Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers

by Mike Dillingham

  Blues’ lone female pup, the smallest of the lot, is also the perkiest and most inquisitive. She’s managed to escape the pen repeatedly and has completely endeared herself to me. Diana Moroney (who developed the line from which Blues is descended) said the small females in the family tend to be the best leaders, and little Skeeter, as I’ve started calling the peripatetic escape artist, certainly seems to be headed in that direction.

  Josephine’s pups remain my crown jewels. They have impeccable bloodlines and great attitudes and are developing into truly beautiful animals with all the makings of top-notch sled dogs. Kim has kept one of Josephine’s males, Napoleon, for herself; she’ll bring him up to start training this winter. The remaining five are on my lot and each is starting to come into its own. Bonnie and Clyde (each with one blue eye and one brown) are feisty and curious. Pretty Boy (as in Floyd) and Kate (for Klondike Kate, a notorious Yukon madam) are bouncy and gregarious. Belle Starr is smaller and quieter, but no less active and affectionate.

  It’s amazing how fast puppies can metamorphose from anonymous little fuzzballs with legs to individual dogs with real personalities. There is an almost irresistible tendency to treat them as little humans because they change so quickly into identifiable entities. In many ways they are like children, and it’s fascinating to watch as they learn about their environment. I know I’m not the first person to fall under this spell, but that doesn’t stop me from becoming sort of a kid again myself as the pups drag me into their play.

  And surprisingly, I find I’ve still got time and affection for all of my dogs—pups and adults—though there are now more than 40 of them. I suppose it’s good training for being a teacher. In a way, my dogs are not much different from a classroom full of permanent grade-schoolers, all needing lots of attention and learning and discipline, and above all, lots of love.

  This custom license plate says it all: Alaska is the world mecca for dog mushing, and dog trucks are a common sight on the roads during the mushing season.

  July 19, 1995

  Montana Creek, Alaska

  Tragedy comes in many forms, but it’s cruelest when it strikes the young. Belle Starr, one of my prize pups from Josephine’s litter, stopped eating last week and began to go quickly downhill. A couple of days ago I took her to the vet in Wasilla, where she died this morning, from parvo.

  I don’t know how the disease got into my lot; it’s possible the ravens and Canada jays which make the rounds of the local dog lots to steal dog food brought the virus in from somebody’s else’s yard. It’s also just as likely I or a visitor tracked it in; it’s virtually unstoppable under most conditions. The hardest part to take is not the disease’s high mortality rate, but rather the suffering it causes and the fact it is so devastating to puppies in particular.

  I’ve been careful to give all of the pups their shots, but the vet said something just didn’t work with Belle’s immune system. She never really had a chance against this terrible scourge that descended on the canine world barely a decade and a half ago. Within a day or two, Belle was obviously in pain with fever and vomiting and bloody stools and there was nothing I could do.

  Professional treatment is expensive and not always successful, and many mushers won’t try to throw good money after a sick pup (or simply can’t afford to). But I felt I owed it to her. I’d gotten to know her a couple of weeks ago when I found her shivering at midnight in a cold rain. I brought her into the house, dried her off, and then put her under the covers of my bed to warm her. By morning, she was perky and nibbling on my ear to wake me up. As any child knows, it’s not hard to quickly become attached to a pup, and I’m certainly no exception.

  Losing her was a double blow. Mentally I was prepared for the worst, but it still hurts. And now I must worry about all of the other pups catching the fiendishly persistent virus. My only real defense is to keep on the vaccination schedule, and I’ve already ordered enough vaccine to protect a small army.

  But the damage is done and the vaccine apparently isn’t always effective; the odds are I’ll lose more pups before the summer is over. The serpent has entered the garden. My puppies—and I—will never be innocent again.

  July 26, 1995

  Montana Creek, Alaska

  The past week has been a painful emotional roller coaster. The parvo has spread throughout my lot and I don’t know how much more damage it will do. And I don’t know if I’m going to be able to handle it emotionally if it gets much worse.

