Welcome Strider / Tweek!

Tweek taking a nap

Yep, you guessed it, we have another addition to Lagniappe Kennel -- a wonderful dog that belonged to Eric Rogers of R Northbound Dogs . His name is Strider, and he's a two year old (will be three in March) who was having trouble keeping up with Eric's Iditarod team this year. We decided to give him a try in our team and see how he liked things. So far, so good! We ran him 20+ miles yesterday and he seemed to fit in very well. He was a cinch to harness, line out, and run -- he kept his tug tight and was a real cheerleader whenever we stopped.

Eric reported that Strider (we call him "Tweek" after the Southpark character who can't sit still) was very much "his own dog" (i.e., very independent). He's a very sweet guy but he seems to lack focus. We've decided to keep him in the house as much as possible in an attempt to get him to really bond with us and pay more attention to humans. I don't think he had ever been inside before, but he's adjusting pretty well, even settling down for a nap when nothing is going on.

Tweek is a Lance Mackey breeding (Thunder x Nasty) and is unrelated to the rest of the dogs in our kennel, although he looks very much like Zed.

A Fun Run in Kasilof

Bree smiles for the camera as we get ready to go

Getting ready to pull the hook

Well, dear reader, Wolf has gone home to the Littles' house! Yes, that's right, he was totally healed as of his last vet visit and got a clean bill of health. We drove him down to Jon and Bree on Saturday and used the trip as an opportunity to get out on some new trails with our own dogs. Many thanks to Jon and his handler Josh for showing us the 20 mile loop from Jon's house. It was a bit rough but was loads of fun! I was only able to snap some pictures as the sun was dipping behind the horizon -- it seemed to be the only part of the trail smooth enough that I could fish the camera out and take some photos. Zed and Clover are in lead, followed by Zinger and three of Jon's yearlings that ran the Sheep Mountain 150 just a few weeks ago. 6 dogs total and we were cruisin' at a pretty nice speed!

Enjoy!

A Little Update

It's been a while since I posted a blog update so I figured it was high time to let you know what we've been up to! The weather here has been really crummy, with highs just above freezing. This has turned our roads and trails into icy runways that can be quite dangerous to those who aren't wary. Nevertheless, our runs have been averaging about 17 miles, thanks to Matt, who has been putting in most of the hours training the pups.

Interestingly, Zed has been laid off for a week due to an apparent lower back soreness problem that has cropped up twice within the last few weeks. No problem, right? Well, no, if you consider that Zed is my only experienced leader (now that Balu is retired to being a yard Nazi) then it poses a potential problem. That means I have youngsters up in the front of the team! Zak and Skiff have really stepped up to the plate in this situation, running lead together and proving to us that they do know their gee-haw commands, and how to head-on pass. I've been really impressed, as we are running them without necklines, so when you call a command you really get to see both of them respond individually without interference from the other. Pretty neat!

The Sheep Mountain 150 is this weekend and I plan on going to watch. The entry field is full of top-knotch contenders so it should be a fun race. Matt has volunteered to help out in the race so he'll be working at the start and the Eureka checkpoint. I'll try to take photos this weekend and post them to the blog!

Until then, think snow!

Another Eventful Week and a Wolf Update

Zed (foreground) and File' (back left). Think they're related??

All of the dogs tethered. Wow!

The last week has been pretty action-packed. I had a dog run away, we had our first run on sleds, my sister-in law came for a visit, and Wolf had his splint removed, just to name a few things that happened. I guess I shouldn't just lump that all into one sentence and should expand a little bit. :)

As for having a dog run away, the run last week should have started out well. It really should have -- I was prepared to the T even though I was running without the aid of Matt (who was out of town). Well we made it to the trails uneventfully, at least. But that's about where it ended.

