I was headed out for a 30ish mile mush. The line up was:
- Lead: Decker and Roo
- Point: Stormy and Frankie
- Swing: Asa and Higgs
- Wheel: Rattles and Simba
As soon as I got to our access trail I saw another team ahead of me. I slowed down, stopped the team, and hooked in. I didn’t want to be on the other team’s ass while going down an icy hill. I waited several minutes and then…”ready, let’s go”…we were off.
When I got to the bottom of the hill it was time to pass. The musher in front of me didn’t know I was behind them. I started to pass them and half way through Rattles attacked the leader of the other team. Shit! Rattles and Simba and Frankie were all attacking my neighbor’s new dog, Starving Marvin. My neighbor and I got everyone to stop fighting. We then had to untangle everyone. Actually she only had four well behaved dogs, it was my team that needed untangling. While she was tending to her team, I tended to mine. Each time I got Decker and Roo untangled and I went to untangle the next set of dogs, Decker and Roo turned around and got everyone tangled again. This happened at least 4 times before I switched Decker with Storm. The problem was that my lead dogs weren’t “lining out” (holding their line tight and staying up front). I thought Storm would be better at lining out than Decker. I was wrong. Finally, my neighbor was finished fixing her team and was nice enough to hold my lead dogs while I untangled the rest of the team, then…”ready, let’s go.”
We were off…only to run into a big truck in the middle of the trail. Yes, a huge pickup truck. The owner of the property was out cutting wood. His three dogs were loose ready to pounce my team. Luckily, the dude saw me, pulled over so I could get by, and waved. I waved back. It’s nice to have friendly neighbors.
So, now we’re really ready to go…until I saw another musher coming towards me. This is usually no big deal, but we ended up passing on a narrow bridge. I was telling my leaders to go onby when the other musher said, “wait, my dog is attacking one of yours.” Sure enough, her dog had his teeth sunk into Frankie’s neck. All I could think of was Rattles and Simba joining the fight, and I pushed them away. The other musher (my other neighbor) got her dog off of Frankie. By then all of my dogs were totally tangled. Sigh. I wanted her to go onby so the dogs wouldn’t fight (they were still right next to each other), but I think she was untangling my dogs, so I pushed my sled off of the bridge. Higgs and Sima had already fallen off the bridge. My neighbor helped untangle the dogs and I tried pushing the sled out of the frozen creek. I couldn’t push the sled myself, I needed my dogs to pull. I ran up to Storm and Roo and said, “Girls, I know you’re tangled, but you need to pull, ready, let’s go.” The girls and the rest of the team pulled and I pushed the sled and we popped the sled out of the ditch. Yippie. My drag pad broke and my neighbor gave me a wrench to fix things while she untangled the rest of my team and held my leaders. Note: her team was lined out the entire time.
When everything was sorted out and we were ready to go guess who comes along? Greg! He had a team of ten. He saw us and stopped ahead. My neighbor had run up to her team to get going. I was ready to go, but Storm and Roo and the gang turned the team around again. Sigh. We were once again in a big tangle.
While I was untangling dogs, my neighbors dogs attacked Duke, Greg’s lead dog. When the fight was over, my neighbor went on her way and Greg came to help me untangle. Finally, we were ready to go again.
The dogs were really fast. We took the first gee (right) and I stayed low. We went through the small turns on the base line trail. Then came an intersection. I wanted to go onby, but Roo dragged the team to the left. I fell off the sled and went for a short drag. I was able to stop the team and get back on.
The rest of the run was uneventful. I decided to cut my run short because Higgs wasn’t keeping up with the rest of the team.
When we got home Greg was soaking in the hot tub. Even though most of the dogs had run today, I had a puppy party. Everything was just swell. Then Levi wanted to eat a frozen poopsicle. It happend to be Red’s poopsicle. Red attacked Levi; and so did Rattles, Simba, Duke, Frankie, and Peetie. I was screaming at the dogs, but they wouldn’t stop attacking Levi. Greg heroically jumped out of the tub, ran into the dog yard, and broke up the fight while he was garbed in slippers and a towel at minus 10 degrees. He carried Levi into the house.
Levi ended up going to the after hours vet and getting lots of stitches. He’s in pretty bad shape, so he’ll get to stay inside for a while.
Oh, I called the neighbor of the first fight, the one my dogs started, and her dogs were fine. Turns out she got Starving Marvin from the other neighbor (the one whose dogs attacked mine).
So, is this Karma?
A. Frankie (Simba and Rattles) => attack Starving Marvin (owned by Neighbor 1; previously owned by Neighbor 2)
B. Neighbor 2’s dog => attack Frankie
and poor Levi got his ass kicked by everyone. Levi’s karma is that he’ll be a permanent house dog…if he wants to stay inside.