  Two days after Belle died, Pretty Boy stopped eating; I took him in to the vet, determined to fight the virus regardless of the cost. Next morning, he was doing better, but Kate was sick. When I dropped her off, the vet said Pretty Boy looked well enough to go home. However, he collapsed next morning and I had to make an emergency run back down to the vet; he died that afternoon. Kate is still hanging on, basically in intensive care, and the vet says to expect the worst.

  And last night Little Guy, one of the three-month-old males from Blues’ litter, started throwing up. I pulled him out of the puppy pen and isolated him in a portable kennel, although I fear it won’t do much good. After the past week I can’t afford to send him to the vet and all I can do is try to give him medication to soothe his stomach and try to help him keep down fluids. Based on recent events, I’m afraid he will be gone in another day or two. His littermates are still okay, but then, so were Kate and Pretty Boy.

  Bonnie and Clyde, my two remaining pups from Josephine’s litter, seem healthy. The vet says every additional day they stay well is a good sign the shots have taken hold and they won’t be infected. I almost break down as I watch them play with each other, next to the empty chains and food dishes of their brother and sisters.

  I’m sleeping very badly out of worry for my pups and from trying to come to grips with losing what I’ve come to think of as my own kids. Little Bonnie seems to know something is wrong and she’s started howling late into the night. Often she’s joined by Clyde, and the adult dogs pick up their plaintive cry. It’s clear they can somehow sense the loss of their own. Their song is mournful and haunting; it echoes through the birch woods in the misty half-light of the midsummer midnight. I lie awake listening and silently join them in their lament.

  This is a sad beginning to what I’d hoped would be an enjoyable training season. Moreover, it’s a body blow to my future in mushing, because these pups represented my long-term commitment and were going to be the core of my team a couple of years down the road. I’m starting to wonder if it’s all been worth it. There’s nothing more I can do now except wait and watch—and grieve.

  August 1, 1995

  Montana Creek, Alaska

  They’re all gone but four. The parvo has taken almost all of my pups.

  First Belle, then Pretty Boy, then Kate, then Little Guy, Beetle and Mac. Then all six of Black Ace’s remaining six-week-olds died within 18 hours of each other, the last three only eight hours after I had left them bouncing and eating happily with their mother.

  But the most heartbreaking loss of all was little Skeeter, my favorite of all the pups. She had already learned to recognize her name and would come when I called; she was nervous when I wasn’t around and would cry when I put her back in the cage with her littermates when I went to work. Then she’d find a way out, no matter how I tried to mend the wire of the cage door, and would be waiting for me in the driveway when I returned at night.

  She stopped eating last Friday and became listless the next morning; I knew what was coming but vowed to fight for her against this insidious, faceless evil. I spent three days feeding her electrolytes every hour or two and cleaning up after her when she couldn’t keep down any of the liquids. I kept her warm in bed next to me at night and stroked her to let her know somebody was there.

  But it wasn’t any use. She got steadily weaker and began losing fluids faster than I could get them into her. By Monday night she could barely move and I stayed up all night trying to keep her hydrated. She finally died Tuesday morning after t
rying to get out of the airline kennel in which I’d had to isolate her. All I accomplished with my efforts was to prolong her agony for a day or so, and the thought makes me unspeakably depressed.

  I know it’s easy to sound maudlin at times like this, but the pain is very real. When Skeeter finally went, I broke down and cried as I haven’t for many years. It is almost beyond my capability to see the spark of young, vibrant life drained away by a seemingly unstoppable and wanton killer that first tortures its victims—and those who care about them.

  Somehow I feel I have failed. I was unable to save my puppies, my commitment to the future. I feel it was my fault, that I didn’t do something I should have, that I may even have unwittingly been the agent of destruction. As I take a long, slow walk through the murky forest at three in the morning to get away from the dog lot for awhile, I am prosecutor, judge, and jury for my own case, and I find myself guilty. I wanted these pups brought into the world for my own purposes and I am therefore responsible for their lives—and deaths. I’ll have to rethink everything over the next few weeks.

