passing on

Remembering Faraday

Sarah · December 2, 2015 ·

Faraday rests on her house during a sled dog tour. — Remembering Faraday 5

We are extremely saddened to announce the sudden and unexpected death of our Siberian Husky, Faraday. Faraday was quirky dog, like any Siberian husky, and the daughter of Sarah’s first sled dog, Chena. She was a beautiful dog and guests visiting our kennel often commented on her gorgeous coat and almond eyes.

Faraday was an extremely happy dog who enjoyed the simple pleasures of a dogs life: a bowl of kibble and a good scratch on the head. She had a very distinct howl that would yodel out when it was time to eat and would smack her two front feet on the ground repeatedly in excitement.

As more of a pet, she enjoyed some time in our house though she often preferred to be outdoors. When she came inside, she did so very quietly and tried to be as stealthy as possible. Once, when Travis and I had left for an evening out with friends we came back to Faraday sitting on our kitchen floor, paws crossed, looking quite vexed at us for having been out so late. She greeted us with a wagging tail and her signature feet stomp.

Faraday was an exceptionally fun and entertaining dog. I am so heartbroken by our loss and the fact that neither Travis or I were home. Travis was training on the Denali Highway and I was at home, visiting family for the holidays.

Faraday also loved our good friend Ben and his dog Moe, who originally came from our kennel, and was always excited when they came to visit. She thought Moe was “hot stuff” and loved following him around. When she was tied up, she also enjoyed sleeping at the base of the pine trees in our yard and accompanying us on dog runs. She once took herself on a 40 mile jaunt with the team, getting so tired at the end as she hadn’t been in training that she finally allowed Travis to carry her. In the fall, on shorter runs she enjoyed running in front of the lead dogs and making them chase her.

We love you Faraday. May you find snowy fields to run on and an unending supply of kibble. Rest in peace, dear friend.

Faraday resting inside — Remembering Faraday 6

Remembering Izzy

Sarah · February 4, 2015 ·

We lost a great dog Sunday Morning. Early Sunday morning as Izzy’s condition began worsening and I made the difficult decision to end her suffering. Although I am comforted by the fact that I did everything I possibly could have, losing a dog — especially one so young — is never easy.

To say yesterday was a hard day is an understatement, however I know that this was the only route left to us after exhausting all the medical tests at our disposal and coming up with nothing. On paper, Izzy was a very healthy dog.

Izzy at the Vet's Office — Izzy at the Vet’s Office

Her last night here I did my best to comfort her. We snuggled on the floor together and I held her as much as she would let me. I reassured her, loved her, and comforted her. Early in the morning around 4am Izzy began drinking water, took more medication, and I even got some probiotics in her. She also began hemorrhaging but it seemed we had it under control and she was staying hydrated.

Her eyesight had not returned but the vets and I were hopeful it would. Her loss of vision made her anxious and it was clear she was nervous about her inability to control her hind-end. She had a restless night. I consulted with two different vets throughout the night and early in the morning but they believed there was little we could do without a clear diagnosis.

I called Travis several times, knowing he had scratched from the 2015 Knik 200, but could not get ahold of him. By morning, Izzy’s body started shutting down and I knew that the right course for her would be to free her from her pain. It was a hard decision, more difficult because Travis was gone, but I knew it was the right one.

Izzy was a special dog.

She always peed when she got nervous, which was a lot.She’d throw her butt to the floor and meekly lower her head and shyly wag her tail then look at you, embarrassed. “Oops!” Her body language seemed to say. “I didn’t mean to!”

You couldn’t help but laugh. She enjoyed roaming the dog yard and was eager to please. She enjoyed spending time with both people and dogs.

She was a spunky, happy, dog who was full of spirit. Izzy also had a knack for climbing fences that routinely got her in trouble. She didn’t like being confined which only made it harder to see her so immobile. When she climbed out of the puppy pen, I’d often find her playing with older dogs. She’d taken to a male named Yankee, who is spending the winter with us, and enjoyed hiding under his house and nipping at his tail. More than once, I found them curled up together outside his house.

Izzy was a happy dog. When this started started Saturday morning, I really thought she’d pull through because she was so full of life and energy. She was always wagging her tail and was such a happy dog. Even while sick, when I talked to her and told her she was a good dog, she would always try to wag her tail.

