Meet the Sled Dogs – Barbossa

Name: Barbossa
D.O.B: 10/22/07
Pedigree: Click Here
Position: Team or Wheel

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Barbossa has a bit of a unique story to him. Lacey believes that there are very few “unfixable” dogs, which paid off with Barbossa.

Barbossa is not very well known, even though he is one of the eight pups from the Pirates litter. He never had a glimmer of a chance of running on the Junior Iditarod team, or on any other races his first season. That’s because his first season, he refused to run.

Barbossa was scared of everything his first season: rocks (little ones the size of soccer balls to boulders), houses, fence posts, mail boxes, any animals (cows, horses, deer, birds, etc.), power poles, bridges, tall grass and weeds, trees, hay bales …. Basically, anything even mildly strange for him, and quite a few things that he saw almost every day. For whatever reason, when he was out with the team, he had an irrational fear of everything. Barbossa would do alright for the first mile or so, but on every single run, Lacey would arrive back at the dog yard with Barbossa riding on the ATV with her. He was very quickly removed from the team and training.

He was exercised and kept mentally stimulated for the rest of the season, and when it started to wind down, Lacey worked with him one-on-one to get him past his issues. There were no immediately noticeable results, but the next season he shocked everyone by making flawless after flawless run! Barbossa has never looked back, and been a part of the team since then.

Barbossa is a somewhat shy dog around strangers. At races, once in harness, he blocks the crowds out and is completely focused. Weak feet in the early season is Barbossa’s flaw. Early preventative measures can avoid those, though, and if he can be gotten through November, his feet are fine after that.

Barbossa’s siblings are Jack, Lizzy, Pentel, Calypso, Ragetti, Boots, and Squido.