Bonnie decided to join me and ride on the back of the ATV for the short, 5 mile run that I had planned. Because she's not too familiar with my dogs and where I usually put them in the team, I hooked up mostly by myself. There must have been a dog in heat in the staging area before us because I simply could not get Zed to focus. He wandered around sniffing here and there and managed to wrap the entire team around the pole at the staging area rather than keeping them lined out like he was supposed to. I, being my brilliant self, decided that the tangle was too complex and I needed to start undoing tug lines. Zed was first, and I turned him loose because he wouldn't go anywhere. I thought. I looked up to see that he was trotting away, down the trail away from me. DRAT! I threw the rest of the dogs back onto the drop chains and took off down the trail on foot trying to get Zed to come back, to no avail. About halfway to the point where I turned around, I was tackled from behind. What the ???? It was Clover, she had gotten loose from Bonnie and had come bounding down the trail after me. Oh great, another loose dog! Well, lucky for me that Clover used to be Ruth Iten's loose walking dog. She followed me right back to the ATV where I decided I'd go look for Zed. Just about the time I got all of the dogs unhooked from the ATV, I turned around to find Zed milling around in the midst of them. UGH. I was absolutely disgusted and I told him so!

We hooked up and took off for a nice run that included a same-direction pass of a Siberian team. I'm not sure who it was but it was no trouble at all and made me breathe a sigh of relief that at least something went right.

Later that night I decided to bring a dog in for some one-on-one time. I picked Skiff because the other dogs had been beating up on her, and I thought she deserved a confidence boost. Skiff is an interesting dog. She seems almost skittish, but she's really not, she's just confidently cautious. She's not scared in the least. New situations don't seem to bother her, and being inside was certainly no exception. I left her loose and didn't really pay too much attention to where she was or what she was doing. After about half an hour, I realized I hadn't seen her anywhere or heard her at the other end of the house. Where was she? I peeped in my bathroom and, lo and behold, Skiff was there, in the bathtub, making herself perfectly comfortable. What in the world?? I picked her up and took her out of the tub but it seemed that she wanted to be somewhere secure (high?) because she immediately climbed onto the bathroom counter top. Silly, silly dog! I relieved her by taking her back outside and she immediately went into her dog house. I just never know what they're thinking.

Skiff in the tub

Skiff on the counter top!

Several days later I learned that my sister-in-law, Rachel, would be coming up to Alaska for a whirlwind visit. Well, I thought to myself, this calls for breaking out the sled! There is still not enough snow in Chugiak to use the sled, so away we went to Nancy Lake, about an hour North of us. I put Rachel in the sled and we ran 9 miles on a closed, unplowed road. To say that it was snowing a little would be an understatement -- there was a veritable blizzard going on! It was so hard to see that I had to pull my hood down as far as it would go and stare at my wheel dogs rather than look where we were going. Never fear, Zed was in lead (with Clover) and I didn't think he'd lead us astray. He didn't disappoint.

Rachel and me before heading up to Nancy Lake

The sled post-run


Rachel post-run

Off the topic of my own dogs, it's time for an update on Wolf! He is doing so fantastically well that he doesn't even have a splint on anymore. His pressure sores from his bandage are healing very nicely and his fur is beginning to come back where they shaved him for his surgery. Every night Wolf gets to spend a few hours without his "hat" (his Elizabethan collar) on. I don't think he really needs it anymore, but until those wounds are totally healed, I'll keep it on him just to be on the safe side.

With so much time in his kennel, Wolf probably has a lot to think about -- like how he'd like to collect things off of the floor in the bedroom and stash them in his crate. Seriously. The other morning I found him with a hat and one of my slippers. He was babysitting them in his crate and looked pretty disappointed that I took them away from him. Silly dog. I'm so proud of him for being such a trooper through this whole ordeal. Here's hoping he makes someone a fantastic recreational sled/bed dog!

Wolf with his loot (my pink slipper and a hat)

Until next time...

Bad things come in threes?

Well when it rains, it pours. It's been a pretty eventful week and maybe, just maybe the bad stuff is over with by now. Here's hoping, anyway.

