April 2009 - Posts
This is where genetics in a sled dog can go terribly awry. Yanert was born in an "accidental" litter. The person was going to euthanize the puppies but a gal intervened and said she would find homes for all of them. As a 4 week old puppy he was very very sick. The original owner and friends took the puppy away from the mother for a couple of weeks and nursed him along. He was bottle fed and soon gained enough strength to be returned to the mother. Yanert was given to a young girl that couldn't afford to take care of him. He was just starting to show signs of his genetic disorder but everyone thought that he had rickets because of nutritional deficiencies. Don and I were called to see if we would foster this 3 month old puppy until he was healthy. We took him thinking it was ricketts as a veterinarian had said and that we would just feed him and care for him until he could be adopted. Well, as the months went on this puppy just wasn't improving much. His front legs had huge knots at the wrists and he was skin and bones. We had a full bloodwork done on him plus x rays and turns out that he has a rare hereditary disorder called chondrodysplasia and also has hereditary anemia. So, after months of figuring out a food that he could assimilate (and we went through a lot of foods plus hamburger in addition!!) we finally found a holistic food with no grains and salmon based that Yanert thrived on. His front legs remain "deformed" (as you can see his right leg in the picture of them playing) but he has adapted well and can run and play hard. His current weight is 56 pounds and he is no longer the emaciated dog that we started out with.
Of course, after going through all of this with him we couldn't adopt him out to someone else so we adopted him ourselves. He loves to run and play and he needs a lot of exercise to get him tired. At 3 years of age we are hoping for the best for his future. There will probably be some arthritic problems and often when we watch him run it looks like those front legs might just fold on him....but all of his other muscles have compensated for his lesser ones and as most dogs do--he accepts where he is in life and loves it to the max.
I'm very interested in dog heredity and the sled dog lines are amazingly documented. Many sled dogs in Alaska have many of the same bloodlines. And you see the genetic disorders from certain lines continuing. This particular one is very rare and both adults would have to be a carrier of this recessive gene. Other more common genetic disorders in sled dogs up here has been laryngeal paralysis (as Chanel has), severe over bites or under bites and thyroid problems. People should know and understand the backgrounds of their dogs before breeding more puppies but a lot of people don't pay much attention to this and often severe genetic problems continue to get passed along.
It is really hard for me to foster dogs. I get attached very quickly and then don't want to part with them. They quickly become a part of our household and the yard, yet I know that they will have a good life where they are going. We recently had 4 foster dogs here at once. That is a record for me.
Bandit. (mostly all black) He was at the shelter for 44 days. It IS truly amazing that our shelter keeps dogs for that long. But we had run Bandit and he ran quite well. No one looked at him and he actually ended up on the euthanize list but was taken off when John and Zoya said they might be interested. So we finally got to pull him into SCL, he got neutered on a Friday morning and they picked him up in the afternoon and took him home. He is a strong and driven sled dog but has a sweetness to him that grabbed at my heart. He loved my other dogs and I bet would have fit in here quite well....but it is best for him and for us that he is now in his new home.
Dozer! He is a 9 year old sled dog that was turned in because the owner is ill. He is very chunky but has a love of life and people that is unsurpassed. Dozer loves people and other dogs. We only had him here for a few days but he would have been happy staying here forever. But that is Dozer. He will settle in and love his forever home and all his play mates. He has ended up in Soldotna with Cue and I am sure will be the love of his new owners life as he was becoming with us. He was a great truck dog and sat on the passenger seat or just layed down for the ride. We are so happy that SCL was able to rescue Dozer and send him to his new home. As a 9 year old we didn't know if he would find a home. She won't regret adopting this one!
Buzz. Oh my...what can I say? We love this puppy. He might be a year old. He is a 50 pound full of energy and mischieve pup that was found out in Fox and no one claimed him. He loved to play with Izzi running free and when we put him at a house in a yard with 3 loose females (Kiche, Chiclet and Lichen) he was in heaven. He is a noisy boy but his favorite part of staying here for over a week was that he slept in the warm dog barn. After his neuter on our kitchen counter we found that he did not like to be confined in a crate. So we just gave him free roam of the heated dog barn. All the time he was here he never chewed or got into anything. Inside he was calm and mellow...outside he is wild and crazy. Both Don and I grew very fond of Buzz and hated to see him go. But he will be harnessed and I bet he will love to run and get some of his energy out of him in Paxson.
Cue. He is a 2 year old dog that had been at the shelter for several weeks. He arrived with his 2 siblings. Molly was so shy she never came out of her house. Wes was pulled into SCL and is in foster care. Cue is a great dog with some nutritional problems. We figure it might be a food allergy. At the shelter he actually gained quite a bit of weight and his feet that were once pink and sore looking healed up and were looking great. He is a driven boy that loves to run. We only had him here for a few days along with Dozer but grew to love him a lot. He is on the shy side but would warm up quickly. He was in the yard with 3 loose females (we would switch him and Buzz in and out) and Cue just didn't know what to think about loose dogs running around. He has probably been on a chain most of his life. Well, he is at his new home now in a yard that is mostly a free run yard. We are happy for Cue and miss him.
