A week later, Chester developed an abscess in his mouth, and was also prescribed pred + antibiotic. He cleared up, too. Good stuff, though heavy duty. It tends to produce side effects including accidental urination and thirst. We were surprised it was prescribed for Chester’s mouth problem, but it seems to be a drug of choice at our vet for strains and sprains.

Storm ran off to chase the moose, as did Frankie and Nutok.  The dogs attached to me decided to run after them too, and got all tangled in a tree. They’re very strong when they want to be, so the started pulling very hard and slamming me into a tree. Soon the leashes were totally tangled. I saw that Chester was attempting to eat his leash to get free (he’s very talented) and pulled him toward me. As I got one dog toward me, another would lunge forward. Chester eventually ate his leash and ran free. After he was gone, I slammed into the tree couple of more times and then managed to untangle everyone.

After I got home, I unleashed Stubby, Bruno, and Chez, and corralled Neptune, Duchess, Magic and Decker into the yard. I went back to look for the missing dogs. I found Storm where the commotion happened. She was barking at a Momma moose and her baby. They were so big and cute and hairy! Storm came to me and I leashed her. Frankie, Chester, and Nutok soon came running along and I ran with them to our house.

When I opened the gate to let the delinquents in, Stubby decided to attack Storm and as I was breaking up the fight Bruno ran out. He ran up and down the street and I pounced him and caught him.

Once everyone was inside, I counted everyone.  They were all there and all safe.

Ah, spring time in AK is moose season! I should have known a moose was hanging around because Chester jumped the fence this morning.

Rocket (9 years old) said he prefers not to run at all, due to overheating and possible laryngeal paralysis, but if it’s cold enough (below zero), he’ll consider running with the Z team on a four mile run.

Chester announced that at ten years old, he’s just not up to twenty mile runs and that he’d rather stay home and eat what he can find in the dog yard. Like Rocket, he said he will consider short four-to-seven mile runs.

After a two year retirement, Frankie (9 years old), said he would like to run in lead with his former girlfriend Monkey-Tail on four mile runs. He said although he has a sore back, he needs to get out and about, and that the team needs a strong leader like him.  As long as he can stay inside and take over the couch, he’s happy to run. We’re glad to have him back on the team.

Scott and I did recon the day before on the snow machine, to confirm the trail was in, and check out snow conditions. We were doing a 20-mile trip, from a parking area at Mile 42 on the Steese Highway. The trail was in, and had been used a few times within the past week. Snow was sufficient, and the cabin was nice and had plenty of tie-out room for dogs. (The Bureau of Land Management web site hadn’t been updated since December 16, when the trail had not yet been assessed by BLM staff.)

Scott contributed two of his dogs, Nike and Panda (short for Pandemonium) so that we could either have one team of 10, or two teams of 5. Ilana wanted to take Chester, so decided to ski in with Chester as a ski-jor dog. We got to the trailhead around 10:45 Monday morning (as the sun was rising), and Ilana started skiing a few minutes afterward. I left about an hour later, and Scott and Maureen left an hour after that (it takes awhile to get dogs bootied and harnessed, and the snow machine’s sled packed, but we had guessed I would be the slower team). This trail is uphill for about 7 miles — not often steep, and sometimes flat or slightly down, but mostly uphill. Ilana made excellent progress, and had gone almost 10 miles by the time I caught up with her, an hour after I started.

Trail conditions were good. Ilana needed to keep Chester close, so that he didn’t get caught in a trap. Trapping is legal on this federal land, as long as there is signage indicating there is trapping going on (there was). It’s legal on state land, which was the first 7 miles of the trail, without any signage. We saw, and smelled, multiple traps which were often just a few bandwidths off the trail. Yech.

Skiing was challenging for Ilana, and she got blisters early on. I passed Ilana, then Scott passed me. A little while later, Maureen passed me, too. I arrived in camp around 3:00 pm, a little more than 3 hours after starting. Scott and Maureen were there for about 1/2 hour before me, and, surprise! Ilana arrived within another hour. We bedded the dogs in straw, snacked then fed them, and gave them a little rubdown.

The cabin, like others in the White Mountains, requires a free advance reservation. It was snug, with sleeping room for 6 (or more, including a loft). It came with a dual-fuel Coleman lantern, a propane stove, and a wood-burning barrel stove. We stoked the stove and got comfy for the evening. As often happens with winter camping, we were all starting to fall asleep over our dinners by 6:30 pm, but rallied and had a game of Cribbage and some conversation. Still, we settled down by 9:30 or so. Scott had some barkers, so it was tough to snooze soundly all the night through.

I fed the stove before bed, so the cabin stayed reasonably warm all night. Probably close to 50F at dinnertime, then barely below freezing overnight (we left some water out, and it did not ice over). People started getting up by 9:00 am, and after a leisurely morning we were on the trail by 11:30 am. I was the lead team again, and was not passed. I made it back to the parking area by 2:00 pm, about 1/2 hour faster than the trip in. There were fewer Asa shenanigans on the way out (though there were some).

