Asa is a very difficult dog to catch, so we’ve been leaving him free to roam in the dog yard. Monday the 16th, I went for a short 7 mile mush and Asa followed us, sometimes running behind us, sometimes in lead; he was having a great time. On our last stretch before home we encountered a neighbor who is known for having “alligator” dogs. An alligator dog is a dog who attacks a passing team.

As soon as we encountered the team, they pounced Asa. My neighbor managed to get his dogs off of Asa, I passed with my team and saw that Asa looked okay (no blood, he was running) and then stopped to see if his team was okay.  His responded, “your dogs passed on the wrong side! That’s why this happened.” I immediately took off and thought, “What a jerk! His dogs attacked mine, I stopped to help, and he’s yelling at me.”

When we got home, I couldn’t catch Asa to check him out, but he appeared to be happy and healthy. He may have had a slight limp.

—

The next night I took the “A” team out for a 12 mile run. I didn’t want to take Asa as a free runner because I wanted Chester to go, and I didn’t want to have two loose dogs. At the last moment, right before I was ready to leave the yard, I caught Asa. Greg put him on his chain.

I told Greg he should go ahead and have a party (meaning let the remaining dogs off), and I’d catch the ones he can’t catch (Simba and Rattles) when I came home. When I got home  and brought my team into the yard, I saw Simba and Rattles running around. Simba had a scratch on his snout and there was some blood in the snow.  I found Asa hiding in a private section of the dog yard and he had been beaten up quite badly, but not as bad as we have seen. We brought him inside, and decided that he didn’t have to go to the ER vet and we’d bring him for stitches in the morning.

The next morning, we dropped Asa off at our vet. I mentioned that Asa was Higgs’ brother, and it would be interesting to see if Asa had the same heart condition as his Higgs. One of the docs listened to his heart and said, “Nope. Asa’s heart is steady and strong. It’s nothing like Higgs’ rhythm.”

Around 1pm I got a call from the vet. “Hi, this is Dr. xxxxxx.”
I said, “Hi. How’s Asa?”
He said, “We lost him.”
I responded, “Okay.”
He said, “No, it’s not okay.”
He started to explain what happened and I was in too much shock to listen, so I told him I’d call him back. I tracked Greg down at work, and we drove to the vet’s office.

None of us know what really happened. The vet himself was surprised. They had given Asa some anesthesia. He began to wake up. They gave him a different type of anesethia…the gas kind. He was on a heart monitor. Everything was fine and the doc was almost finished, “two stitches from being done,” and Asa’s heart stopped. They couldn’t revive him.

Asa, we miss and love you!

Asa (left) and his brother Higgs

But Decker has a sprained wrist, and has been off training for over two weeks. We’ll ease her in again next week. She’s a champion lead dog, and seems rather depressed to not be running.

Simba got pulled off the “A” team last season, due to a persistent shoulder injury. So, we eased him in this year, and included lots of stretching and massage. But no luck: the injury is still there.

Roo is good for training, but only pulls for 20 miles or so. After that, she can keep up, but doesn’t work. Definitely more of a sprint dog.

I was worried about Asa (he’s getting older, and had a persistent resistance to running with me, last year), but he and brother Higgs are still pulling strong and true.

The most recent loss is Luke. We are not sure what’s going on, but he did poorly on Saturday, then on Sunday simply wouldn’t pull (he was getting tugged by his neckline). He is sort of limpy, and sort of looks constipated, and we are not sure what’s up. We’ll let him keep resting for a few more days before visiting the vet (we have not had a week without at least two vet trips in 5 or 6 weeks!).

So the current “A” team (in the typical pairs we run them in):

Chevy, Nicki
Ahab, Rocket (who I’m not that sure about…he seems to overheat)
Capella, Zeus
Higgs, Asa
Roo (good spunkiness, but limited miles)
Spike (used to run with Luke)

We might get Phanty trained up. He’s only a yearling, and really doesn’t have much of a clue about anything, but seems to have potential. Also, I hope Decker will get back into training again. Bottom line is that today, we have 10 “A” team dogs, and maybe three others (Decker, Phanty, Luke) who might get back onto the “A” team.

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!

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.

Bosco didn’t eat his breakfast this morning, and I didn’t allow him to go on walkies, although he would have if I left the gate open. Last night was the first night I didn’t hear him snoring while he was sleeping; I didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t snoring. Bosco’s snore helps me to sleep.

I hope he’s okay.

The sled dogs involved were Simba, Peetie, Duke, Red, Storm, Rattles, Monkey, and others. There were a couple of spin-off fights: Monkey and Roo, Red and Higgs– but everyone seems to be okay.

I guess that’s his karma for putting a hole in his neighbor’s foot.

Vet update:

Levi had a huge sarcoma removed.

Chez has his mystery illness. Plus he got a hotspot, so both Chez and Levi are wearing helmets (e-collars). The Docs’ think the Chez has a c2-c3 lesion, which is affecting his respiratory drive and causing uneven pupils. This sucks. Chez is a really great dog– and started out as a great lead dog.

Chester had a 105.8 fever– very high. He has a urinary tract infection and is in the dumples.

Simba (or someone) has tapeworm. We bought a big tub of Panacur (which is good for lions, tigers, pumas, jaguars, cheetahs, panthers, leopards, grizzly bears, black bears, and my favorite pet– polar bears ) and will worm all of the stinkypups.

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!

I needed to go out of town for a few days and Greg was in charge of taking care of the gang. This means walking and feeding our 6 inside dogs in the morning and evening, feeding/watering the sled dogs in the morning, and having a sled dog puppy party in the evening.

A puppy party is lots of fun. We let all of the dogs off at one time so they can exercise and run around the yard. This is why we often have fights (e.g., Munkin (Monkey and Pumpkin) attacking Nutok, Munkin kicking Storm’s ass, Munkin beating the shit out of Scully, Munkin fighting with each other, etc.).

When Greg had his puppy party while I was gone, he was unable to catch Simba. Simba ran around the dog yard for two days and Greg decided to take action. He gave Simba some-doggie downers (ace-promazine) with the intent that Simba would fall asleep and he would be able to hook Simba up to his tie-out.

Turns out that Greg was unable to catch Simba the sleeping dog. Apparently, Simba was staggering around the dog yard. Whenever Greg noticed that Simba was resting, he’d go into the dog yard and all the dogs would bark, which in turn alerted Simba that Greg was around. Greg was unable to catch Simba and waited until I returned.