Even though her time here was short, she showed from the beginning she was an incredibly gifted dog and I can say, with 100% confidence, that she would have been an impeccable leader. Her loss will not just be felt today but will also be felt in the future as we continue to watch her siblings grow, mature, and become race dogs adding to our kennel. As we watch them grow and develop we will always think of Izzy. She was, to us, the pup that showed the most promise of her litter mates due to her uncanny intelligence.

We’ll carry you with us, Izzy. You live on in our hearts. The trails we run down will be the trails that you run down. We will carry you with us.

Izzy, may you find open fields to roam and plenty of snow to dance on.

Remembering Zena: The Champion, The Athlete, The Teacher and The Companion

Sarah · January 26, 2015 ·

We lost a beloved member of our pack yesterday, Zena. (Not to be confused with ZEMA)

Zena.

The name says it all. Warrior. Fighter. Champion. In her life, Zena was all these things. Like the warrior-princess she was named after, Zena was a dog known throughout the mushing world. She started her life at Lance Mackey’s comeback kennel where she made a big impression, helping Lance to 3 of his 4 Iditarod first place finishes.

A long-legged lean athlete with fierce blue eyes, she certainly looked the part of an Iditarod Champion. When Lance eventually sold her to another musher, we were told, through rumor, that it was for a whooping $10,000 . I’ve never heard of a dog before or after fetching that kind of price so it goes a lot to say about her caliber as an athlete. She stayed with that musher for some time and then went on to Ray Redington for a few months before Ray kindly gave her to us where he knew she would have a good life. Like the celebrated heroes of old she had accomplished much: she deserved a place to come home to where she could have her peace.

Zena in lead givingguests a glacier dog sled ride in Seward, AK — Zena, on the right hand side in lead giving guests a glacier dog sled ride in Seward, AK

Her love to compete was evident from the first time we hooked her up. She loved chasing other teams down and always seemed at home when in harness. On the trail her blue eyes were fierce and focused on the trail ahead, tongue hanging out her mouth in wild joy. There was always a wildness to her on the trail. She was never content with just going she always had to be going just a little faster.

Growing up as an athlete, one of the quotes that has always stuck with me was that “the vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion when no one else is watching.” Seeing Zena run for us, although no longer in her prime, I would think of this quote because Zena so clearly exhibited it. Everything she did, she did it whole-heartedly. Zena was a dog who never gave up, who was always straining in harness to just go faster. And even though we had her in old age, she provided a valuable measuring stick when evaluating the caliber of our own dogs. She was really just that good.

At home, there was a quiet gentleness in her eyes that seemed to drink in the world around her. She was content to sit and observe humans without interacting with them. She enjoyed Travis and I and had a special fondness and tolerance for children. She spent the past two winters living with our our friends and Seward locals, Dan and Madelyn Walker. We couldn’t be more grateful for the love and kindness they showed her.

Towards the end, when we learned she had cancer, we were told that the vet could not believe how healthy her heart was or how flexible her joints still were. But it wasn’t hard for us to believe: she was always incredible. She wasn’t just athletic. She also had a certain gracefulness to her in all that she did. Her actions and movement, it appeared to me, were always deliberate.

She was a no-nonsense dog who loved food. It seemed to be one of the few great joys in her life. And one summer when I industriously thought of having ducks, Zena thought of nothing but dinner. She had a litter of puppies at the time (Shark, Hoover and Mr. Clean) and they were, at the time, quiet young. For reasons I don’t entirely remember — perhaps just because she was so special — we left the door to her puppy pen open so she could roam.

When I went to hand out puppies to three women dressed to the nines, I lifted the box to the puppy house to discover that nestled inbetween the puppies were two dead ducks.

The women, duck hunters from Georgia, thankfully laughed at the occasion while I mourned my ducks.

Zena, to her credit, never took any ducks after that. It seemed, to me, as if she could read my body language and disappointment.

Although Zena’s cancer was removed about two months ago it came back early this week with astonishing speed. Madelyn called me to deliver the bad news and on Saturday, I went over and spent a final visit with Zena. All I could think about was that this dog that has done so much, given so much, accomplished so much. How could this be it?

My last visit with Zena an Iditarod Champion and an Incredible Friend and Teacher

Besides her incredible achievements in Iditarod, she gave thousands of people their first mushing experience — first in Juneau and then later on, at our own kennel here in Seward. Zena was always willing to meet guests. When we told her story guests would often want their picture taken with her. She had a great story and she was sensationally beautiful. Her blue eyes stole many hearts and people often commented on how pretty she was. Inevitably, she would oblige for the picture taking — though she didn’t understand the fuss. She was often aloof — the way any great athlete is and chose to make friends outside her mushing family carefully.

