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.

The team was composed of Rattles & Rocket in wheel, Monkey and Punky in point, and Red, our fearless leader, in Lead.  I tried to take Peetie, but he wasn’t interested in going. Rocket decided he wasn’t going to be a mushing dog this year and Greg hasn’t been taking him, but he said he would run four miles just for me.

Not only was this my first run of the year, it was also a first run for Red, Monkey, and Pumpkin. Red lead the way from the house down to the field perfectly. Once we got to the field Rattle commenced his sneezing ritual and Red decided to see what was in an outbuilding on the field. Next to the outbuilding are Yaks and sheep, so he probably was interested in their scent; and he hasn’t been down to the field since the new neighbors moved in and brought farm animals with them.

After untangling everyone, with the help of Munkin I managed to get Red to go passed the building and animals. We mushed into the woods, over the hill, and Red decided to lunge to the right and drag everyone with him. He was distracted by Maureen, who was off on a side trail looking for her missing dog Nemo. Maureen helped me straighten out the team.  We mushed for 100 yards and Red was distracted by a person and her dog who were in deep snow trying to stay out of our way.  Maureen came over and helped me straighten things out again, and we were off.

Note: Greg and I like to, and usually do, mush at night when the trails are mostly  abandoned.

We got to the winter trail and almost ran into a huge arctic cat blocking the trail– probably someone’s Christmas present. I chatted with them for a minute and found out they had driven up from North Pole, and they had not seen Nemo.  I complemented them on their fine looking machine.

The rest of the trip was smooth sailing. Red, Monkey, and Pumpkin were so happy that they finally got to go for a run. Rocket and Rattles weren’t as ecstatic, but seemed to have had a nice time. I was really happy that I finally got to be out with the dogs.

Other news at Stinkypup is Decker’s radial subluxation. On Monday June 21st, Decker got beat up during a puppy party. Greg wasn’t around, so it was just me who pulled one dog off & hooked them up, pulled another dog off & hooked them up, and so on. I’m not sure who started the fight, but many snouts were involved, including Monkey, Pumpkin, Capella, Spike, Chester, Rocket, Ahab, Zeus, Nikki and Roo. All ten dogs were pulling and jumping and tugging on poor little Decker. Dog fights suck.

After I got everyone back on their chains I fed them, and then tended to Decker’s wounds. She had a couple of puncture wounds, which I shaved and cleaned. When Greg came home he helped me tend to the rest of her wounds. She had a long laceration on her back leg and bleeding puncture wound near her left armpit. We cleaned her up, gave her Rimadyl, Tramodol & Cephlex and put her in the pen. We’ve seen a lot worse, but were keeping an eye on her. She didn’t eat much on Tues. Wed. she ate a little and her wrist began to swell. We put ice on her wrist, which helped the swelling a lot. On Thurs. her entire arm began to swell. We iced it and the swelling went down, but she wasn’t getting better.

On Fri. we brought her to the emergency vet, who thought she just had a bad infection. She gave us Clavamox (a stronger antibiotic). Although the swelling went down, we now noticed she wasn’t bearing any weight on her leg and her wrist was floppy. She was breathing hard (a sign of pain in dogs), but I thought she was just too hot.

On Tues. we brought her to Dr. Flemme at Mt. McKinley animal hospital. Flemme is an expert in canine orthopaedics. He diagnosed her with lateral radial subluxation. He took e-xrays to confirm the problem. We left her at the vet and he was able to manually reduce the injury (meaning put the bones back where they were supposed to be without having to do surgery).

She needs to stay in a crate for 10 days and she’s quite uncomfortable. After that we’ll move her outside to the pen. I already told her she can move inside, but I think she prefers living outside with her sisters. She’s a shy girl.

Decker sporting a $200 cast.

Decker

So, that’s the current news from the StinkyPup ranch. Magic is adjusting to his cropped tail (I still need to take some pics), and of course, we all desperately miss Sam.

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!

Chester is officially an inside/outside/pet/sled dog. He’s a great guy. Whenever he wants to, he slips his collar and jumps the fence. He usually does this when I go out for a mush. I’ve been running him as a loose leader and he does great.

Other updates– the StinkyPups finished the Chatanika 100 in 15 hours and 45 min. They were very tired. I’m already planning for next year. The key is to get out there and train. My dogs are used to running 40 miles with little breaks, but they weren’t used to camping out and running another 41 miles — (the 100 miles race was really 81 miles).

