Love Is In The Air
Both Lance Mackey and Karen Ramstead have a “problem”.
Karen’s problem is much worse that Lance’s as 7 of her dogs have gone into heat on the trail, which leads to major complications whenever the team stops.
Lance only has one dog in heat, but it’s Maple, his go-to lead dog.
The boys are not thinking about racing.
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Scott Janssen, ‘the Mushing Mortician’, had to give CPR to Marshall, a 9-year-old on his last Iditarod. Janssen, a funeral director, said that while the team was descending the Dalzell Gorge, Marshall just fell over, and wasn’t breathing when Janssen got to him. Chest compression and mouth-to-snout breathing got him going again, but Marshall rode in the sled bag to Rohn where the vets took over.
Best guess is a heart problem of some kind. Marshall is heading back to Anchorage and retirement.
4 comments
I’m sorry. I love my kittehs, but if one of them falls over I am *not* going to try mouth-to-snout breathing to get their ticker going again. Catfood breath. Ick!
My best guess is that Scott Jansen loves his dogs way more than any sensible person loves his animals. And idiot animal rights activists whine about how these dogs are “abused”? Really?!
– Badtux the Astonished Penguin
There is a lot of ‘first aid’ that you have to learn if you are going to be a musher on anything other than a sprint course. You have to become part of the ‘pack’ to control the dogs. You hear mushers, including Josh Cadzow who is competing this year, talk about failing their dogs with a bad decision. The dogs have to trust you, they aren’t ‘wage slaves’ like humans. If you don’t treat them properly, they won’t work for you.
Cats are a lot easier for CPR than dogs, and dogs are easier than adult humans. You don’t think, you just do.
Face it – if you don’t love it, there is no way you are going to camp out with about a dozen dogs in freezing weather for two weeks.
7 of her dogs have gone into heat
Good grief! Really? 7? I can only imagine…
Actually, would that be something like a canine rolling wh…no…no…I didn’t say that.
How exactly does one give “mouth to snout” anyway. If it happened to me, I would probably be startled enough to try anything. Bet Badtux would, too 🙂
You hold the mouth closed with your hand and blow into the nostrils. Actually into the circle formed by your thumb across the top of the snout and your index finger around the bottom while the other three fingers do most of the work. That way you to get a seal and it’s more effective. You are then free to do chest compressions with your other hand.
Having raised dogs, and being around cats that have gone into heat, they have my deepest sympathies.