When we first brought Maude into the house we put her in a crate. One day, Greg let her out and forgot to put her back into the crate, and she immediately made herself comfy on some of the blankets on the floor, and soon after, migrated to the couch! She learned how to use the dog door in two days. She’s extremely smart. Right now she has a cast on and needs to stay inside for the next ten days. I’m not sure if she’ll return to the dog yard!

• Zipper on snowsuit broke.
• Lost team.
• Scratched. Ran 100 of the 213 mile course.
• Frostbite on six fingertips.

The Team

• Chevy & Nikki (Lead)
• Maude & Zeus (Point)
• Snowball & Moe (Team)
• Ahab & Shrek (Team)
• Spike & Luke (Team)
• Capella & Phanty (Wheel)

The Story

The race began with a mass start for the women’s division at 11am and men’s at 11:30am, December 28, 2011.  I was one of the last women’s team to leave the Meiers Roadhouse parking lot. As soon as we got onto Paxson lake (around 1 minute after starting) Phanty’s collar fell off and I needed to stop the team to re-collar him. Stopping the team immediately after starting is a difficult thing to do. My hooks wouldn’t hold the team, but somehow, after several tries I was able to stop long enough to run up to wheel position and put on Phanty’s collar and untangle the rope from his hind legs.

Around 5 miles into the race the wind started blowing and we hit deep snow. Two teams were ahead of me stuck in the snow and I was behind another team that was waiting. It seemed like we waited quite a long time for the teams stuck in the snow to take off. Once they took off they got stuck again. The women were polite, and waited for each other. There really wasn’t anywhere to go because the snow on each side of the trail was deep.  Soon the men caught up to us and they weren’t so polite. They plowed passed us, making more tangles between the teams that were stopped.  I noticed one of my leaders run away. We were stopped for so long that Maude, positioned in point, chewed the lines. Since I was already stopped with no where to go, so I left my sled to run after Chevy. He came to me when I called and I put a new line on for him. Then Nikki, my other leader ran free. I ran after her, caught her and put on a new line. The men kept passing. Finally the women in front of me got unstuck and mushed on.

Once we got off of Paxson Lake, we were on a nice little up/down section that went through spruce. Shrek vomited. Then he vomited again, fell down, twitched his feet and stood up. I had already experienced this with him and had brought him to the vet.  The conclusion was that perhaps he was working too hard and when he vomited he had some kind of vagus nerve response. I decided not to drop him at Paxson Lodge (18 miles into the run). If Greg had been there, I would have dropped him, but I didn’t see Greg and figured that Shrek would be okay. It was hot out and the dogs were working hard mushing through deep snow.

We turned onto the Denali Highway and all was well– for a little while. I’m using a tail dragger on my sled— it’s a device that hooks onto the back runners so that you can store gear on top. Some how when we stopped for a 30 second break, I pinned my right foot under the tail dragger and couldn’t get my foot out. I was worried if the dogs took off I’d break my foot. I spent between 10-20 minutes trying to unpin my foot and finally freed it. We started going and the wind picked up. I felt a draft and went to zip up my zipper and noticed that my zipper on my Apocalypse Design snow suit was broken. F#$%^&K! I had an extra parka packed away– if I didn’t have that with me I’d have to scratch right then and there.

We mushed along for several hours and came across a team in the ditch. Some snow machiners were helping her out. Right when I came up behind her she was out of the ditch and took off (this was Lance Mackey’s handler’s puppy team– and man those pups were fast!)  I snacked the dogs a couple of times and was counting miles to the hospitality stop, looked at my watch and was pretty well on target. The hospitality stop was at 42 mile Denali Highway. I went into the ditch at around 36 mile. I tried and tried to push the sled out of the ditch, but it was too heavy. I took everything out of my sled, pushed the sled onto the road, and repacked. Off we went, only again to go into the ditch. This time I wasn’t so lucky. I tried getting unstuck without taking everything out, but it didn’t work. Once again I took everything out of my sled. I was on the downslope side pushing the sled out of the ditch and the sled freed itself and the dogs took off– without me.  All I could do was walk after them and hope they got hung up somewhere. I was very worried. I walked around 1/2-3/4 a mile when I found them waiting for me. I turned them around, untangled everyone and mushed back to our gear. I turned them around again, untangled everyone and souped them– they were very hungry, and repacked the sled. Then we mushed on to the 42 mile hospitality stop. I arrived at around 10:30pm.

