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

Fifty-plus miles later we pull into the yard at a lope. It’s been our longest run of the season, and the dogs have once again proven they are practically bulletproof. The team has averaged a steady 10 to 11 miles an hour for five hours, which is exactly what I want them to do — and what I’ll need to get to Nome.

What’s more, we’ve recovered from a near-catastrophe and pushed on in good order. I feel my training program has been vindicated; this team may not be top-20 quality, but it’s strong and solid, and unquestionably ready for bigger things. All we need now is enough snow for races like the Knik 200 and the Klondike 300.

In the meantime, I totter inside the house to put some dog liniment on my now-screaming knee — the doctors may not approve of it, but I’ll bet it works. If it’s good enough for my team, it’ll certainly be good enough for me.

The New Year is upon us — which means it’s less than 60 days until the Iditarod. Last year about this time everything was starting to happen in a rush: I had just spent New Year’s Eve at Skwentna on the Knik 200 and was frantically getting ready for the Copper Basin 300. This season the pace is decidedly more measured and I’m still in the same old pre-Christmas routine, thanks to our miserly snowfall which has postponed the mid-distance races. Nonetheless, the dogs are in great shape and I have no doubt I could go run the Iditarod with them tomorrow if I had to (although I’d have to take it easy for a few days until they got their real long-distance legs). Tonight, though, I’m going to harness up some puppy power.

I’ve been putting off trying out the pups until they were eight or nine months old and I had some spare time. Both of these conditions have now been met and I have no excuse for waiting any longer. I’ve been anticipating this and dreading it at the same time. In a perfect world, all of the pups would pull the first time I hooked them up and all I’d have to do would be to get them in shape for next year’s race. Unfortunately, things never work out so smoothly, and I’ll probably be lucky to get two or three naturals out of my eight candidates.

The top mushers raise 30 or 40 or even 100 pups a season and have the luxury of keeping only the very best. Pups that don’t pull right away get new homes quickly. People like me who have only a few pups have to try to work with the entire spectrum, which requires a lot more effort to try to bring the less promising ones to their full potential.

Iditarod sled dogs are often of no specific breed, and can range from 30-pound Maybelline to 65-pound Buck. In between can be anything from Silvertip, who is two-thirds wolf to pure-white Weasel to Lucky to Kisser. The one common attribute of all good Iditarod dogs is a good attitude and the willingness to keep going under even the most abominable conditions.

I start off with Big Mac and Shorty, two of the four pups who survived the parvo epidemic. They’re now eight months old and are robust, bouncing bundles of energy. First I put Socks, Weasel, and Rocky on the gangline to act as “mentors” for the pups; these three are the most stable and reliable adults on the lot as far as training pups is concerned. But when I literally have to haul both of the pups out to the sled, I get a sinking feeling; this is not good.

Sure enough, both of them lie down and drag as soon as we start. I don’t even try to go any farther; the pups need more exposure to adult dogs in general and to the process of hooking up and leaving the yard specifically. I rearrange the housing assignments to make room for the reticent youngsters right next to the hookup area; I’ll give them a few weeks of watching the adult dogs get harnessed up and generally getting into the let’s-go-running frenzy. Sooner or later they’ll get the picture and we can pick up where we left off.

Next I try Little Pal, Squeaky, and Bull-winkle, three more Iditapups who were at Bert’s house in town during the summer and escaped the virus. Squeaky and Little Pal drag piteously but Bullwinkle looks as if he might be interested in running. I put the first two in the sled and keep going. Slowly but surely Bullwinkle starts to figure it out. He keeps running, trying to drag only when the speed gets too fast. Whenever he does this I step on the brake to keep Socks down to an acceptable pace. We go half a mile and turn around; by the time we get back Bullwinkle seems to be holding his own. He needs more confidence-building work, but he’s most of the way there.

For the grand finale I hook up Josephine’s three remaining pups, now nine months old. Kim has already harness-broken Napoleon — somehow nicknamed Nepo — while she had him in town (where he missed the parvo outbreak), so I’m not too worried about him. I’ve worked a bit with Bonnie and Clyde, harnessing them up and jogging with them down the borough road for a few hundred yards.

I have no trouble getting them out to the sled, a very good sign. When I pull the hook and we head out of the driveway, Nepo is keeping up with Socks and little Bonnie is bouncing around like a well-hit handball next to Weasel, but she shows no fear of running. Lumbering Clyde is almost as big as Rocky, who resembles a main battle tank. Clyde is a bit timid at first but slowly seems to warm to the idea and starts to move ever faster like a freight locomotive gradually picking up speed.

After half a mile or so things are going so smoothly I decide to try a three-miler. By the time we reach the turnaround, everyone has settled down and we’re moving quite well. On the way back we steadily pick up speed until we’re cruising at an astonishing 14 or 15 miles an hour. Nepo is pulling so hard he’s outrunning the old veteran Socks up front and big Clyde is doing a highly workmanlike job of bringing up the rear.

We steam into the yard as fast as my mainline team. This is beyond my best hopes — these three pups are 24-karat keepers, and I consider the evening’s work a major success. After I get everyone put away I go over and spend some quality time with Josephine, their mother. I wish I still had the rest of the litter, the ones who were the first to succumb to parvo back in the bleak days of July.

I think Josephine may have another chance or two to help out my long-range team-building plans. Even though she’s not an Iditarod-quality performer herself, she’ll make an even bigger contribution over the next year or two by giving me more pups like the three who showed such incredible promise tonight.

The Knik 200 has finally been cancelled: no snow. The Copper Basin 300 started on time last weekend on marginal trails, but was stopped after the teams got 70 miles because of 65-below zero cold. Now it’s time for the Klondike 300, the only remaining 300-mile race in Southcentral Alaska. I’ve planned to run it all along; I don’t need it to qualify for the Iditarod, but I want to see how the team (and I) will do in a serious race.