The line up for the race was:

• Decker & Frankie
• Storm & Red (I dropped Red after 40 miles)
• Simba & Rattles
• Asa & Higgs
• Pumpkin & Monkey (Monkey got really sick– she’s okay now)
• Roo & Nicky

Leaders were:

• Red (ha ha ha– only for the first 5 minutes)
• Storm
• Roo
• Nicky
• Decker
• Frankie

Both Red and Monkey got to ride in the sled for a little bit, not at the same time.

Here’s some thoughts for me for next years race:

• Bring more Heat (for cooking)
• Train them for camping trips
• Bring a thermos (my socked water bottle instantly froze– and it wasn’t even cold out)
• Figure out a hydration system for me and the dogs

During the same week Wild and Chez were sick, Monkey and Pumpkin attacked Nutok. I brought Nutok & Monkey to the vet. Nutok needed stitches and meds. Although Monkey had a gouged eyelid and hole in her head– she was okay, so no stitches for Monkey. Pumpkin ended up with an injured paw that we noticed several weeks later. I’m hoping this won’t affect her ability to run this year.

A week later Munkin (Monkey and Pumpkin) attacked Storm. Storm didn’t go to the vet, but we gave her lots of antibiotics and cleaned her wound. She’s back to her loving self.

Yesterday we brought Simba to the vet because he wasn’t eating and was vomiting. Turned out that he needed surgery because he swallowed a piece of rope. We don’t know how much his little vet trip costs yet since he’s at the vet tonight– but I’m sure it’s $$$.

Hopefully things will calm down– but the weather is getting cooler out the the StinkyPups are getting a little crazy. I’ve been out a couple of times on the 4-wheeler for very short training runs. The summer has slipped away and I still haven’t taught my leaders to gee/haw and line-out. I’m sure it will be a fun filled winter!

Today’s plan was to mush from home to Valley Center (arond 12.5 miles). Mush the 32 mile Hamburger Quest from Valley Center to Angle Creek. Camp out at Angle Creek for 4 hours and let the dogs rest. And then mush home.

What Actually Happened

I left home with 10 stinkypups (Levi, Duke, Darla, Buckwheat, Storm, Stubby, Magic, Pumpkin, Monkey-Tail, and Higgs). I’ve never mushed to Valley Center before, so I turned left too early, ended up going in a square a couple of times, and then cut through someones dog yard. Unfortunately, I ended up on Chena Hot Springs Road– yes the road! I couldn’t stop the sled because there wasn’t any snow to hook into and I couldn’t get my leaders Duke and Levi to gee (turn right) onto the snow burm. They decided it would be fun to run on the left hand side of the road. Luckily, a nice man stopped and helped to get my dogs over to the side of the road!!

When I arrived at Valley Center I thought that I had missed the start of the race. As it turns out, the race marshall decided to postpone the race from 11am to 12pm (because it was to cold??!?).

Greg was waiting for me at Valley Center. We souped the dogs and switched Storm and Magic with Bandit and Sugar. We waited 1.5 hours and then it was time to go. So, I’m trying to get to the race start and Greg is trying to hold the team back because he didn’t think it was my turn to go. I explained to him that they were waving me on and not the team in front of me. He let go of the sled and off I went.

Almost immediately after I started the race I needed to stop the team and readjust dogs. Duke didn’t have his tugline attached. Monkey was tangled. Levi wanted to poop, and then I was passed by musher #15. After I got the tangles sorted out we crossed the road at mile 27 and were on our way to Angle Creek. We had a few more tangles and a couple of other teams pass us, but for the most part the trip was uneventful. The only event that occured was I had to hold Monkey-tail’s harness clip in my hand to melt the ice-poop off (I needed to undo her clip and it was frozen with poop).

After three hours and twenty four minutes I arrived at Angle Creek. The team was still going strong (slow, but strong) and we were all psyched to finally be at the finish line. We had expected to see our handler, Greg, waiting for us with hot soup and straw, however, Greg wasn’t around. I was greeted by my neighbor Maureen. She asked if I was still going to mush back and I said I wasn’t sure, I’ll check in with Greg to discuss. She said she hadn’t seen him. We both thought that Greg not being there was weird.

Maureen and Scott were kind enough to hook up their tie outs and put my dogs on the tie outs. Allan and his kids offered soup (his girls even souped the dogs for me!). I had lots of help from everyone but Greg.

By then I had decided that I wouldn’t mush home. The dogs already were away from their intended rest spot, there wasn’t any straw for them to nap on, their booties and harnesses were off, etc. I decided to take Maureen up on her offer for her to bring my dogs home in her dog truck.

Eventually Greg showed up. He had forgotten the dog food and had to turn around 1/2 hour into his road trip.

We drove home and met Maureen and Scott at our house. Unpacked the dogs and fed them, and then all of the stinkypups took a long nap.