Yes, the blue eyes will get you, and the “Alaskan huskie” started as a cross between the Siberian and the Malamute, with other breeds introduced to provide the current characteristics. Malamutes are the Clydesdales of sled dogs, and have their own pulling events. They were certainly more suited to the freight hauling after the temperatures dropped below -20°.
Yeah, listening to the wind on the second video and knowing that it represented -60° wind chills, does take the fun out of sledding, which is why I report from the Gulf Coast.
]]>malamutes are still my favorite of the sleddog breeds, but siberians really are the prettiest of all of them.
]]>My concern was that after all she had been through, she might be prevented from finishing because another dog stepped wrong. If the team is feel a bit off, or cranky, it might not want to climb into the wind.
I have been tracking the weather as well as the race, and the current from was building. It looked like it would arrive today, and it did. If it had arrived a bit earlier, the back four might have faced hell on that mountain.
I have been stuck there on Steese Highway when I was in the military at Eielson. We went nowhere for hours in a 10X10 truck waiting for the winds to die so we could see where we were going and have some idea where the road was under the drifts. Topo maps are your friend in cases like that.
Last year’s Red Lantern, Jocelyne LeBlanc, made it from Dawson to Whitehorse with 7 dogs, but that was going the other way with only Solomon’s Dome to climb.
Juanita, the vets determined that Geronomo died of Aspiration Asphyxia, gulping his food and breathing some of it. My family lost a German Shepherd that way. Most dogs just don’t chew their food. They try to take bites that they can swallow, and sometimes they take too much and it blocks the airway or some of it enters the lungs.
There is still no official cause of death for Taco, but I think most people assume it was an unknown heart defect of some kind. You would think that with as many vet checks that Taco has undergone over the years at races and from the kennel, someone would have caught it, but there were apparently no symptoms to see.
Dogs deaths are very unusual for the Quest, when compared to the Iditarod. It may simply be that so many more dogs run the Iditarod, or that the Quest gets better dogs competing because of the fewer checkpoints requiring hardier dogs. Having veteran mushers lose seasoned dogs doesn’t make a lot of sense.
]]>Bryan, have you heard any more about what happened to the two dogs that died? I know it just breaks their heart when that happens.
Hope to have more time to keep up with the Iditarod next month. My puppies should be weaned and on their way to adoption by then. What a job keeping up with remains of the day! With my business and their poop, I’m getting frazzled.
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