Commando demands to be the lead dog. His presence around him is just superb calmness and he has everything under control. There is no dog that will ever walk and prance like he does because he just owns the trail. He has seen the hardest of the hardest. He’s been on the top of the racing circuit and there’s nothing he hasn’t seen. So he demands respect and his teammates see that in him. And I am just privileged to have him with me.

What is that litter’s “theme” name?…and other siblings’ names from that litter?

He came from my parents, Allen Moore and Aliy Zirkle. So Commando was one of their litters nine years ago, and he was part of one of their litters that I believe was all the other pups that were from the fire litter. And so he has multiple siblings that are all retired out, actually all over the country. He’s the last one running. We tried to retire him last year, but he had different plans when he decided he wanted to keep running. So we said, “All right, we’ll give you another shot if you want to go at it.” So here he is. He’s going to run in his numerous thousand mile race after having a year off. And so we’ll see how well he does.

What is the bloodline?

His bloodline is a hundred percent SP Kennel, Aliy Zirkle and Allen Moore. And that’s all I run, so that’s what we’ve got. And he is the father of our team as well. His genes run deep as well. So happy to have him out there, have a little bit of my parents out there with me, and if I can do anything to give him one more run of glory.