My time with her on Saturday brought us both, I think, a little comfort. She nuzzled my shirt and pants smelling, I think, the kennel where that I hope she fondly remembers. It was clear she was in pain. Snape, the Walker’s other dog, routinely came over to check on her in a show of true friendship and she came in and out of sleep.

To say she will be missed and mourned seems so fleeting, so temporary. For Zena was a dog that did not leave a light impression anywhere she went: she left a deep impact. Her absence will be missed but she will be remembered.

During her time with us, she had two litters of puppies. Her first was with Pilot: Shark, Hoover, and Mr.Clean. Her second litter was the past summer with Boston: Zeus, Athena, and Check, after the slash across his chest.

We look forward to their progress and hope that they will live up to their mother’s incredible legacy.

Rest in peace Zena: May you find snowy trails to roam in Heaven!

Training, Life, & Sled Dogs

Sarah · October 12, 2014 ·

The weather has started turning. We’ve seen snow once or twice now, brief flurries but it doesn’t really get our hopes up just yet. It’s still early for snow, especially in Seward. Although our friends further north in Fairbanks are on sleds, we wait and take the ATVS out with the sled dogs. We’ve continued finishing projects from around the house and kennel. It’s amazing how much work there always seems to be: building dog houses, fixing things, putting things away. The days seem both long and short, we look forward to bed but never seem to have accomplished all we have hoped to complete. Everything is always ending too soon.

My cellphone went missing earlier in the week. We have a thief in our midst – a cute two year old part sled dog dog named Max who, by now, I know was the culprit. He’s taken many things from us over the past two years we’ve had him: balls of yarn, our house phones, knives, kitchen plates, empty beer bottles… and now my cellphone. It hasn’t been that big of a deal: I am not a huge talker anyways, but I do miss being able to take pictures and videos — especially because we have Pippa, a young 6 week old sled dog puppy, living inside and she is always doing something adorable like falling asleep on my slippers or curling up next to Betty. On more than one occasion Pippa’s gone “missing” only to be found in the dirty laundry pile or under a heap of blankets.

Things continue to go well and we are slowly heading in the right direction. Today I went for a walk and discovered that there were 24 salmon in the small drainage ditch by our house. Considering that the ditch is less than 2 feet wide and less than 2 feet deep in most places, I was fairly impressed. There were also lots of other fish, which I am assuming were fry (young salmon). We pass by this area frequently with the dogs but the dogs usually scare most of the fish away — with good reason too. Last year, our dogs Bud and Weiser (the Clydesdales) both caught themselves fish on a few different occasions. I’ve seen a young pup look at the fish with a tempted eye but we no longer stop our teams near the fish as we want to promote the run — even if it is in a ditch.

Our house dogs are also doing well. They seem to be getting older and we are reminded that the only fault our dog’s possess is that their lives are far too short. We watch Archie struggle to get on the couch more and more frequently. Still, he seems undeterred. Any action, of course, is surmountable if there is plenty of kibble involved. He is an old dog though, 13 or 14 by now, and well travelled too having run in numerous Iditarod’s and Junior Iditarods and countless 200 & 300 mile races. Often, we find that he will go in the dog lot and steal another sled dog’s house and make them curl up outside. When we run, he is always there. He barks at the dog team while we hook up and chases us when we leave — never far — but enough. I’ve watched Perry, his partner, shiver with excitement when the dog team rounds the corner into the yard and gives him the opportunity to chase. Old sled dogs, perhaps, but always young at heart.

October, with the cold air blowing down off the mountains and the leaves fallen off the trees, is a month that leads to wistful thinking. I’ve thought a lot about my dog Chena, who will have been gone three years at the end of the month. She was with me for such a short time but impacted my life in such a profound way. Dogs, I suppose, will do that.

We leave now on another adventure… a story, perhaps, for later on in the week.

Remembering Bode

Sarah · November 16, 2013 ·

This is not a post I want to write but not writing it, I feel, would be a great disservice to a wonderful dog taken all too soon from us. On Monday night, our dog Bode unexpectedly passed away. I don’t think I have ever been so stunned. For a long time, I simply held his lifeless form and wept hysterically. Bode didn’t eat his morning meal that day — but this is not unusual behavior when a bug is going around a kennel; I had several dogs who didn’t eat that day. Still, he seemed a little bit sluggish so I spoke with our vet when I went in to check on Flo and described his symptoms. We decided to give Bode the same antibiotics that I was using to treat my other ill dog at home, Grace. Flo continued to stay at the vet’s to be monitored as she was very weak. If Bode wasn’t back to himself the next day, I would take him in for further evaluation.

