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A LITTLE ABOUT MYSELF & MY
KENNEL
My name is Michael Suprenant and I plan to run the 2008 Iditarod sled
dog race as a rookie.
I was born in Bitburg, Germany while my dad was in the Air Force stationed
there. We moved quite a bit when I was a kid living in Germany, Texas
and New Mexico. I remember saving my money so I could buy a dirt bike
that I used to fly around the trails and dirt roads near San Antonio
where I graduated from John Marshall High School.
Then I joined the Air Force as an avionics technician, working on
various aircraft including F-4s, A-10s, C-130s, C-5s, C-141s, KC-10s,
KC-135s and the C-17. I have called Alaska home for the last 10 years
although after arriving here from Hawaii I was wondering if it was
a mistake. When I got here my heater in my car did not work (never
used it in Hawaii) and my tools hadn’t arrived yet. So it was
March, I had full winter gear on, everyone else was in T-shirts, and
the Iditarod was in full swing. I never thought that I would be crazy
enough to go run the "Last Great Race"™.
The next year rolled around and I got hooked up with Iditarod race
officials as a volunteer to load planes with race supplies at Merrill
Field in Anchorage and I did that for a few years before I got the
idea to go on the trail as a comms (communications) volunteer.
"BULLET"
AS A PUP |
At that time, I was the proud owner of
a few Malamutes and had started running my own team with an old sled
that I bought from Iditarod veteran, Dr. Jim Lanier and occasionally
I ran the trails on skis.
The Malamute team was pretty slow but at least they were steady and
I got to train some leaders with real hard heads. If you’ve
ever run Malamutes then you know what I’m talking about. I started
running with another local musher, Francine Bennis, helping her train
dogs. Francine had run the Iditarod in 1983 and was hoping to do it
again. In June of 2004 Francine gave me a litter of pups and I cared
for the mother until the pups were weaned. I ended up with 2 boys
and 2 girls who quickly joined my Malamute team. A miss matched group
of dogs, but we were just having a good time running down Alaska's
snow packed trails.
FALL TRAINING WITH MY TEAM |
Towards the end of the 2004/2005 race
season I started getting more dogs that would improve the team. I
went to veteran musher, Lynda Plettner for some sleddogs. She not
only sold me 3 dogs she also gave me a ton of good information, some
of which was probably over my head at the time. One key thing she
taught me, was these dogs I was getting from her were not Malamutes
and are trained differently. I also got 2 dogs from musher DeeDee
Jonrowe, who I will call my "wild & crazy" dogs, they
do work hard but have endless energy & love to cause trouble.
Musher Cym Smyth sold me a couple of dogs who work to so-ooo hard
(completely opposite of the Malamutes, who normally hold a very conservative
energy wise). Cym’s dad, Bud has been a great help with his
insight and vast knowledge of dog mushing.
This past year I purchased a few dogs from race champion Doug Swingly.
One little female named "Jen" has given us a litter of pups
this spring which should give the team some real up and coming dogs.
To learn more about individual dogs in my kennel click
here
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