Last Thursday Matt and I were excited to get out to the trails right after work. We were so efficient getting the dogs brothed, then loaded and out to Beach Lake Trails that we were there by about 6:40. After getting everyone unloaded and on their drop chains, I went back to the ATV to crank it up, only to find that something wasn't working quite right. The throttle seemed to be stuck and I couldn't get it to move for anything. Oh brother, it was frozen. Sigh. With a little help from Eric, who happened to also be at the trails, we all stood around and put our warm hands on the part that we thought was frozen -- the cable. As long as the choke was on, the ATV would idle but the throttle still wouldn't move. After a few minutes, the boys felt something "give" in the throttle and all of the sudden the ATV roared to life -- but this time the throttle was stuck OPEN! Thank goodness the ATV was in neutral because it was screaming wide-open and after a few minutes of letting it run this way, hoping that whatever was frozen would thaw, the exhaust began to glow a red-hot orange color. Uh-oh, time to shut it off!!

After some standing around scratching our heads, we decided to put our dogs on Eric's drop chains on his truck and to head to our friends' house and pick up their ATV to use instead. After all, we already had gone to the trouble to get all of the dogs out there and harnessed; we might as well run them. Eric didn't mind us leaving our dogs on his truck, so off we went to Bonnie and Jim's place where we picked up their giant trailer with their dog boxes and their ATV on it. We looked like a train coming down the road!! Our poor little Dodge Dakota had no problem pulling the trailer but it looked pretty overwhelmed by its size.

We had a false start on our way to the trail, as we forgot to take our lines off of our ATV and there were no lines on Bonnie's ATV, so we had to turn around and go back to get them. Finally we made it to the trails and got in an uneventful 8 mile run with a really, really nice ATV (so much that I felt spoiled by it.) Then it was back to Bonnie's to drop off their trailer and pick up ours. We rolled into our house at around 11 pm and were some really tired puppies.

I neglected to mention that when we got back from running the dogs, Eric wandered over and pointed at Zak and File' and said
"Was one of these dogs tied at the back of the truck?"
"Yep" I answered. "Why?"
"Because someone ate the wires to the trailer and the plug and the wires to the truck."

Uh-oh. That would be File', miss puppy who cannot keep her mouth out of trouble. Hmm. Well that gave me cause for concern, as I thought that what she ate would probably be passed in her stool but I wasn't sure. File that one away for another day......and homeward we went.

On Saturday we took the dogs out for a really fun 9 miler on the newly-repaired ATV. It was a glorious evening and we really had a good time just being with the dogs. That is, until we got home. When I wandered into the house, I noticed that there was a big, empty bottle sitting in the middle of the floor. Hmm. What's this? Advil?? ADVIL????!????! One of the dogs ate Advil! Who ate it????? There was orange vomit scattered throughout the living room, pointing to the fact that someone was already sick from it. But who? There were three dogs loose in the house and any one of them, or all of them, could have partaken. To the bathroom we went with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and everyone got dosed to induce vomiting. Picture it: three dogs throwing up all at once. It's a winner, I tell ya.

Only Dollar showed any signs of having eaten the Advil, so to the emergency vet we went at 10:00 PM on a Saturday night. Yeah, you know that one's gonna set you back a pretty penny. We trucked into Anchorage in a huge hurry because Advil can be very, very toxic to dogs, especially having effects on kidney and liver function. Within an hour she was on IV fluids and was under observation for the next two days.

So I thought that we had gotten the bad stuff out of our system.......but remember when File' ate the trailer wires??? Yep. You guessed it. On Sunday night, I looked outside to find her moping in her circle, clearly looking unwell.

Indoors she came for some R&R in the heated house, but still she was listless and she showed no interest in food. She would drink water but would simply throw it up within minutes. I was very worried that she had an obstruction, so first thing on Monday morning, to our normal vet we went with File' in tow. GOOD LORD I am getting tired of going to the vet!!

