Pete & Sharon Curtice

Pete and Sharon Curtice have been running dogs for almost 14 years. Auspiciously enough, one of their first dates was at the very first UP 200. Sharon was involved with organizing the race, so Pete got wrangled into driving her around to all the checkpoints. The rest, as they say, is history… or their story.

Just after that first UP 200 Pete had to move to Lower Michigan for his job. Sharon followed suit a little while later to go to school and shortly after that they got married. With Sharon's desire to start a kennel lingering in the back of her mind, they both stayed involved in the mushing world by handling at the UP 200 for a musher named Bob Bright. At this time Sharon also began to run one of Bob's teams in races, namely the St. Ignace Enduro and the Upper Peninsula's Midnight Run.

Like so often happens, the Curtice kennel began with one puppy, a gift from Bob to Sharon from one of his own litters. When the pup was old enough to start training the Curtices picked up three more dogs for free. With a home in the country and room to run, they began to train dogs. Their three-wheeled rig and a four-dog kennel didn't last long. Soon, Sharon and Pete bought their first ATV, which they still use for training. They also made their first dog purchase, a leader, and were given another dog. Now they were a six dog kennel, with a four-wheeler.

With a few years of "just finishing races" under their belts, the Curtices decided they wanted to be competitive. They sold and added dogs, and decided to move back to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. With a formula in mind, they began running six to ten dogs in mid-distance races and this proved to be the formula for success in races ranging from 40 miles to 300. Well known in the Upper Midwest as fierce competition, the Curtices maintain a small kennel that includes pups and retirees.

In addition to the dogs, Pete and Sharon have other "animals" in threes: three children (Caitlin, Cooper, and Emily - Caitlin and Cooper are now racing in Junior Classes and Emily will start this coming winter), three house dogs, three cats and three horses. With a focus on the kids getting some good training and racing experience in the near future, and their own race schedule, rest assured the Curtice name will be on race participant lists for years to come.

The Curtices have been feeding Dr. Tim's food for almost two years now. In the off season they use Pursuit and once training starts they switch to Momentum. They have this to say about the food: "Once we started using Dr.Tim's food, within a short time period we started noticing something different in the dogs. The dogs appeared to have more energy, enthusiasm, and they muscled up real nice. Their coats were coming in real nice also. We also noticed a decrease in our feeding expense as the dogs were able to do more on less. We are happy that we made the switch to Dr. Tim's food."