Saturday 21 January 2012

The Dogs!

Waiting.
On Saturday 21st January, Cogne was home to the Italian national dog sledding championships - and the quiet cross-country ski piste was over-run with dogs and their owners. This sport leaves climbing of all varieties in the dust when it comes to being an expensive and time-consuming hobby: how are these teams of animals fed and exercised, not to mention trained?! And each team came in their specially kitted-out van, too.

Once in the harness, they had to be restrained by their owners to stop them charging off at full pelt: they knew what they needed to do, and couldn't wait to get running.

And ...
... they're off!

This was no Iditarod - the circuits were only 10km or so - and being a time trial with a number of categories (different dogs, different numbers of dogs and even a guy with only one dog, who skied behind him), we sadly couldn't place any bets on the teams. Still, a crazy sport to watch!

 

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