I was surprised to see so many teams there since I wasted two hours getting stuck. I tended to the dogs (took off booties, put down straw, started to boil some water– I spilled heet on my fingers). When I walked into the hospitality cabin my fingers tingled. This is normal for me, so I didn’t think much of it.  A couple of mushers told me that “everyone was still hanging around because there isn’t a trail.” Then I heard from some other musher that “it took Brent Sass five hours to mush twenty miles because there wasn’t a trail.”  I did the rest of my dog chores, ate some junk that was in the hospitality cabin and went into a cabin where mushers were sleeping. They weren’t sleeping though, they were talking about the trail that wasn’t there. A couple of mushers who had previously run the trail decided to go forward. Lance Mackey’s handler said she was headed back to Paxson. That left Simon and myself. He was planning on turning around and I was still undecided. I walked over to the lodge to see if I could get details from anyone, but nobody was awake– it was around 4:30am. I decided that for the safety of myself and team, I’d scratch. Since there wasn’t a sweep, and the last teams that took off for Apline lodge left hours ago, I’d be way behind everyone. I just didn’t feel safe thinking there was no trail, no markers, and possibly going into water if I couldn’t see where the trail was.

Simon and I mushed back to Paxson. I’m not sure what time we left, maybe around 8:30am.  I arrived a little after 1pm. Greg was waiting for us! We were very happy to see him.  That’s when I noticed my fingertips were not only very numb, but also gray. On each hand, my thumb, pointer, and index fingers had frostbite. Greg packed everyone and everything up and I warmed up inside Paxson Lodge, and then we headed back to Fairbanks.

It’s a good thing that I scratched because I wouldn’t have realized I had frostbite.

Overall we had a good time and learned a lot.

Frostbite

Ilana & Dog, Paxson, AK

The race started at Pleasant Valley Store in the Two Rivers area of Fairbanks, around mile 23 of Chena Hot Springs Road. The trail started towards the west, and did a loop around Jenny M. mountain. Then, it turned east along the RatStack trail, headed across the Mullen Slew, onto the Baseline trail, and eventually crossed CHSR at mile 27. From there, the trail approximately parallels the road, to Angel Creek Lodge. At the Lodge, there was a required 4-hour break, then the trail returned in reverse (other than taking the loop the same way around Jenny M. as in the start of the race. But otherwise, a reverse trail). Total mileage was 50 miles each leg, for 100 miles.

I drew #7, so started at 11:10 (there was no #6, and start intervals were 2 minutes). Within 90 minutes, all but one of the other teams passed me. But even so, I was happy with my time and team. I arrived at the Lodge at 5:26 pm, for a run time of 6:16, average speed of 8 miles per hour. On the return leg, the average was around 7 miles per hour: I departed at 9:26 pm (after the 10 minute time adjustment for my start time), and got to Pleasant Valley Store around 5:15 am – just under 7 hours. Two other teams had decided to stop along the trail to rest, so I did not end up being the last finisher.

The starting team was:

• Chevy and Nicki in lead
• Ahab and Shrek in point
• Wayne and Capella
• Maude and Zeus
• Moe and Snowball
• Spike and Phanty

I made a few small changes to the team ordering along the way. The biggest was shortly before the road crossing, after 22 miles or so: Wayne had stopped pulling, and stumbled a few times. We just got him from another owner, and since then he collapsed or nearly collapsed on two prior runs, after 24 and 40 miles (despite having been trained for those and longer distances all season!). So, I put him in the sled after he stumbled several times and got dragged a bit (he also had some extensive diarrhea). He was content to stay there for a couple of hours, then managed to jump out of the sled. I tried him again in the team, and he only went a few more miles before starting to stumble again. So, he rode in the sled the rest of the way to the Lodge, and didn’t accompany the team on the return leg.

While getting ready for the return trip, Phanty yelped and had sensitivity in his front left wrist. It seemed like a sprain, so we pulled him from the team too, and returned with 10 dogs. In the last 25 miles or so, Nicky was getting overheated and tired, and kept diving into the snow at the side of the trails (which is not very good lead dog behavior!). Eventually, I moved her back in the team, where she pulled somewhat but not that well, and moved other new dog Maude to the front. This was maybe Maude’s first lead dog experience. It took her a little while to figure things out, but eventually she ran fine. It was clear that Chevy was, and is, our strongest leader. He led for the whole 100 miles.

