training season! = -)

Imagine a snow-covered mountain landscape, where you can enjoy both the thrill of the wilderness and the quiet solitude of nature in all its splendor. Now, i...

07/03/2017
Sibersong Sleddogs

Sibersong Sleddogs

So that was the roughest trail I've ever driven to date, toughest can-am for sure. I've driven some challenging races but this trail felt like it was beating me and the dogs up left and right.

Before I get into details let me just say that I commend the Can-Am trail people for managing to even get the trail into the shape it was in a matter of days. Not only that but they had to throw out months and months of trail work, reroute and remark over half of the race and rework the checkpoint plans. Even on Friday afternoon they were still trying to come up with solutions that would work, and I know how incredibly stressful that had to be. I know they did the best they could with what mother nature threw at us all, and this is all part of distance racing. It wouldn't and shouldn't be an Iditarod qualifier if it were a piece of cake. Do I think they should have cancelled? No. Obviously it was runnable and plenty of folks finished. I'm sure we're all going home bruised and sore and with injured dogs. I just happened to have worse luck with it than others.

Funny how I often wish for a 'fast' can-am trail, but in the many years of racing this race the only 2 times we've actually had a fast trail I've said at the end, "I change my mind: I want the slow trail back!"

I consider myself to be a pretty good sled driver. For me to have 3 really nasty falls in one race is unusual. Yet that's what happened.

There were parts of the trail that were decent. Still rock hard and fast with no give whatsoever for joints, but they weren't solid ice and they weren't jumbled up. But for every mile of decent trail there seemed to be an equal amount of trail that made me wish I were anywhere but there.

As Becki Tucker put it, "It was fun for the first 8 miles." You know: the heavily snowmobile-trafficked rail bed.

Lakes & ponds were sheer glare ice. Not even a hint of snow. Trail breakers did the best they could at scratching out a trail on that so you had some tiny bit of traction but you still spent the trip across praying you wouldn't see your dogs wipe out.

Plowed roads were sheer glare ice with a tiny trail of snow on the sides. Thank god the dog teams stuck to the sides but at times the "trail" wasn't 2 dogs wide so inevitably the dogs on the haw side of the line would be slipping. This would go on for miles. Anya completely wiped out on one of those.

Sections of narrow winding trail were what I can only describe as "jumble snow" - obviously at one time a nicely groomed trail but rain and warm temps earlier in the week caused water to flow beneath some of the sections, which caused the trails to collapse in on themselves in huge chunks. Then it froze into concrete. Your sled would bounce one way, and then the other way, and then you were sidehilling it to avoid falling into a huge water hole, and then you were bounced left again, and right again. By about 30 miles into the race my shoulders and arms were already aching from handling the sled.

A few places where you left the trail to come out onto a plowed road were nothing short of scary. The snowbanks were very tall as there is still a lot of base snow and the trail crew did what they could to carve a trail out of them but they were the equivalent of ski jumps. If your team needed to turn onto the road rather than go straight across your sled would be 90 degrees sideways.

Coming around one of those in leg 1 I had enough time to see a handful of trail help down the road before my sled went flying and I hit the ground hard. Very hard. My head bounced off the frozen road so hard and the pain in my neck and shoulders was instantaneous. I lost the team. I didn't lose consciousness but i was stunned and in enough pain that all I could do was cradle my head and moan for a few seconds. Then I managed to get up and go after the team, which thankfully the trail help had caught. While we tried to figure out how to get them back on the turnoff trail (since they overshot it and were wrapped somewhat around a vehicle) both Becki and Sally came shooting around the same trail corner. Becki apparently did a barrel roll around it. They should have stuck a photographer on that corner as the resulting images would likely have been pretty entertaining - for the viewer at least.

Anyway, I'm lucky I didn't have a concussion (and no, I was stupidly not wearing my helmet because the hood of my new parka doesn't go over it well enough and I needed the hood due to the extremely frigid cold) but I did have some whiplash.

Towards the end of the first leg we crossed another piece of lake coming into Portage. As we got towards the middle the wind started blowing and the sled, myself and even the dogs were blown off the scratched out trail. The dogs were better able to stay upright in the wind - me, not so much. The wind blew my sled completely sideways, as if the team and my sled formed a backwards L shape, and before I could manage to slide it back again we hit some really bumpy mogul ice (if there's such a thing) and the sled flipped onto it's side. I landed on my left knee and then proceeded to drag on that knee across the ice chunks.

