Fight(s) #1

• Nutok vs. Monkey: Nutok attacked Monkey while Monkey was still on her chain.  Nutok lost. The attack most likely occurred as a mini fight in the middle of the night while Duke was getting beat up by his brothers and sisters. Nutok ended up getting a bunch of stitches all over her body.
• Chevy (?) and/or Ahab (?) vs. Duke: Duke lost;  He got stitches in his eye, on one of his paws and inner thigh.

Fight(s) #2

• Everyone vs. Duke: Several days after Duke was feeling better, he was jumped by at least eight dogs.
• Nikki vs. Monkey: While Duke was getting beat up by everyone, Nicky decided it was time to kick Monkey’s ass. Monkey ended up with a puncture wound in her armpit.

Do-It-Yourself Vet Care

We try to do a lot of vet care ourselves. We’ve learned a lot over the years, but sometimes make poor decisions. We treated Monkey’s puncture wound as if it were a puncture wound on another part of the body (i.e., head, thigh, forearm). The usual treatment is antibiotics and flushing the wound 1-2X a day with a water-betadine mix).

After several days, it was clear Monkey wasn’t getting better. She was getting worse! I took her to the vet and she was diagnosed with subcutaneous emphysema (aka subcutaneous crepitus).  Since the placement of the wound was under the armpit, there was no muscle or fat to block the air from coming in. Monkey was filling up with air!!! When you pet her, she felt like bubble wrap.

Treatment for this was easy. The wound was sutured and she continued on her dose of antibiotics. She healed we’ll and no longer feels like bubble wrap or looks like a balloon.

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!

Tonight, Monkey and Nutok were off their chains at the same time and had a little spat. Monkey got her right canine tooth knocked out— we’ll almost out. We’ll bring her to the vet tomorrow. It may fall out by then.

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!