The
Journey Continues
August 25, 2006
“God will not look you over for
medals, degrees,
or diplomas, but for scars.” - Elbert Hubbard
On Friday August 18, 2006 Jeanne DeNapoli passed away unexpectedly
and we lost a very dear friend. She was a wonderful, vibrant woman
full of life, wisdom, humor, and hospitality. She will be deeply
missed. Our thoughts and prayers are with the DeNapoli family.
Friday was also Mocha’s birthday and Pat Schue, her sponsor,
came all the way from Ft. Worth to celebrate (ok, maybe she had
some work to do here also, but Mocha knows the real reason). Pat
was the nice lady who provided the blue neckerchiefs and booties
for the ceremonial start this year. On Sunday Pat had a group to
brunch and then we went to Mike and Mary Dillingham’s house
to meet Rivers and the gang (http://home.gci.net/~sleddog/).
After hearing about him for all these years it was nice to finally
meet the old boy.
We have been wondering what had happened to Worf since last December.
As a yearling, and two year old he easily made the team and was
a great wheel dog. Last fall he started the season strong on the
4-wheeler, but when we went to the sled he couldn’t keep up.
His gait looked awkward so I took him to the vet thinking he had
hurt himself somehow but we couldn’t find anything. This fall
we let Worf run the first two trips because he didn’t want
to be left behind and we hoped whatever bothered him last year had
healed. Last Thursday Worf looked so unhappy we left him at the
truck while the other dogs ran and then Bonnie took Worf home with
her to have some visitors who do acupuncture and massage have a
look at him. We were still thinking structural problems, but Bonnie
took him to her vet for blood work and poor Worf had very high cholesterol,
was slightly anemic, and had very low thyroid. The vet said that
he thought all Worf’s problems could be explained by the low
thyroid and we started him on supplements. We will recheck in 60
days, but Worf seems much more like his old self. If he wants too,
I’ll let him tryout for the team again.
The team is coming together nicely. There are no real surprises,
but both Bonnie and I think they are much stronger than they were
this same time last year. I don’t know if it is the cooler
weather this fall, the different diet this summer, the fact that
they are a year older, or the fact that they are mostly Iditarod
veterans, but there is a real difference. Normally we do 8 to 10
two mile runs waiting for the dogs to finish strongly before increasing
the distance. This year we went to 3.5 mile runs after just 4 two
mile runs and the dogs looked like they could do more. We have been
training three days / week for the last two weeks and will move
to 4 days next week. I’ll go to a Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday schedule giving them three days in a row, two days off,
one on and one off. The idea is to get closer to race conditions
where they will run several days in a row. Once they handle the
three days back to back, then we will move from the relatively flat
trails we are running to the much hillier five mile trail. At each
distance we want the dogs to finish strongly before going further.
Remember, while I am training to place well in the 2008 Iditarod,
the dogs are there to play. If I don’t keep it fun they will
not perform as well.
August is the rainy season in Anchorage with 2 ½ of our 15
annual inches coming then, but this is getting a little silly. While
we haven’t had near the rainfall that our friends in the Mat-Su
valley have endured, officially we are up over 6 inches and the
month isn’t over yet. My dog lot is starting to look like
the bottom of a very muddy lake. Yesterday I heard Bass and Lycos
arguing over the length of a cubit and just what was an ark supposed
to look like anyway. Platinum commented that Jeff King was swimming
his dogs ever day (http://www.cabelasiditarod.com/coverage_2007/cov07_aug11_01.html),
but Bass pointed out that was in a lake, not the dog lot.
Wednesday afternoon I noticed that Balu, even though he is neutered,
developed an erection. I have several girls in heat and wasn’t
too surprised (male dogs have an additional source of testosterone).
Thursday morning when we went to run it was still there. I took
him to the vet and they diagnosed a “prolapsed penis”.
Under anesthesia they were able to reduce the swelling and pull
the sheath back over the penis. The bad news is that if he develops
another erection it may happen again and the solution is a very
expensive and unpleasant surgery. So Balu is now housed with the
bachelor boys. He is out of action for a week while the swelling
goes down and we will say a couple of prayers for him.
This Saturday is the BBQ fund raiser at Trish and Dale’s home
and we are pretty excited about that. At the open house at Bonnie
and Jim’s before the race we had a tour bus show up. Bonnie
never knew she was a tourist attraction. I told Trish I can’t
promise the same tomorrow, but we will have fun none the less.
Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
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