One of the nicest parts, in both directions, was watching the incredibly long sunset, with the moon rising. The sun was setting to the SSW, and the moon was rising almost directly opposite, to the NNE. The moon is nearly full, which means (by definition) that it’s opposite the sun. But from the hilltops, with really long twilight and dawn, we got an unparalleled view of this celestial display. The weather was perfect: clear, with lows around -12F and highs on the hilltops of maybe +15F. We encountered just a couple of people on the trail, who appeared to be workers doing some trail maintenance. The cabin logbook, though, showed that the cabin had been in constant use for the past few weeks.

For the trip home, I took Chester with me. He free-ran for the first 4-5 miles, where we hadn’t seen signs of trapping. After that, I put him on an extensible leash, and kept him close to the sled. Ilana rode in the snow machine with Maureen. They arrived just a few minutes after me, and Scott got there 1/2 hour later. We packed up, and drove home. All the dogs seem to be happy, healthy, tired, hungry and uninjured. Tracey, our dog sitter, had taken care of the home gang. Tomorrow, we’ll be back on the trails of Two Rivers.

We woke up this morning at 6:30am and there was still no Chester. Greg drove around the block looking for him. No Chester :( I was worried about all of the things that could have happened to him, like getting shot, getting caught in a trap, getting kicked by a moose or mauled by a bear, getting captured by his previous owners.

At 8:00am, someone called and asked if we were missing a dog. I was sooooo happy that he was found. The woman who had Chester was caretaking for her inlaws. She found Chester sleeping outside of the inlaws’ pig pen. The three pigs had been shot.

When I went to pick Chester up, I was concerned that perhaps he had killed the pigs. The woman didn’t think so, she was pretty sure they had been shot. I have no idea what a bullet hole would even look like. After putting Chester in the Jeep, I went to look at the piggies. It was so incredibly sad. I almost started to cry. They were just laying on their sides– all dead and stinky. One of the pigs had a gouge in her side, the others had little holes that could have been from a gun.

I took Chester home and told him that he was a big dummy for not coming home last night. I’m glad he’s home, but am sad for the family who lost their pigs.

The next day (March 21) we got up late, and eventually left camp at around 1pm. We were following the trail that had  started at the park headquarters. Since this year was such a big snow year, the bad section of overflow and glare ice (around 1 mile after park headquarters), wasn’t bad at all. Soon the trail petered out and we were following a ski trail. The snow was very deep, so I put on my snow shoes and broke trail, then ran back and mushed with my snow shoes still on. Repeat process.

Unfortunately, the ski trail we were following let us to the park road and the road had just been plowed. It snowed a little bit the night before, so the road had some snow cover on it. We cruised down the road to the Savage River camp site. We stopped to set up camp (around 4:00pm), and it took us a long time to melt snow and take care of dogs– but at least this time we were able to do chores in the daylight. We kept Sam and Bruno, with the rest of the dogs, on tie-outs and let Chester and Storm free. Storm was very needy.

After a night of endless whining from Bruno, we woke up at around 9am and began morning chores. After chores, we scouted a possible route back to headquarters that would have led us through Jenny Creek. There was a lot of open water on the creek, as well as no-snow spots, and we didn’t see a definitive trail, so we decided to head back the same way we came out. We saw HUGE wolf tracks and tons of fresh wolf scat; HUGE bunny tracks; and a big fat bird that was waiting for us to leave camp.

We probably left camp around 2pm and were quite bummed to see that the road had been plowed again– and this time it was plowed to the asphalt. We mushed for around 1/4 mile on the road (Yuk) and eventually got back to sections of the road that had some snow. We found the turn off for the ski trail, and with a little maneuvering got the teams to make the turn. The rest of the mush home was uneventful.

Dogs

We brought 21 pulling dogs and one fun dog (Chester).

Days 1 & 2

Ilana

1. Nikki / Chevy (no one wants to run next to Chevy because he nips at his running mate)
2. Ahab / Decker
3. Rattles / Simba
4. Asa / Higgs
5. Peetie / Red

Greg

1. Frankie / Storm
2. Dutchess / Rocket
3. Sam / Bruno
4. Roo
5. Monkey / Pumpkin
6. Luke /Spike

Day 3

Ilana

1. Nikki/ Chevy
2. Frankie / Dutchess
3. Sam / Bruno
4. Monkey / Pumpkin
5. Asa / Higgs

Greg

1. Decker/ Storm
2. Ahab/ Rocket
3. Rattles / Simba
4. Roo
5. Peetie / Red
6. Luke /Spike

Trip Planning
Since I was traumatized by Spot being killed, Greg was in charge of packing and trip planning. I don’t know the exact amounts of what he brought– but it was a lot of food. For dog food he brought two 40lb bags of kibble, a block of turkey skins, Champagne race meat, energy pack, 42 pieces of big fish, some left over snacks from the Serum run (which Peetie, Sam, Bruno, and Chester stole from my sled) and some fat. We came back with most of the turkey, race meat, energy back, and 30lbs of kibble).

