A Handler’s Perspective
by Bonnie Foster
10/13/2006

Mud season is in the air….the leaves have turned their beautiful colors and are now resting on the ground, There is mud everywhere. There are muddy paw prints on the cars and the dog truck. There are mud holes that are 3 feet deep. The mud puddles are sometimes 20-25 ft long and 15 ft across. None of the dogs particularly like going through the mud puddles. They do so grudgingly because that is what is what we ask and we ask it because it cools them down when they are hot.. The dogs know that the snow will fall soon. The temperatures, although they have been unceasingly warm this year, are telling them that the good times are coming. This season we are running 2 larger teams on the ATV’s. It can make for great fun going merrily down the trail. It is like being in a mud wrestling contest without any prizes and wearing long underwear and sweaters, and rain gear instead of bikinis. The dogs drip mud off of their coats, we drip mud off of our coats, the ATV’s drip mud off of their bodies. Amazingly enough, the dogs are dry and have shed 95% of all the mud by the time we reach home. I do not use a dog box until it is sled time as the dog box goes on the trailer where the 2 ATV’s sit, and I transport all 6 dogs in my minivan…..It is pretty amazing…..Some of the puddles that we go through reach all the way up to almost the top of the wheels of the ATV’s. Because it is mostly glacial flour it is sharp and grainy and desiccating on your skin. It gets into everything. It actually comes from the rocks that are ground up from glaciers long ago. It is slimy and slippery and slurpy and gooey. It gets into everything from eyelashes to inside your mouth. The wheel dogs sling it back into your face as you run down the trails, the lead dogs sling mud back on the swing dogs and each succeeding pair toss it back to the ones behind. All dogs are mud colored…..They black dogs are mud colored, the white dogs are mud colored and the brown dogs are mud colored. The mushers are mud colored. The red and green ATV’s are mud colored. The harnesses need be washed each time we go out because we have that special Alaska sort of mud. It takes me washing them 4 times and 8 rinses to completely rid the harnesses of the mud and grit. If they are not free of grit, they will rub against the dogs fur and cause an irritating harness rub. If they wear a shirt under their harness, it needs to be washed. The ganglines, tuglines, and necklines need to be washed to prevent the grittiness from tearing the braided rope apart. The ATV’s need to be washed so the mud does not build up on the engine. The house sled/bed dogs need to be washed so they can snooze on the couch. All the clothes need to be washed so they can once again get muddy…….The sun needs to shine to dry up the mud. The temperatures need to drop so the mud will freeze. The snow needs to fall to cover the mud and make the land beautiful again. Everyone will be happy again. The dogs will rejoice in the snow, the mushers will rejoice, the handlers will rejoice…..Bonnie