I knew the knee was pretty hurt as even within a mile or two it started giving out on me and was throbbing pretty badly. By the time I had taken care of dogs and got inside the checkpoint it was quite swollen. I iced it and tried to keep it elevated. I put a compression bandage on and it held up for the next run, which was a lot smoother trail as it was all snowmobile trail. That was the easy part of the race!

Leg 3 involved us going back towards allagash using most of the same trail we took from fort kent to portage until it turned off for about 10-15 miles to head to allagash. May have been longer - that run was an agonizingly slow blur of pain, sleep-deprivation, meltdowns. I left the checkpoint with 11 dogs. A few had sore wrists, 2 had stiff shoulders. Few minor limps on maybe 4 dogs, most of which got worked out in the first 5-10 miles.

By halfway into the run there was only 1 dog in the team left not limping. And frankly, I blame myself. The rough trail was wreaking havoc on my sore knee. It hadn't bothered me on the 2nd leg, on the smoother trail, but now we were back to jumble snow and snowbank jumps and glare ice mixed with good sections. When you're bouncing over some rough snow and your knee suddenly buckles, or a sharp stab of pain occurs, if it's the leg you're braking with your pressure on the bar brake inevitably lessons. So I'm sure I wasn't doing as good a job of driving the sled as I normally would have. Or maybe it just was the many miles of hard-as-sh*t conditions that were taking their toll on the dogs. I watched them go from bad to worse during the run and when I stopped to try and bag Moses, who was limping quite badly, the team lay down to rest while I rearranged stuff in the sled to make room and secured him in there. When I went to take off again the team was unenthused. Mia staged a sit-in which I've never seen her do. She just sat there and gave me a look that spoke volumes, "Mom - really? This trail hurts."

They really shouldn't have been super tired but I think the rough conditions and the extreme cold contributed, and they were likely feeding off some negative vibes coming off me due to the pain.

Anyway, I managed to get them going again (which is another story altogether, involving goofy Toothless) and we continued to trudge towards Allagash.

I have to say I hate - absolutely HATE - seeing my dogs in a lot of pain like that. Bad enough to watch one dog limp but to watch 10 of them limp down the trail in various states of injury? Horrible. It gets my mothering instinct up. No mother likes to see their kids in pain. Have to say this was the worst race for injuries I've ever done (my own included) as I've never had that many dogs on a team injured at once. Toothless was the only uninjured one.

About 8 miles out of Allagash we flew over another one of those ski-jump-like snow berms. Mia thought the plowed road was the trail and swung the team left onto it before I had a chance to call "straight ahead". I stopped and told her where to go but as she and the team swung straight the sled flipped and my already injured knee twisted on the way down. I felt it. Then I dragged across the paved road to the other side. I couldn't stop them - the hook would have done nothing - and mostly I didn't want to interrupt their aim at the correct trail just in case they tried going down the road again.

Kudos to Duluth Trading Company and their Manorak. I was dragging across that pavement and thinking, "oh my god, my brand new parka is probably shredding" but there isn't a rip or tear on the thing. I was amazed.

Back on the trail it was pretty evident I had messed up the knee. Thank god we weren't far from the checkpoint as I don't know how I would have done 20 more miles on it. Long story short, I came into the checkpoint planning to scratch but did what you're supposed to do: I took care of the dogs, I went inside, I ate, I saw the medic, I got some sleep. I woke up, did some soul searching. I looked at the stats board and saw 2 mushers had scratched, including one in front of me, and that I was now in 6th place if I left on time. I didn't tell many folks but 6th was what I kind of was aiming for and what I felt my team could possibly accomplish. But the medic was advising me that if I continued she could almost guarantee I wouldn't be walking on that knee at the finish line.

I still was wishy washy about it until the medic's sister who happens to be an orthopedic PT asked if she could take a look and maybe diagnose. She did a bunch of little diagnostic tests based on movement and areas of pain and she felt strongly that it was the medial meniscus that was injured. I know the seriousness of that kind of injury and that helped me make up my mind.

As disappointing as it was to scratch and give up what would have been our best finish yet (not to mention a pair of Muck boots for Chris and a nice paycheck to boot) I would be lying if I didn't say that I was relieved not to have to go do another 45 miles of that trail too!

Congrats to all of you mushers who finished on such a challenging race. Major congrats to Lara Renner who finished her first 100 miler and finished really well!

And thanks to all of you who helped me along the way and during the race. Special thanks to Tenley Scofield, who hosted us this weekend, and Makayla Kinsley for taking care of the kennel while we're away (as well as the delicious trail snacks!).

I fear my race season is over with this injury but Chris now gets the chance to race the "A-string". He did amazing in his first ever race this weekend and I couldn't be prouder of him!

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1064 Chemin Baisley Road

E7B2A3

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