Iditarod Musher Eric Rogers - R North Bound Dogs

IDITAROD 37
March 7th, 2009

::: Part of the Team, Part of the History, Part of the Greatness ::::

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"ROSEMARY"
Sponsored by
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"DiJon"
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Mary & Irving Horowitz

"ROM"
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"JEWELS"
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"DUKAT"
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"BASIL"
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Dale & Patricia Keefe

"DASH"
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Barbara &
Jerry Lake

"SISCO"
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Kathy and Terry Weaver

"KEIKO"
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A Rookies Journey
November 27, 2005

Well we made it through the week and last weeks question (whether to rest this week or next) has been answered. I debated back and forth right up to Monday morning and decided to run this week and rest next week because I lose two training days to the rookie meeting. But when I went out to the dog lot to feed I had 5 dogs (Keiko, Platinum, Bass, Balu, and Mocha) on three legs. Closer examination revealed that all 4 dogs had cut in a pad that went all the way through the pad and it just hurt to put that foot on the cold snow (the temperature had dropped over night). Change of plans! I got some pad healing salve and gave the dogs the week off to work on those feet.

SHEEP MOUNTAIN LODGE

The next plan was to go to Sheep Mountain lodge on Friday and Saturday night for back to back 30 mile runs on the Sheep Mountain 150 race trail. There is a great trail there that climbs Ballinger Pass and loops around Syncline Mountain. From the lodge it is about a 60 mile loop. Lexi and I had thought to leave the lodge, run about ½ way and camp for 6 hours and then finish the trail. We had talked to Sheep Mountain Lodge on Monday and they only needed a little more snow to put the trail in. We heard that it was snowing there late Wednesday and finalized our plans. We should have called the Lodge for an update before we drove up. They had the snow they needed, but hadn’t had the time to put the trail in. We asked Zack Steer about breaking some of the trail out with our dog teams, but he recommended against it. That country can drift in pretty good and he uses a snowmachine to put the trail in. From last year I remember it could be an interesting trail even then.

My Training Planner/Organizer.
An easy way to keep track of who's run.

So we quickly jump to plan C. We drove back to Beach Lake and ran two 10 dog teams for 30 miles on SLEDS. The first sled trip is always interesting. The snow is normally marginal and this run was no exception. The trail was well covered, but the snow hadn’t set well enough to hold our snow hook (parking brake on the sled). If everything is ok there is no problem and if you want to stop and check the dogs you tie a snub line to a tree. But if there is a problem it seldom happens with a tree nearby. Sure enough about 100 yards into the run, with the dogs almost foaming at the mouth because we hadn’t run all week, Sisco reached over and grabbed Jewels on the right rear leg. I had to stop the team (barely able to) and set the two snow hooks the best I could (I always set two) and go up and stop the fight and correct Sisco. Jewels seemed fine but as I walked back the dogs surged and pulled both snow hooks loose. Luckily I caught the sled as it went past and all was well.

One mile later Lycos (running lead) dropped back to stool and got tangled in the lines. Same story as before, set both hooks, undue the tangle, the dogs pull the hooks and I catch the sled as it goes by. I’m starting to wonder if this was a good idea after all and promptly catch a runner and roll the sled. This really needs to be seen to be fully appreciated. Picture the sled on its side with musher hanging on for dear life using as much of the English language as he can remember to convince the dogs to stop. My dogs being relatively well trained (and the fact that pulling a sled on its side dragging a musher is much harder than pulling it on the runners) the dogs finally stop. The musher catches his / her breath and as he rights the sled the dogs feel the release in tension and off they go. If you are lucky the sled is on its runners and the musher somehow climbs up off his knees and stands on the runners. If you are not lucky the sled rolls back onto its side and you get to practice this until you get it right. I really believe I could sell tickets to this show. Lexi had a nice clean run and finished in 4 hours. It took me 4:40. At 0430 Saturday morning I finally got everyone fed, back in the dog lot, and rolled into bed. It had been a very interesting day.

Due to the late hour we skipped Saturday and ran today (Sunday). Sunday we left Jewels and Tussock home to recover and ran two 9 dog teams. Lexi had the interesting run this time, rolling the sled right at the start of the run. Luckily she recovered well. I had a great run, seeing glimpses of a really nice working team. Don’t ask me why but today the same team, minus Jewels, did the same run in 3:40. That is a whole hour faster than we did it Friday night. Don’t you just love dogs.

Speaking of which, I have been having problems with some of the dogs eating their fat supplement. Unlike people, dog run very well on a fat based diet and fat is one of the best things to add (to a point) to their kibble to help them maintain weight while working hard. I’ve been working with Redpaw Oil blend and Caribou Creek Oil blend trying to find one all the dogs like. I’ve been pouring an ounce of oil blend in the dish and adding their kibble on top of it. Now I’ve got some dogs that will eat anything, but I’ve got others, like Dijon, that will eat their kibble around the oil, but will not touch any oil soaked kibble. I thought that if I let it go on long enough that Dijon would get hungry enough to eat it. No way! He lost so much weight that I really worried about him. This is a dog that will eat his own stool, but would rather starve that touch a single oil soaked kibble. I finally took the oil out of his diet and got his weight back up (his brother Java, sister Dash, and half sister Mocha had that same problem, but not as bad). So I emailed the folks that make Caribou Creek and they suggested freezing the oil blend and feeding it separate from the kibble. Now I don’t know why that changes anything but the entire team really seems to like the frozen fat – Dijon lunges for his fatcicle and will eat any that fall to the ground. Go figure…

Dash playing rubber dog as she sleeps
in her dog house.Is this a chiropractors
dream or nightmare?

Then Mocha has decided she doesn’t like her dog house. It’s 0 degrees and she is sleeping outside in the snow. Lot’s of my dogs sleep outside in the summer, but only Mocha is doing it now and she is losing weight. Hmmm, maybe she is allergic to the straw in the house. So I take the straw out (just flip the bottom of the house and dump the straw under it). Now Mocha drags some of the straw out from under the house and sleeps half under the house on the dumped straw. Crazy dog! So I know she likes the straw and put fresh straw (some of my dogs like this better than eating) in the dog house. It snows over a foot on the straw I dumped and Mocha still sleeps outside melting holes in the snow. Ok, I have one more idea. Most of my houses are the standard musher houses (see picture with Dash in house), but Rom has an old house I got from another musher. It’s basically a box with one side almost open. Since it sits flat on the ground I put it up on a pallet so Rom is off the cold ground. Since the whole side it mostly open, maybe Mocha will like this house better and I moved her there tonight. I checked on Mocha and she was sleeping outside the house, knowing how much she likes fresh straw, I put some in her new house. Silly dog stuck her nose in and checked it out, pulled out and looked at me. Then she leaned into the house as far as she could without putting a foot inside and stood there. Heaven only knows where she will choose to sleep tonight. Tune in next week for the answer.

Keep ‘em Northbound
Eric
Copyright © 2005
All rights reserved

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