Making the cuts….
As followers of my journal know, I took 23 dogs
up to Alaska with me and now need to pick 16 to
make up my ’07 Iditarod team. The task is
proving to be unbelievably difficult, but I have
narrowed it down to 20 contenders now.
First cut was young Boom.
Now, there is nothing wrong with Boom, he is
just young. On long runs he often gets
distracted and spends more time watching ravens
then pulling. I’m not at all concerned or
disappointed. He’s worked hard this winter and
did very well to earn a place on the truck for
our trip to Alaska. Watch out for him next year!
Second cut was Hilda.
Hilda had been plagued by on again/off again
performances this season. For the Sheep Mt Race
she was definitely ‘on’ and was a valuable
leader, but she has had many runs were she was
‘off’ too. With this competitive a ‘pool’, I had
been leaning towards dropping her. Then when we
went in for our vet checks Dr. Baetsle found an
irritated back nipple on her. It’s nothing to be
concerned about; we are running her on a course
of antibiotics to be sure though. The decision
was made to cut her from the team and give her a
good rest to heal up.
“They” may say, “The first cut is the deepest” –
but ‘they’ obviously haven’t been around here.
The third dog cut from the training pool here in
Alaska is Kara. Yes, I said Kara.
On Thursday the main goal of my run was to
decided whether or not Kara was a go for
Iditarod. Over the season, she has been plagued
by a number of small, but lingering injuries and
she had been struggling to keep up with the team
on the last few runs, so I took her over to
Susan Whitton for an acupuncture and
chiropractic treatment last Monday. I then gave
her 2 days off before putting her back in
harness. There was a definite improvement in her
performance, but she is still not 100%. . The
deal with Kara is that her heart and her head
have always been her strongest attributes. Her
smaller stature and slightly shorter legs
(relative to the rest of my team) mean that she
was to lope a great deal of the time in harness
to keep up. She has to give ‘more’ to do the job
then a lot of my dogs. A dog like that can do
what Kara does because they have the heart and
drive to do it. To ask Kara to hit the Iditarod
Trail with me when her body is not 100% means
that she will have to compensate even more with
attitude then usual. I can’t ask that of her.
I had to dig deep to make this decision. Kara is
a security net for me and I just plain love her
company. I know if I asked she would bounce on
down the trail with me again, but I am more then
just her friend. As the one with the
(supposedly) bigger brain, I’m responsible with
making decisions affecting her well-being. Heck,
if given the choice, she would gorge herself on
dead squirrels until she puked – I’m the one
that wrestles squirrel carcasses away from her
because I know that isn’t in her best interest.
It might be in my best interest for Kara to go
on Iditarod – and it may be in the Team’s best
interest for Kara to go on Iditarod – but it is
not in Kara’s best interest - and the welfare of
the individual dog comes first for us.
This doesn’t mean Kara is retired. She is still
putting in dynamite performances in lead when
she is feeling good, so I will work hard over
the summer to help her body catch back up with
her spirit. I’d love for her to be with me on
our adventures next season.
In the meantime, I’m sure she will be tippy
toeing into the house late at night (no, she
will not be living in the house – in Alaska she
is a sled dog), logging on the computer and
checking race stats. There will be much
muttering under her breath about how we are
doing it ALL WRONG now that she isn’t around –
but I’m sure even if we won the Race, she would
claim we could have won it faster with her.
Still 4 more cuts to make....
Karen
