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OUR
2008/2009
DOG SPONSORS
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Journey Continues
October 22, 2006
"The majority of people meet with
failure because they lack the persistence to create new plans to
take the place of failed plans." – Mark Victor Hansen
The trail at Eklutna
starts flat then becomes hilly for the next 6 miles and finally
flat again for the last 5, then you turn around and come back. Sunday
we did our first run at Eklutna for the year combining it with our
long slow run for the week for 25 miles with 12 miles of hills.
I think we overdid things just a little for some of the dogs. Bass
was running lead for Bonnie and Leslie and began stopping to pee
on the hills. This is a bad habit of his and Bonnie moved him back
to team. I was running Balu and Basil in lead and they performed
well, but everybody was tired by the time we got back to the truck.
They had Monday off and Tuesday we ran Eklutna again, but only 20
miles (our nominal distance for the week). This time I ran Bass
and could see that on the way back he was running out of gas. Dijon
was so tired coming back that he didn’t finish his meal.
The good news is Sunday there were lots
of people, 4-wheelers, and loose dogs on the trail and both teams
passed everything without a problem. They pulled hard on the hills
on the way out and looked good – I just ran them too far for
the first time on the hills. Lycos and Rosemary were running together.
After the run I feed the dogs in harness, just like I will on a race.
Lycos always finished first and looked at Rosemary’s dish. She
growled at him to leave it alone, then she picked her dish up by the
edge and held it so he couldn’t get to it. She is such a character.
Wednesday was our camping trip and we were back to the Beach Lake
/ Ft Richardson trails and large mud puddles. We have been meeting
at 8:30 AM to run, but Wednesday we waited until Bonnie got off work.
I had forgotten how much the dogs liked to run in the evening. It
was just getting dark as we left and this tired looking dog team was
pumped and pulling hard. I was riding the brake in 2nd gear on all
the downhills, frequently locking the wheels as the dogs drug me along.
Running the 4-wheeler at night you frequently see light for a headlight
reflecting high in the trees, like an oncoming vehicle coming uphill
at you, but there is nobody there. I took me a long time to realize
the headlight on my 4-wheeler will hit the puddles and reflect off
into the tops of the trees.
About 7 miles into a 15 mile run, Lycos and Mocha (in lead) dove off
the road and into the trees. My first thought was moose. I called
them back, but they resisted. I was almost ready to get off the 4-wheeler
when they came back onto the trail and off we went. I was still thinking
moose and radioed Bonnie and Leslie that something was in the woods
and to watch as they passed, but they made it without incident. My
dogs were pulling hard and soon outdistanced Bonnie’s team.
About a mile later something just didn’t
look right. I stopped the dogs and checked my leaders. Lycos was standing
on three legs covered in quills. It wasn’t a moose, it was a
porcupine! His left foot was covered, his chest was pretty bad and
lots of quills on both legs. I tried to work on him, but the Mocha
and the team were slamming their harnesses still wanting to run. Leslie
and Bonnie caught up. Between the three of us we took Lycos off the
gangline, held him, and started removing quills. He was such a great
dog, he stood there a let us. When we got to a particularly painful
one he would whimper and try move away. We worked on him with my leatherman
for an hour, removing close to 200 quills. Poor guy. Then Leslie,
riding on the back of Bonnie’s machine, carried Lycos back to
the truck. It took another hour and Leslie said that Lycos insisted
on looking forward, resting his head on Bonnie’s shoulder.
That ended the camping trip. My vet has emergency hours until 1AM
during the week. After feeding everyone I took Lycos in. Even with
all that work the vet found 4 more quills, then when she was done
I found another that she had missed. Thursday night (a day later)
I found 6 more that were deep enough they probably were hidden by
the swelling. Lycos had a spot on his leg that looked like a pavement
burn, but was just were we had pulled about 50 quills. Can you believe
the poor dog ran a mile with those quills, pulling hard and never
complaining? That is a tough dog.
It was 1:30 AM before I got to bed. When I got up Thursday morning,
Keiko, Dijon, and Thyme were all holding their right rear legs off
the ground. Keiko had done this twice before and last time was laid
off for 10 days. What are the odds that all three dogs would have
the same injury? Friday I took all three dogs to the vets. Both Thyme
and Dijon had torn a piece of their pad off. This is a common injury
this time of year as we run over ice on the puddles, but I sure felt
dumb for not catching it myself. We are not sure about Keiko, but
think she pulled a groin muscle and needs more time to rest. The prescription
was to not run her two days in a row, but only 3 days a week for a
while. I’m only training one team, so I don’t have a puppy
team or an older team running shorter distances for her to run with.
The solution is to carry her for the first part of the run (when everyone
is crazy to go) and let her run when the first burst of energy is
gone. We want to ease her back to running the distances the team is.
I need to rethink my training plan and give the dogs an easier week
to recover before we jump back in. The goal is to have them comfortable
with back to back 60 mile runs over mountain passes before the Sheep
Mountain 150 on December 16 -17.
I’m worried about the dogs being overrun and not recovering.
I go out to check on the dogs and Rosemary has dug a body sized cave
extension to the big hole in her area. Then I watched her pick up
her water dish by the rim and dump it. Twice! She is bored and desperately
looking for something to do. Bass and 7 of 9 are content to lie on
top of their dog houses and rest. But the young kids want to run.
I’ve been told that most mushers expect too little of their
dogs. Then they over compensate and ask too much. The ones that learn
to back off just a little from asking too much become champions.
Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
© 2006 All rights reserved
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OUR
2008/2009 RACE
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Have
you ever wanted to be part of the Iditarod adventure
but didn't
know how? Help support Eric Rogers Iditarod team
by joining the
2008-2009 season Rogers Rangers. Just $30 buys you
a bootie worn by the
team, a 2008 Rookie season musher card, and a signed
certificate of
membership. All funds go to support Eric's 2009
Iditarod. For your
convenience we now take credit cards through PayPal.
All donations
gratefully accepted.
Thank
you for your support.
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OUR
2008/2009
DOG SPONSORS
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"THROTTLE"
Sponsored by
Karen
Lederhost
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"THYME"
Sponsored by
Penny, Dennis,
& Adam Sputh
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"PLATINUM"
Sponsored by
Pat Ford
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"MOCHA"
Sponsored by
Pat Schue
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"LYCOS"
Sponsored by
Muzzy's
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"BASS"
sponsored by
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