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.

After partying the dogs, I decided to take the four wheeler to look for Sam. I was convinced that Sammie was caught in a trap. I knew there were some traps by the Pot-latch Bridge and by the Dyke. I headed out prepared…had my cell phone, GPS, and some tool thingies (pliers maybe?). Greg and I walked the trail yesterday, so knew where the bad spots were and my plan was to leave the ATV when it got really bad (meaning muddy, marshy, impassable).

Everything was going well, until I hit a bog. Since I had my phone, I called Greg (who is out of town). His suggestion was to tie eight or nine dogs to myself and go for a drag (that’s what I did the last time the 4 wheeler got stuck).  It was just about 9pm, so I decided to call my wonderful neighbors Scott and Maureen. As usual, they came out to rescue me. I thanked them and told them I was going to walk to the Pot-latch and Dyke.

They went home, I went on my extended walk/run, and I didn’t find Sam. I saw bear poop, wolf poop, lots of moose tracks (but surprisingly no moose poop), and unfortunately, no Sam poop.

Here are some pics of the 4 wheeler and flowers.

Stuck in the Mud

Stuck in the Mud

When we woke up, Sam and Frankie were still gone.  Greg took the gang for a morning walk, and Frankie caught up with them on their way home. Frankie wasn’t very muddy, and didn’t look too wet. We were waiting for Sam to come running home, but she didn’t. We spent all day Sat. looking for her. We looked for her on the field, on some of the trails, on some of the trails that aren’t trails, on the road, at the pound, up the block, down the block, here and there. Still no Sam. Sunday, we repeated our hunt for her. Note, Sat. & Sun. were met with bouts of hard rainfall. Still no Sam.

I checked my StinkyPup blog and she,  Chester, Bruno and Stubby disappeared in 2007.  Stubby came back within the hour, Bruno within 7 hours (and was really tired), Chester within around 16 hours, and Sam 52 hours. I suppose there is still some hope that she returns home. Both Wild and Sugar were found at around mile 22 after one week. Dutchess was found at mile 22 after a couple of days.

What worries me are the traps, bears, wolves, and moose. Rattles was missing for three days and some folks found him in a trap. Rattles didn’t let us know where he was when we were basically right next to him.

So, I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. I’m very sad and miss her so much.

Later that night, Greg and I took a closer look at his tail. He had a laceration on the backside of his tail, around three inches from the base. We shaved the area, cleaned it with a water/betadine solution, gave him cephalexin (and antibiotic) and Rymadyl (doggie aspirin), and put him in the pen in the front yard.

Wed. night when we were cleaning his tail, I noticed that it wasn’t painful– meaning he just didn’t have any feeling in his tail. We decided if the emergency vet was open, we’d bring him in. It wasn’t an emergency, but the ER vet is sometimes cheaper than the regular vet, and I was stressed about his tail. Turns out the ER vet isn’t open on Wed., and we opted to not call McKinley or Aurora to have a doc on call look at him.

Greg dropped him off at Aurora this morning. The doc told him that he had circulation in tail (there was blood flow), but he didn’t have any feeling (nerve damage), so the best thing to do is to amputate his tail.

Whaaaaaa!!!! Poor Magic. While Greg is out of town, I may try to integrate him with the inside dogs and see how he does. I’ve tried this before, and he didn’t really want to be inside, but maybe he’ll change his mind.

Another 100 yards, and Nicki suddenly ran ahead. I saw a mother and baby moose cross the path, then the mother ran left and the baby ran right. Nicki ran after the baby. Immediately, I heard some sounds that were a little like goats, sort of “mmaaahhh, mmaaaahhhhh.” Another second or two, and I caught up with Nicki. She was just off the trail, and had grabbed the baby moose by the neck and was shaking it. I yelled “no,” and went to grab Nicki by the collar. She backed away, then bit the moose on the haunch. All the time, the baby was calling, “mmaaahhh, mmaaaahhhh” and was looking at me with big brown eyes full of fear. I heard the mother in the woods behind me, but she was (I think) afraid of me, and didn’t come close.

I caught Nicki’s collar and lifter her off the moose. The moose immediately ran away, and I hooked Nicki to the leash again. The baby was gone, though I could hear the mother moving around in the woods behind me. I yelled out an apology to the baby & mother, and we left. Total elapsed time was maybe 15 seconds.

Although the baby almost certainly got some puncture wounds, I did not see any blood or torn skin. I hope infection doesn’t set in, since otherwise there didn’t appear to be any life-threatening injuries. We passed the same spot on the way back, an hour later, and there was no sign of either moose.

Two days earlier, I had seen a mother and adolescent moose about a mile further up the trail. After the incident with the baby, maybe 15 minutes later, I saw at least one of the moose in the same area as the earlier day. So, there were at least three moose out that day. I think the baby was 3-5 weeks old. Not much bigger than one of our dogs (maybe 70 pounds?), it had a full coat of hair. It was standing fairly upright and had substantial legs, versus newborns that are very spindly, and seem to not be standing fully upright.

This was a nature encounter I would rather have not had. It looks like I’ll be keeping dogs on the leash, even when we’re in the deep woods. We did hear report of bear sightings in Chena Lakes, which is at the other end of my run if I do the fully 12-mile loop. Plus, there are wolf signs. Many pheasants, squirrels, and hare. Plenty of distraction, and some associated dangers.

We believe that Sugar’s hip problems were caused at least partially by being a wheel dog in an earlier life, before we got her, with a traditional X-back harness. Such harnesses tend to put downward pressure on a dog’s rear, and this is worsened in the wheel position where the sled is lower than the gangline, and there are more jerks and bumps. We got Sugar as one of our first kennel rescue dogs. She was part of the sled team for a few years, but then made the transition to inside. One interesting thing is that while outside, she had persistent urinary problems — to wit, she’s peed in her dog box, resulting in many winter experiences chopping the frozen piss out of her box (embedded in straw, stuck to the wooden box). Nasty. But when she moved in, this immediately stopped. She did lose most bowel control over the past year or so, but not urinary.

Now that it’s spring, I’ve tried going about 1/2 of the 4-mile loop and back again. I don’t think I can go all the way through due to a lake. For the 7/12, I will try an out and back, bypassing another lake. No sneakers for this: over-the-calf rubber boots are prerequisite. I take just one dog on a leash, since at the start we need to take the standard trail through the new neighbor’s yard. No sightings of bear, wolf, fox, moose or anything other than grouse and mosquitoes, so far.

Monkey and Pumpkin can now be free in the yard together. For the past several years we only let one off at a time, since together they would beat up Scully, then Newtok. They might beat up Roo (who is not blond!) next. We’ll see.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a massive fight, with Newtok getting badly torn up. Capella also got injured, but we just put her on antibiotics. Greg was out jogging 11 miles, so wasn’t there to help. Our past-neighbor Mike King was in the neighborhood, and helped load Newtok into the Jeep so she could go to the emergency vet.

Newtok got staples, rather than stitches, and has a lot of shaved areas. We decided to let her stay in the house, which she is adjusting to nicely. Since Scully died just a few days later, this will probably be permanent.

Newtok is not (yet) a good alarm clock for Ilana, and is generally a mellow dog. But she does like to go on walks, and gets along well with the other dogs.