After some barium, x-rays, blood work and a bout of diarrhea, the doc concluded that File' actually has coccidia. Apparently all dogs carry coccidia, but young, stressed dogs can have bouts with infection and can become pretty seriously sick from it. This is not to say that File' doesn't also have something funny like trailer wires in her stomach (she might still) but she definitely has coccidia that are upsetting her GI tract and have her stomach and intestines all inflamed. (Rolling eyes) WHAT ELSE????

That wasn't a dare, I swear. I'm perfectly content with this set of three bad things. Let's not start another set!!!

On a different note, Wolf is doing very well. Thanks all of you well-wishers out there. :) He has a checkup tomorrow and I'll update the blog when we get word on how his recovery is progressing!

Until then - tootles!

Back in the A-K!

Matt and I recently returned from a little over a week-long trip to the lower 48. The time away was refreshing and rejuvenating but I was glad to get back and see my pooches. I think they were pretty happy to see us, too!

We got in pretty late on Saturday night (got home around 1 AM) but Sunday morning we were up and at 'em early. After busily unpacking for a few hours, we checked on all of the dog equipment which was now covered in a thick blanket of snow. The ATV, amazingly, started right up and Matt took it up the hill twice just to run it a little bit without any dogs in front. Later in the afternoon we went to pick up an intriguing visitor who is scheduled to stay with us for a while -- Wolf. Wolf is from Jon Little's kennel. He is one of the survivors of the unfortunate incident that Jon experienced a few weeks ago. If you don't know about it, check out Jon's blog at http://jonlittle.wordpress.com/

Wolf is supposed to stay off of his feet for the next 3 months and that's where we come in. Jon and Bree didn't have a suitable place to keep him sequestered easily at their house, so we've agreed to keep him as an indoor house "pet" for the duration of his recovery. He has several checkups scheduled for the next few weeks, so we'll keep you updated on hir progress as we find out more about how he is healing.

Welcome Bowie! And Indi looking for a Pet Home

Please welcome our newest (and hopefully last, for a while) addition to Lagniappe Kennel -- Bowie! Bowie is from the kennel of Jon and Bree Little of Kasilof, Alaska. She is out of Jon's "Adidas" (see below) and Jeff King's "Tater". I don't know too much about Tater except that he was highly regarded by Jeff's handlers. Adidas was one of the dogs that Jeff leased from Jon for the 2008 Iditarod -- in fact, she ran the race 1 month pregnant (ladies, that would be like you being 5 months pregnant!)

Here is a little info on Adidas:

(from Jon's website http://kasilofkennel.bravehost.com/dogs/dogs2008.html)

Adidas-- Leader

Iditarod finisher

Age: 4

Female

She's a big female, and the first pup I chose in a litter split with Dean Osmar, partly because of her intensity, partly for her size and partly because those sad-looking eyes remind me of her mother, Kazan. She's been described by another musher as having "a head full of rocks" but she isn't stupid, just head strong. If that toughness can be harnessed, she may prove valuable.

Hopefully Bowie will prove to be similar to her very valuable momma! She is already showing great promise. We put her in team for the first time at the tail end of a run (2 miles left) last night and she took to running like a fish to water. She looked like a little rabbit running down the trail alongside Balu. She's got a little something special about her -- you can tell. Look for great things from this little gal!

In other news, our own Indigo ("Indi") is looking for a new home -- someplace that will spoil him silly and treat him like the wonderful pet that he is. Indi has decided that he would rather lounge around than run (which is fine with me, I certainly won't make him run) so we're looking for a great family for him to spend time with. He's 4 years old, up to date on shots, loves to give kisses, knows how to sit and usually comes when called. He's a real lover. He might like to skijor at a back country pace. He definitely would love to be a walking buddy. If you are interested in Indi, please email me at Leslie@lagniappekennel.com and put "Indi" in the subject line. Indi has flown in an airplane before, so he should be fine to be shipped. An application, small adoption fee, and references will be required.