This is what happens when a little fuzzball pisses off a husky:
The vet had to staple this wound up and put in a drain tube for a couple days.
Of course, it happened shortly before we had to go to Gwinn for the race, so he spent a lot of time in the truck while he still had his drain tube in.
The drain tube after we removed it. Its about four and a half inches long. EEWWWW.
Hard to get a good pic, but you can kinda see the staples. He's lucky to be alive-it was very close to his jugular. He's been a very good, easy patient, though.
Normally, all the house dogs get along just fine, but the dog that is pretty new to our house hold, Tika, went into heat and everything just went nuts around here. No more problems with fighting since, though, and we are being very careful now, keeping them separated or supervised as needed.
We traveled with our new trailer over to Gwinn, Michigan so Jeremy could race the Jack Pine 30, which was a 26 mile, six dog race included in the U.P. 200 and Midnight Run weekend in Marquette, Michigan. He decided to run Thunder, George, Scout, Hail, Scooby Doo, and Chico. They came in 10th out of 15 with a time of 2:45:56 for the 26 miles. We are happy enough with that time, as we were expecting it to only be 18 miles and only found out it would be 26 miles at the musher meeting an hour and a half before the race start. We have mostly been training only about 20 miles and the dogs actually hadn't run at all for a week prior to the race because our trailer broke and we bought a different trailer and were working on it for the whole week before and literally up until the time we left on Friday morning to head over to Gwinn. We went over Friday so that we could watch the start of the Midnight Run Friday night, then stay over and be at the musher meeting at 8 am on Saturday, then the race start at 9:30 am. After the teams headed out on the trail, us handlers had to drive the trucks to the other end of the course to meet them.
At the finish.
After the race-we had to park the dog trucks on the side of a highway, but it worked out okay.
George.
The trailer worked out nice on its maiden voyage-about 300 miles there and back, plus some driving around while we were over there. It started out a long time ago as a pop up camper, but had long since been gutted to be a hauling trailer. We had our eye on it for a while, because we really want a bigger trailer with two axles and enough room for more dogs and to haul four wheeler(s) or snowmobile(s). When our small trailer's bearings went out when we drove it to Marenisco about a week and a half ago, we decided to just go buy this trailer. The guy we bought it from had built a little shack on it, for what, I don't know, but the first thing we did was remove it, which meant we unfastened it and pushed it off the back.
You can see the shack laying upside down behind the trailer-forgot to take a pic before, but I think you can get the idea.
Jeremy had to build a frame for under the dogbox to get it up above the wheel wells of the trailer.
We had Jeremy's two brothers come over to help move the extremely heavy dogbox over to the new trailer. Futuer plans are to build a single row of boxes on the back, and build the frame of it up to support four wheelers ar snowmobiles on top of it.
So, finally, after 12 years of having sled dogs, Jeremy entered his first race. He raced the six dog sportsman class at the Apostle Islands Sled Dog Race in Bayfield, Wisconsin. Its a little over 18 miles a day for two days, and he took seventh out of 16 overall. We are pleased with the results, the dogs did well for their first time under any kind of pressure. Racing is different from training. The dogs have to deal with crowds of people at the starting chute, and at different spectator spots along the trail, along with all the other teams on the trail and in the parking lot. It was also very warm, 40 degrees or so with the sun shining the whole time, so that was added stress, but they all did well and finished both days happy and healthy, which is what we really wanted.
Jeremy eating some snacks before the big start.
Our friend, Matt, in the chute of his race, the 6 dog pro, about 30 miles a day for 2 days. He took 4th place.
Matt's daughter, Mallory, also ran the 6 dog pro and took 5th place.
Jeremy's team in the chute day 1-I'm holding the leaders.
Jeremy leaving the chute day 1- leaders-George, Thunder, team-Hail, Scout, wheel-Chico,Aspen
My sister, Jennifer, and my dad, came out to see the race on Saturday, along with friends, Joe, and his girlfriend, Shauneah. After Jeremy left the start, we all drove out to a nice spot about halfway through his race to get some pics and video of him going by.
From left-Jennifer, Joe, my dad in the chair, and Shauneah. The weather was so nice and warm for the spectators, but it was too warm for the dogs.
Jeremy coming through the spectator spot-looking good.
In chute day 2.
Leaving chute day 2-leaders-Aspen, Thunder, team-Scout, Hail, wheel-George, Chico.
He had to stop and switch leaders out on both days- starting with Scout in team both days and putting her in lead replacing George on day one and Aspen on day two. Guess he should have started with Scout in lead, but she had seemed so nervous before the race, we weren't sure she'd be able to handle it, seems we were wrong! He also managed to actually roll his sled taking a corner on the first day, but held on and didn't lose the team. His overall time for about 37 miles total for the two days was 3:33:03, which is pretty good for our dogs, they are not super fast race dogs, so we are happy with it. The next adventure is in two weeks-he entered the Jack Pine 30, which starts in Gwinn, MI, and ends in Marquette, MI, and starts the day after the UP 200 and Midnight Run starts.