If only I had known…

Words cannot describe the sense of loss Travis and I currently feel. I last was with Bode at about 6:30 pm. I’d been working downstairs on our indoor dogbox. He had moved around the basement several times before finding a spot to lie down. He did not seem like he was about to die. When I went down to check on him after eating dinner at 8:30, he was gone. I still can’t believe it. We have not lost a young dog before and to have this sassy playful dog snatched from us so early in his life seems incredibly wrong and a gross injustice.

Bode was born this past February. His father Joe is the beloved cheerleader of our team and Mama B. a quirky surefooted female who we were sad could not race last season due to the fact that she was rearing pups. We had the litter inside the house for almost 10 weeks and grew very fond of the three dogs: Bode, Teddy, and Fergie. But Bodie always stood out from his sibblings.

2013-02-07 12.19.58

Once Bode was old enough to bark, it seemed, he never stopped barking. He is the loudest dog I have ever met. I keep going back to this idea I heard a few years ago: You only have so many heartbeats…… I know it doesn’t make sense but I keep thinking, does a dog only have so many woofs and barks?

I know that probably sounds stupid but my heart aches so deeply and I struggle to make some sort of sense of this terrible situation.

I often wish I could have taught Bode to be silent for at least five minutes but now the dog yard, without his endless yipping and yapping, seems too quiet: adjusting has been hard.

We have had several other dogs in the kennel who have been sick recently. Flo, another puppy, was hospitalized last Friday due to dehydration caused from uncontrollable diarrhea. I take comfort, though not much, in the fact that she and our other dogs have gotten well and the fact that our vet has said that we have done everything we could for our dogs, including Bode.

Still, we are left with the question: Why Bode?

It’s been tougher dealing with this reality with Travis gone. He is training out on the middle of the Denali Highway, hundreds of miles from here with little to no phone service. When I told him the news on Tuesday morning he was in disbelief. And to be truthful, I was too. Honestly, I think I still am.

Travis kept asking me if I needed him to come home. How badly I think we both wanted for me to say yes! However in no way would that have benefitted our kennel. We were not yet sure if the antibiotics we were giving were working and the last thing I wanted was our race team to get sick incase the bug was contagious.

So Travis stayed North and has continued working with his race team. I know these training miles have been particularly tough on him. The lone quiet of the trail can truly make your heart ache especially when something as heavy as this weighs upon it. “He was my favorite,” Travis confessed later. “I know we are not supposed to have favorites, but he was my favorite dog back home.” And how could he not have been with his energetic, happy-go-lucky, loud mouth personality?

It is always hard to lose the dogs we love, harder when they are taken too soon, and still even more difficult when we are left with nagging questions: What could I have done differently? Where did this bug come from?

Still, I have been told that I could have done nothing differently. And it is true that I always acted with my best judgement. The swiftness with which he died, my musher friends have told me, must have meant that he had other undetectable health issues that we never could have known about. His mother did not pass her EKG in 2010 for Iditarod but at the time it was thought that it was due to the fact that she had been ill as she has passed it since. Perhaps Bodie had some sort of genetic disease or mutation which made him more susceptible or weak that he possible inherited. I do not know. All I know is that he was my dog and that I loved him dearly…

I think there are many lessons that as young mushers we must learn. Grief is one of these lessons and loss, of course, too. Knowing that these things happen does not make it easy. We all know that we will (hopefully) outlive our dogs but we love them anyway. We give our dogs our whole heart knowing full well that one day they will leave us.

I will never forget Bodie. I just wish I could have got to know him longer… As Dee Dee Jonrowe once said the only flaw with dogs is that they don’t live long enough…

On a positive note, everyone is feeling better. Today we had our first play day in awhile and it was clear the dogs were feeling good. I took comfort watching them run loose and play together. I couldn’t help but feel that even though I couldn’t see Bode that he was somehow still there, running wild…

Bode is remembered in our kennel by his parents, Joe & Mama B, and by his siblings, Teddy & Fergie. He is also remembered by the dog box we are building indoors as he was the first dog to test it out.

Rest in peace Bode and keep us safe on the trail…