Dog Sledding in the Alps
I would like to interrupt this series of posts on Rome to tell you about one of our adventures this weekend. On Saturday, we drove into the Alps (Les Mosses) for a unique experience of watching sled dog races...it was much more fun than either of us thought it would be so we were very glad we went. After having trouble finding the site of the races, I finally gave up and listened to my wife which enabled us to immediately locate the venue (weird how that happens). The first group of racers were competing in skijoring, a form of cross-country skiing where one attaches a leash to their waste and is aided in their skiing by a dog 
(although recently we heard of a similar event that involved horses, but something about skiing behind a horse just doesn't sound safe to me). 
I don't really care for cross-country skiing as it requires too much physical effort (which of course leads to sweating), so I'll stick to gravity-aided downhill skiing.
but there were also German Shorthairs, Vizlas, and others that I failed to classify (I never quite finished my online dog breed identification degree...). 
The races were all Sprints with lengths varying between several kilometers and several kilometers times two (if only it would have been 20 km, I could have used the word "score," instead, I am stuck confusing my readers with odd terminology...er, races varied between about 7 km and 16 km). The dogs were quite vociferous, many jumping all over the place vying for attention from their owners.
The dogs attached to the sleds are the starting line also were extremely anxious to get going. I was amazed at 
how strong some of these dogs were in their ability to pull a person and sled with little perceived effort (I guess that's what momentum is all about). The common experience however was no matter how hard or fast the dogs started the race, they mostly returned to the finish line with their tongues dragging on the snow and at a pace more aptly described as a saunter or light jog. A few of the dogs immediately rolled around in the snow after finishing, while others had snow dumped on them to help cool them down...which they appeared 
to enjoy immensely. The weather was perfect for the races, and the sun provided ample heat to make the mountain air comfortable 
(we also managed to avoid the yellow snow, which was probably a good idea).(P.S. Don't forget to click on the pictures to enable you to view them in a format that doesn't require a magnifying glass or bifocals)
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