So someone has already said "Carol you are going to talk about dogs yet you said nothing about the 3 dogs in the picture!" so here goes.
Chanel: front left in the picture. Chanel was one of only 2 dogs that I got as actual puppies. She was a couple of months old when she came to my home. When I first saw her she was in a puppy pen with a dozen other puppies. She is the one that called out to me. When asking about her I was told that she was a "wheezer" and would die within a year. I went home with another puppy that day that the owners were wanting to give away (Venus) but still thinking about Chanel. I called the owners back and pleaded with them to let me take Chanel. They felt that she would not live long and that I was just setting myself up for heartbreak. But I finally told them that at least I would give her a great life for a year if that was going to be the case.
When she was very young and harness broken (thank you Lynn!) I had to keep a very close eye on her. A wheezer is a dog that has laryngeal paralysis. It is often a hereditary condition and found in many dogs with black/brown/white faces and blue eyes. Her larynyx would close and not let air in....a lot of these dogs would just collapse and die. Well....I learned to watch for the signs with Chanel and as soon as she showed any signs of shortness of breath I would take her out of the team. She could recover if she wasn't hard in her harness. And this dog LOVES to run. She is a driven sled dog that works terribly hard. I would keep a close eye on her tongue for starters. If I saw even a tinge of it not bright pink and starting to look a little blue, that was the time to let her run free alongside the team. Sometimes her eyes would look a little puffy too. As she grew older she learned to regulate herself and back off when she was starting to need more air. Now at almost 12 years of age she still loves to run and pull. She has far outlived her 1 year death sentence. I don't run her more than 5 miles but as a dog that loves to run and pull it would have been cruel to let her lay around and get fat. She is truly one of my soul mate dogs.
Robin: front right. Robin was my first ever sled dog. He was 9 months old when I got him. I had been skijoring with him for a month and finally the current owner asked me if I wanted him. He was one of the most shy dogs that I have ever owned (and we have owned many!!) and also one of the few pointer mixes that to this day is in our yard. Robin loved 3 people at that time. Lynn, Brenna and myself. He would hide under the truck at races and training. No one could handle him. It took great patience and gentle leadership to bring Robin out of his shell. Now at the age of nearly 13 years old he loves most people!! It was amazing to see his transformation over the years. One thing that I do impress upon people with a shy dogs is "do NOT force the dog".....I have seen too many people with shy dogs drag them up to people and force the dog to accept pets. To me this just sets a dog way further backwards. If it is traumatized by people, this is a sure way to reinforce that fear. I like the dog to decide on its own when it is ready for others touch. This can be accomplished by asking your friends not to touch the dog, but to toss it a treat and then move on. If the dog realizes that the only thing that is going to come from other people is good stuff, then gradually they begin trusting more and more.
An amazing thing about Robin as a skijoring dog or a sled dog is that first...he loved to chase....so if he saw a team far ahead of him he would speed up to catch them...but the best was that, being so fearful, once he caught that team and we passed he would pick up speed just to get away from that person he passed. Even after he became a friendly dog he still held onto that. I never worried about my team slowing down or quitting after passing someone. He taught most of the dogs to speed up! Both Robin and Chanel have always been house dogs from the day I got them.
Crowe: wheel. You can barely see Crowe in this picture. He was mid-age when I got him. I had his sister Irish from a top sprint kennel. Both dogs just didn't work out well as open class dogs although both were fast and driven. Their personalities were needy and clingy and their lack of confidence I believe hurt them in the long run. Irish lived to be 12 years old and died of a spleenic tumor. Crowe was retired this year (nearly 13 years old) but he was always a driving force in my limited class 4 and 6 dogs teams. He never developed the confidence to be a great leader, but he would run up front. Crowe is the dog in my yard that when all of the kennel is loose and running around and playing, he is the one with his head in my lap. He has always had a bad need to be loved and close to people. We do our best to fulfill his life.
Yes..I'm deep into the technology world and have come here kicking and screaming. My reasons for finally having a blog is to talk about DOGS. I am a big part of the Fairbanks Alaska mushing and skijoring world that works with many dogs from the borough animal shelter, hoping to find forever homes for these dogs that were unwanted.
I don't want to talk much about my life but the care of sled dogs that is intricately tied to our lifestyle. I read too many sled dog blogs that often don't even mention a dogs name!! I WANT to read about the dogs....knowing the person and what they are doing in their life can be interesting...but when you are writing about dogs and sled dogs I really want to read more about the dogs, their personalities, working with their quirks and their interactions in their dog world.
We (meaning Don) are working out the kinks in this new blog program so my posts will probably be fairly short for awhile.
I really like to share pictures of dogs so that will be one of my main focuses. Plus the care, feeding, health, and working aspects of the husky.
Thanks for reading.