Gear

• Our Mountain Hardware winter tent is great, however our 20+F sleeping bags really aren’t appropriate for -20F.
• Once again we had stove problems. Greg purchased a pump for our MSR stove, but there are two separate pumps for the Whisper Lite and the DragonFly, so the pump he bought didn’t work with the stove we brought. We also had issues with our Colman stove.  Note to self: bring fire starter paste!

We made it just out of the driveway when Decker decided she didn’t want to run and got tangled behind Roo. It’s almost impossible to stop the team after I’ve just taken off. I was wishing that I had that extra 40 pounds of dog food in the sled to slow us down a little bit. I still had two fifty pounds bags of sand and one 40 pound bag of food in the sled, but these guys are crazy when then are just getting going.

I had no choice. I had to stop the team. As soon as we got onto the trail I slammed on the break and pounded my snow hook into the snow. It didn’t work. The dogs pulled the snowhook out and were running down the hill. I tried again. Success (?). It was a bad place to stop because we were on the downward side of a hill. I ran up to untangle Decker and saw bright red blood all over the snow. I started examining Decker, thinking that there was something wrong with her and the reason that she didn’t want to lead. It turned out it was Rocket’s blood. He was bleeding from his mouth– no biggie. Either he bit his tongue or Spike bit his tongue. I switched Decker and Roo– put Roo in lead with Chevy and Decker with Nicky. I ran back to the sled and just as I got to the back of it they pulled the hook and I jumped on.

Two seconds later, I see Roo running down the trail with Chester. The leader line had broke. Chevy was attached to the gang line, but Roo was free and having a grand ‘ol time. Since I have such a difficult time stopping the team, and since Roo was having such a good time, I ran for around a mile until I stopped the dogs. Dang. I didn’t have another double leader line. I attached single tug line to the gang line and added a neckline for an extender. I put Chevy on the longer line and Roo on the shorter one. I ran back to the sled.

We ran for another couple of minutes and Rocket was all tangled with Spike and Spike was about to beat him up. I stopped the sled, switched Rocket with Ahab. Ran back, started again and noticed that Spike’s harness had unclipped. ARRRGGGGG. This was supposed to be a short and fast run. I pounded in the snow hook and fixed Spikes harness. When I ran back to the sled they had pulled the snow hook and I jumped on the moving sled, but the hook was caught under the runner. I tried to stop, but the dogs would have nothing to do with stopping. Somehow the snowhook hooked itself into the snow and stopped them for a second. Just as I was about to lift it up, the rope that the snow hook is tied to broke and the dogs took off with the hook embedded in the snow. Now I was really screwed because there was NO WAY that I would be able to stop to fix a tangle. When ever a dog, (especially Roo), straddled their tug line I stood on the break and told them they needed to get untangled themselves because I wasn’t able to get off of the sled. At one time I asked Chester to jump in the sled to see if his extra 80 pounds of weight would hold the team when I stepped off the sled, but it didn’t work.

Instead of going home, I took them in a loop and retrieved the snow hook.

We made it home. I took the second team out, (the B team) for a slow and uneventful run.

Today, around 2am I was awakened by an overwhelming smell of poop. My first thought was that Buckwheat must have pooped on his bed made of old blankets which is located right next to our bed. I turned on the light to find that Buckwheat wasn’t in the room. Chez was sleeping on Buckwheat’s bed.

As a side note, Buckwheat is around 112 years old and has been losing bowel control. He often leaves a present and doesn’t even know it.

Back to the story…

I went into the office room to see if the Buckster left me a present. Nope, it didn’t smell like shit in there. I went back to the bedroom in search of the cause of the foul smell.  I around looked for a frozen poopsicle that someone may have brought in through the dog door. I didn’t see anything. The smell was truly overpowering. I though maybe Bruno was having bad gas, and sniffed his bum. Nope. It wasn’t Bruno. Neptune’s tumbly had been growling, so I sniffed his bum. Yuk. Neptune smelled like shit. But wait, I looked at the bed and there was a brown turd sleeping next to me. Geez. Gross. Nasty. Barf. How could this happen?? Neptune wouldn’t shit in the bed? Would he? How come I didn’t smell it until now? Where did it come from. Help. I’m sleeping next to crap.

