So this really sucks. There’s nothing we can do for Frankie , except wait for his death. I hate death. I hate having to deal with all the deaths of my best friends. Frankie is such a terrific guy and has been such a good friend. Right now he’s on Prednisone and Doxycycline. We just started Terbutaline today. It’s really for asthma and other breathing disorders, but it increases the heart rate, and right now, that’s the goal. Doc said it would cost around $3000 for a doggie pacemaker. We’d have to travel to Seattle. I think it would be too much stress on Frankie, and to tell you the truth, I’m not sure if he’s going to make it through the night. I tried to take his heart rate and it’s really slow and irregular– I’m not even sure what I hear. I listened to Bruno’s heart beat to compare. Bruno has a steady healthy beat of around 100bpm– lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub, etc. Frankie’s heart beat is just whacked. It’s lower than 50 right now.  I don’t hear any lub, just a loud dub. He’s breathing hard. He’s very pale.

Dutchess

Yeah, I know Dutchess is spelled incorrectly– but I like it like that. Brought Dutchy to the vet last weekend due to a limp. The doc spotted her distended abdomen. Either she has bad gas or cancer. We’re guessing cancer since she already had two malignant tumors removed from her neck. She has a lump on one of her nipples. Regarding the limp, doc thought she has some type of shoulder injury. Regarding the bloat, we’ve put her on metronidazole. If the bloat/gas doesn’t clear up then it’s all downhill from here. Unlike Frankie, Dutchy is still interested in eating and going on walks. Boths dogs are quite lethargic. Frank only ate a bit of his breakfast and a bit of his dinner. He didn’t even try to go on a walk tonight.

:(

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.

I’m writing this because Scully is in bad shape again (and Dutchess just started yelping).  Two weeks ago Scully started to crash. Greg brought her to Mt. McKinley on a Sunday (McKinley is the only open vet on the weekend). The vet wasn’t sure why Greg brought her in, but told us to give her the antibiotic amoxicillian for infection.  Not wanting to be a hypochondriac momma, I waited around five days to see if the amoxi had any effect. Nope. I brought her to Aurora a few days early for her biweekly hematocrit check– which was 20%. The vet tookex-rays to see what was going on in her gastrointestinal track. The ex-rays were inconclusive. I brought her back the next day for an ultrasound. The ultrasound told us that there was something either on her spleen or intestines. I brought her back the next day (Friday, Dec. 11) for surgery (note to self– never have major surgery on a Friday, when the vet is closed on the weekend), with the understanding that if it was a tumor on her intestines, we wouldn’t wake her up. If it was on her spleen, she’d get a splenectomy.

I was quite happy to hear that he had splenectomy and didn’t have to die. Scully had a 5″ tumor on her spleen. Apparently one theory of hemolymic anemia is that it is caused by a failing spleen.

Scully isn’t doing to well, she’s eating very little, can’t walk, and looks miserable.  Greg keeps reminding me that she’s in post-operative mode and she just had major surgery.  She has a vet appt. tomorrow to check her Hematocrit.

—-
Duchess has been yelping all weekend.  She’s the girl who has had two tumors removed from her neck, as well as mammary cancer removed a year ago.

I’m preparing for Scully and Duchess, by practicing singing Silent Night.  I hope it doesn’t  come to that, but it’s always good to be prepared.

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!

Just a note about the new dogs:

• Dutchess is super shy. I’ve never met a dog like her and am not sure what to do with her. She pulls great, especially for a 10 year old. I haven’t seen her exceptional leader skills that her previous owner told me about. She’s a fighter. Fought with Spike a couple of times. Yesterday I put her in lead with Storm and she wanted to run down the street the wrong way, and then attacked Storm. We got her so she could train our other dogs how to lead, but it seems that she may not get along with other females.
• Spike is a very skinny mini who fights with Dutchess. We can’t keep them loose in the yard together. Spike is a line chewer and can crawl out of her harness. She’s a very sweet and loving dog to humans and to her boyfriends. Greg doesn’t like her very much– because of the fighting.
• Luke is a nice guy. He likes to run and is very strong, but I’m a little concerned that he has leg or hip problems. He has a funny waddle type of run.
• Rocket is a lover of humans, but likes to pick on Chevy. He’s got a funny looking snout. He’s quite strong. He’s a line chewer.
• Ahab is the sweetest guy! He doesn’t fight. He doesn’t sleep in his box. He’s just a happy guy. I really like him a alot.
• Chevy is working out to be a good lead dog, although he doesn’t know commands. I run him up front with Decker, and for the most part they make a good team. He gets picked on a lot by other dogs (Luke & Rocket, Rattles).

This method was working for a while, until Rocket’s tail was bitten (either by Chez– who likes to bite tushies, or Chevy).  I think it was Chez. I didn’t know Rocket’s tail had been bit until Heather came over and said, “Hey, that dog’s tail looks broken.” I looked at his tail and he was starting to get an infection lower down close to the tail tip– where he was bit. We cleaned it up and took him to the vet. He should be okay.

The next victim was Dutchess, who has multiple health problems. I broke up a fight between Dutchess and Spike. Dutchess ended up with many holes on her head, neck, ear, and paw. Actually, the puncture wounds aren’t really that bad. What’s bad is the breast cancer. Greg brought her to the vet today for a spay appointment. The vet just called to let me know that Dutchess has several mammary tumors. She took a chest exray and the results were inconclusive– they show two small nodules, but the vet isn’t sure if the cancer spread or if it’s scaring from something else.  She said that she wouldn’t make life/death decisions based on the exrays. So, we are going to have the cancer removed and have her spayed. Poor girl.

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.