Mike Dillingham - Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers - The Adventures of Balto, Back of the Pack, Honor Bound, Rivers

I’ve already taken Josephine and her month-old brood into town to stay at Bert’s while the next wave hits, and it’s a good thing. Bea is first with five: one male and four females, all different and showing a variety of fathers (at least I know who all of them are). A week or so later Blues has seven black pups with white markings; I suspect Yankee and Blackie are behind these. Finally, old Slipper has two; I’d been worried she wouldn’t have any who would survive because of her age.

Bert has told me Bea is a good mother, and she seems to do a good job of minding and feeding her pups. Blues likewise is super-protective of her brood. Despite her best efforts, however, Blues accidentally suffocates one of her pups a few days after it is born. I gently remove the lifeless pup to bury it, but Blues becomes distraught when I carry it away. Not knowing anything else to do, I put the tiny inert form back into her house and she quiets down.

Next morning it is gone without a trace; I assume she buried it or, more likely, ate it. Other mushers have told me good mothers will go to great lengths to keep the den area clean, including licking the sightless pups clean of their wastes. The object of this decidedly ancient and wolflike behavior is to prevent predators from scenting and finding the litter. Eating a dead pup is a logical extension of this self-protective mechanism, and Blues is reaching back beyond the human event horizon for her rearing skills. I am still learning about my dogs.

Old Slipper also has a problem. One of her two pups is very small; after a week it is only half the size of its brother. One evening when I get home from flying, the pup is no longer eating and is sinking fast. I decide to make an emergency run into Anchorage to drop Slipper and her offspring at Bert’s. Kim has already said she’ll take care of the pup; in the past she’s raised several little ones requiring feeding from an eyedropper and hours of close attention.

I make the 100-mile drive to Anchorage as fast as is decently possible given the swelling tourist traffic. At Bert’s the sickly pup is still alive, but there is not much to do; it dies in my hands half an hour later. The other pup is healthy, however, and Kim says she’ll keep it under close supervision. We’d like to see the remaining pup survive; it will be Slipper’s last: she’s 11 years old and her last couple of litters have been way understrength.

To grieve for lost pups, especially ones so young they never really started living, is probably wasted energy, but I feel a bit emotional nonetheless. After all, I’m still new at this, and besides, I’m basically responsible for the pups being born in any case. Maybe I’ll develop a harder shell to protect against this sort of thing later on. On the other hand, maybe I won’t: I’ve seen veteran mushers break down in tears when they’ve had no choice but to put down a friend and traveling companion of many years who’s been badly hurt or has gotten so old and infirm that allowing the suffering to continue would be cruel.

I guess I’m relearning that mushing, like any other genuinely worthwhile human endeavor, requires a complete commitment from the heart, which brings with it the risk of terrible pain. And I really do think the dogs understand it all even better than we poor, sensory-deprived two-legs.

Just when I thought the puppy parade was over, Black Ace — one of the lead dogs I picked up from John Allison just after the Iditarod — turned up in a family way about three weeks ago. This wasn’t intentional, of course, and I only discovered it after she was already well along the way to her unplanned parenthood.

The proximate cause of the problem seems to have been a stray sled dog we noticed hanging around Ron’s lot back in April and May. Ron also apparently has a few surprise litters on the way from this vagabond.

I thought for awhile about putting down the pups as soon as they were born, but then figured it wouldn’t hurt to let her keep them until they were old enough to give away. Fortunately, it’s not normally too hard to give away sled dog pups. They generally make excellent pets because they’re smart and have good dispositions; besides, I figured there might be one or two I’d want to keep.

She started dropping them this morning while I was at work. As I get home, she’s still popping them out. I count at least eight, and as I feed the other dogs she drops a couple more, for a total of 10. For a seven-year-old dog, she’s remarkably productive.

They all seem healthy, which is a good start. But this makes a total of 29 pups, far more than I ever envisioned in my wildest dreams. My guess is there will be lots of happy new puppy owners in Southcentral Alaska over the next few months. And I’m going to take whatever steps are necessary to ensure I stay out of the breeding business for awhile.

Today is the first day to sign up for the 1996 Iditarod. Even though there’s a party down at Iditarod Headquarters and many of my friends will be there, I decide not to go because I can’t come up with the $1,750 entry fee this early. I feel I’m leaving myself out of something important, but I’d rather not be there if I don’t know for sure I’m going to be one of the players.

Part of it may be the embarrassment of not finishing the ’95 race; I made such a show of going for it last year at the sign-up I want to stay as low-key as possible this go-around. Part of it may also be because I’m slightly superstitious and think maybe it will be better if I do things differently this time. Of course, there’s a practical side: this is a Saturday, and weekends are big tourist days at Talkeetna. I have to fly and pull in a paycheck so I’ll even have a chance to eventually put my money where my mouth is.

So, I fly tourists and climbers back and forth to the Mountain all day while the good times roll down at Wasilla. Part of my normal local-color spiel while acting as aerial tour guide is a casual mention I’m a musher and I tried the Iditarod this year. Somehow I let it slide today; I just don’t feel up to it.

Last year I didn’t have any idea what I was getting into. This year it’s different — a lot different. I’m a year older and a lifetime wiser about this lifestyle I’ve adopted for the foreseeable future. I’m also way behind the financial power curve and this will definitely be a no-frills race for me if I can pull it off at all.

Even more important, I’m much more on my own now. Barrie isn’t running the Iditarod and neither is Ron. I can’t expect the same level of support from Bert, either. If I make it to the starting line next March, it will be with quite a different outlook on things.

This time I’ll have earned my spot. Maybe it’ll mean more to me, and I’ll be less prone to throw it all away if I have problems. Maybe I’ll have a better sense of perspective. In any case, I have until the first of December to come up with the entry fee; one way or another, I’ll find the money. I’ve come way too far to turn back now.

Virtually all mushers use chain tethers as the primary means of restraint in their dog yards. Sled dogs intensely dislike fenced-in enclosures and will often injure themselves trying to get out. Tethers allow mushers to interact with their dogs on a one-on-one basis and promote socialization with humans. Dogs must usually be kept tied up and separated from one another in the dog lot to avoid unwanted pack behavior (and unplanned pups), although most mushers allow a few well-behaved dogs to run loose occasionally.