Okay. I got a hold of myself and began to clean up. I pushed all of the dogs off of the bed, pulled the sheets off, brought the nasty ones outside, and put new sheets and blankets on the bed. I walked by the office room to find that in all of the excitement, Buckwheat left me a warm present. I cleaned this up and was ready to get back into bed, but it occurred to me that both Neptune and I were sleeping on a turd. I began to sniff Neptune, and sure enough, he smelled like shit. I escorted him into the bathroom and began to clean the parts that smelled bad. It wasn’t working. I put him in the shower. At first he was whining, but then realized that he was going to get to take a shower with me, so he didn’t mind. I washed the both of us and then used the hair dryer to dry Neptune off because I didn’t want a wet dog to jump into bed.

By now it was 2:30am and I felt compelled to call Greg, who was in Texas, and tell him the news. He didn’t seem to mind being woken up at 5:30am to hear about shit in the bed. It’s not the first time we’ve been woken up do to some type of excretion.

We all went back to sleep. But the question remains, who shat in the bed? The suspects are Neptune, Bruno, Scully, Chez, Sam, Chester, Sugar, Buckwheat, and Ilana. We were all in the bed at sometime during the night.

• Sugar was sleeping just outside of the bedroom– in a location where she normally doesn’t hang out. Could she have been in the bed just before I went to sleep?
• Earlier in the evening, there was a turd in the hallway, which I suspect was from Buckwheat. It wasn’t a full turd though. Could Buckwheat have been in the bed, shat in the bed, and then leave additional stuff in the hall? But why didn’t I smell the shit when I first got into bed?
• Chester was in bed, right before I climbed in, and Scully was in be right before Chester.
• Sam and Bruno were in there usual spots, curled up on top of me.
• Chez was on Buckwheat’s bed, but could have been on the bed earlier in the evening.
• Neptune was sleeping right next to me.
• Ilana sometimes dreams that she has to take a dump. Could she have shat in the bed while dreaming about taking a dump?

Who do you think shat in the bed? You can take the poll on the right of this page to voice your opinion.

We’ve moved Sugar into the house because she got beat up by Nutok. She’s been doing pretty well, although I haven’t moved her from the blog “sled-dog” category to the “pet dog” category because I’m not sure if the move is permanent.

We’ve been bringing Frankie into the house more and more as “dog of the day.”  Frank is a really good lead dog, but he runs like a duck and just doesn’t have the build of a sled dog. He gets very cold in the winter, and my plan is for him to stay inside on cold winter nights. When we adopted him, he was an inside dog– but his owners gave him up because he was high energy and was destructive. He’s been very well behaved inside, although like Chester, we don’t leave him home alone. He’s quite comfy on the couch– but Neptune doesn’t like this since the couch really belongs to him (Nep.).

Since I’m probably going to participate in the 2009 Serum Run, I needed to get some more dogs. Of the 25 dogs that we have, only 4-7ish can run 750 miles (30-60 miles per day). These dogs are:

• Nicky (Can run in lead, but doesn’t know commands).
• Decker (A great lead dog, but doesn’t know how to poop and run so she holds it in and has bloody diarrhea at the end of the day. She’s not a good eater on the trail).
• Storm (Can run in lead, but is petrified of snow machines because she got hit by one.)
• Simba (A good team dog, but has extremely BAD feet. I need to take diligent care of his feet, otherwise they’ll crack and bleed.)
• Higgs (A possible candidate. He tends to overheat and get tired).
• Asa (Higgs’ brother– a possible candidate, but has had some wrist injuries).
• Roo (A possible candidate, but Roo tends to not eat at all on long trips. She also crabs a lot (runs to the side) in Manmat harnesses and does better in a traditional x-back. She can run in lead, but gets tired after 20 miles).

Sooo, we got some new dogs from a neighbor who was getting out of mushing. This puts us back up to 31 dogs (ack!!!) The new guys are:

• Dutchess (A 10 year old female that we’ll use for gee/haw training)
• Luke (A 3 year old male)
• Spike (A 3 year old spayed female)
• Rocket (A 5 year old male)
• Ahab (A 5 year old male)
• Chevy (A 4 year old male)

I’ll post pics and bios soon.

Yesterday Keri called twice and Brenda once. The first time Keri called he spoke to G and wanted to speak to me. G told him to call back later in the evening, he did. He was nice, and asked, “Are you going to give me my dog back?” I replied, “I’ve had Chester for two years and am quite attached to him. I’m sorry, but no, I’m not going to give him to you.” He said, “okay,” and we ended the conversation. He sounded sad.

Two minutes later, Brenda called to chew me out. She said something about “doing the right thing,” and “what if it was a baby purchased on the black market?” She told me that her husband and children were crying. I told her the dog was legally mine; that I adopted him from the pound. She started yelling at me and hung up, so I don’t think she heard me ask her if I was going to need to get a restraining order.

The situation really sucks. I feel badly for them; I’d feel worse for me If I relinquished my dog to them.