Dogs were strong throughout. They settled into a steady pace, and just kept going. I’m proud of the gang, and think they are Super Dogs. When Ilana or I run a marathon, we’re pooped and ready to take the rest of the day (or two). On December 17, the StinkyDogs ran nearly 4 marathons, in back-to-back pairs. Amazing!

The route we took was Ratstack to Mullen Slough and then I trusted in “dog” and Chevy and Nikki led me through the maze of Two Rivers trails to the road crossing at Rosehip Campground. We turned around at Twin Bears– which was somewhat of a fiasco and the dogs ended up in a big knot. We took the Baseline (instead of the slough) to Jenny M and down the third turn.

The line up was:

• Chevy & Nikki (Lead)
• Ahab & Roo (after 30 miles it was Ahab & Moe) (Point)
• Capella & Shrek (Team)
• Phanty & Zeus (Team)
• Snowball & Moe (after 30 miles it was Snow & Roo except when she sat in the sled)
• Spike & Luke (Wheel)

Wow. I graduated to 12 dogs in these conditions. What was I thinking????

When I came home from the mush, Greg had moved the dogs to the downtown yard. :)

It’s uncommon for dogs to have laryngeal paralysis on one side, and there’s a small possibility he’ll grow out of it. Since he loves to run, he can be on the “B” team and take it easy.

This is our second dog that has laryngeal paralysis, and our second dog labeled a “wheezer.” King Neptune is the other dog with  laryngeal paralysis and Decker is the other wheezer.

My neighbor told me that she was moving the sheep, so I figured it was safe to mush on the field. Ha. I got to a turn in the field and 5-6 loose sheep– were coming toward me. The sheep weren’t even on her property. I stopped the machine and cursed many times. I was able to turn the team around, but turning a 500lb ATV is without hurting the team or myself was challenging , but do-able. We trotted home.

Spike looked like she was having a hard time. She was in wheel position and took the brunt of the force when turning around. I think she had minor heat exhaustion. I’ve seen it before with Peetie.  When overheating the dogs tend to stumble. Spike jumped in the baby pool, but was stumbling and had her back left foot turned over without noticing. I put the gang away, gave everyone raw hide, and tended to Spike with an ice pack and ice cubes.

I need to stick to my rule. No running dogs unless it’s 40 degrees or below.

I found him with the chain looped tightly around his middle, him hanging with his ass up in the air, trying to climb the adjoining fence. Roo, on the other side of the fence, was trying to bite his feet through the chain link.

Ilana arrived home just then, and I managed to pull Snow up to get the swivel out of the post. She held him while I used bolt cutters to cut the chain. He was so tangled, I couldn’t untangle the chain from around him. Snowy is the idiot of the day.

Red is the cutest little mini monster you’ll ever meet.

MPR now have the winter yard to themselves. The winter yard is spacious and has room for them to frolic. It also has five 20X30 kennels. Since the winter yard gets a lot of sun, I decided to put my garden in one of the kennels– to protect the garden from dogs. As I enclosed myself in the kennel, Red decided he desperately needed to see me and dug under the fence and climbed into the kennel, followed by Pumpkin. They decided to frolic on my newly tilled dirt and pee on the strawbales containing the dirt.

Luckily, I hadn’t planted anything yet. I moved MPR temporarily onto the deck so I could fix what they destroyed and begin planting some starter plants that I had left on the deck. You know where this is going….f***ing Red ate my starter broccoli and brussel sprout plants, and my baby lilac tree.

We’ll see how long my garden lasts.

Roo and Capella are in adjacent pens. Roo shares a pen with her sissy Nikki. Capella shares a pen with her brothers Phanty and Zeus. After a brief fight several weeks ago where Capella was the target and Roo was one of the chief instigators, things have gotten out of hand with them barking at each other and fence fighting. Fence fighting is where dogs in adjacent pens attempt to fight with each other through a fence, in this case a chain link fence.

We’ve put up some “Privacy Panels” for Roo. Three stylish 4 X 8 sheets of plywood now lean against the fence in Capella’s pen and are intended to prevent the girlies from seeing each other and fence fighting. For the most part, the privacy screens work well. Perhaps I’ll paint calming images on the screens to create a serene atmosphere for the girls.