How does a one man operation handle a family of fourteen, a production crew of nine, two local news stations, and two support staff. Take them dogsledding of course! Reality TV TLC Celebrities “The Willis Family” was in town performing at the Duluth Boat, Sport, Travel, and RV Show last week and decided to visit the kennel for some northern Minnesota culture.
TLC sent out a full production crew to capture the experience which will air on the reality show some time later this spring either late May or early June. They outfitted us with microphones and go pro cameras to capture as much footage as possible while using two drones, a boom microphone, and two large cameras.
Our normal procedure is to walk our clients through the kennel greeting the dogs and talking about the breeds, how they are related, and their names and personalities. Our goal is to make it a fun and educational experience for everyone. Dogs can tell a lot about people and they loved the family. A wave of people walked through the kennel which was also a new experience for the dogs, I love it! Everything is training! Some of the family members helped with harnessing the dogs and hooking them up to the gangline.
We couldn’t get everyone in the sled so we took two to three members at a time. With working dogs, we were able to get everyone in rotating six different trips on the same trail.
I’m really excited to see the final cut on TLC later this spring! I’ll have to buy season 2 of The Willis Family. It was such a great experience to have them out I’d do it again in a heartbeat. And what an amazing family! Great attitudes, interesting questions, well behaved kids, and awesome parents! Thank you so much for coming out.
The episode is scheduled to air on TLC Tue. April 19th at 10:02 pm ET and Wed. April 20th at 12:02 am ET. Visit The Wills Family’s page on TLC.
This was the biggest group we have had up for dog sledding since we started giving rides three winters ago. Help from great volunteers was a must to make this happen. Thank you very much to Ann Stead, Sandy Schreiber, and Chuck Hagberg for assisting in this adventure!
Here are a couple short videos from the day with The Willis Clan.
Photos by Gene Shaw
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