  August 10, 1995

  Montana Creek, Alaska

  For what it’s worth, the vet says we’re having a parvo outbreak throughout the region, and the standard vaccines aren’t completely effective. It’s wiping out puppies and older dogs in kennels in this part of the state; Ron has lost nearly a dozen pups already. Everyone says there’s not much to do but keep vaccinating the survivors and hope the vaccine will give them at least a fighting chance.

  I’ve become an instant expert on immunology and viral infections. Parvo (actually, canine parvovirus) is one of a family of viruses that includes distemper in cats and minks. Apparently the canine strain is a mutation that jumped species perhaps two decades ago, most likely from the mink distemper virus. It’s easy to imagine how big commercial mink farms offered a perfect laboratory for such a virus to perfect its transmogrification.

  While vaccines are usually effective against parvo, there is a major hitch: puppy immune systems aren’t fully developed until they’re about 16 weeks old. For this reason they initially receive natural immunity from the mother’s milk. These maternal antibodies begin to diminish after six weeks, but may hang on until four months. While they are present, they inhibit vaccines from stimulating the pup’s own defenses.

  So, even if a pup is being regularly vaccinated, it may fall victim during the vulnerability window while the mother’s protection fades away but before the pup develops its own resistance as a result of the shots. Worse, a puppy’s immune system may not be able to stop the infection once it has taken hold. This means an infected pup may not survive even with intensive care at a well-equipped veterinary hospital, like my Belle, Pretty Boy, and Kate.

  Once the virus is at work, it will continue to replicate itself like a mindless robotized assembly line. As with all viruses, there is no antibiotic-like cure once a dog is infected. The only course is to treat the symptoms until the immune system has a chance to rally itself, just as for a human viral infection like flu or the common cold.

  In the case of parvo, the virus attacks fast-dividing cells, and a growing puppy offers many targets. Usually, the critical nourishment-gathering cells lining the intestines are the ultimate victims; the end of an unsuccessful struggle against parvo is marked by bloody diarrhea and extreme dehydration as these cells die and slough off. The virus is present in unthinkable numbers in these discharges, which are the chief route by which other dogs are infected.

  Ron explained to me how parvo decimated dog lots in Alaska back in the seventies before the disease was fully understood. He said mushers were thankful if even one or two pups in a litter survived. In an attempt to develop a parvo-resistant strain of dogs, the survivors were bred over and over, with some success. But still, without the development of good vaccines it’s unlikely mushing would be where it is today.

  By coincidence, last week I picked up a copy of The Hot Zone, which details how the Ebola virus and its cousins emerged from the African rain forests to make devastating but luckily localized attacks on humans. The last part of the book covers an outbreak of Ebola in a monkey importing company’s holding facilities in Reston, Virginia, in late 1989. My first shock was the realization I was living barely 10 miles from Reston when the incident occurred and actually drove past the building while it was happening.

  The second and more sobering jolt was the eerie similarities between exotic viruses like Ebola and the canine parvovirus that devastated my puppies. Indeed, parvo is the Ebola of the canine world. Like Ebola, it jumped species with terrifying results, wreaking widespread carnage before anyone really knew what it was. Parvo spreads much like Ebola, and is even more long-lived outside its hosts. It is just as lethal to puppies as any of the terror viruses are to humans, and kills just as quickly and as terribly.

  Human viruses like Ebola are treated by the experts in the same manner as an enemy biological warfare attack, with precautions like those in Andromeda Strain. Unfortunately, I don’t have a space suit or a Level Four containment facility, so all I can do is load up my garden pump sprayer and dispense bleach by the gallon while I try to keep up the vaccinations on the ones who are left.

  Of course, the damage is already done and nothing I do now will make much difference. The four pups still on my lot—Bonnie, Clyde, Shorty, and Big Mac—have already been heavily exposed and have apparently worked through it on their own. I’m really no better off than Ron and his fellow dog drivers 20 years ago, despite the advances of modern veterinary medicine.

  August 25, 1995

  Montana Creek, Alaska

  Te’re off and running again. I’ve been anxious to get moving because the daily training routine will keep me from dwelling on the depressing nightmare of the parvo epidemic. Regardless of what has happened, I still have to get ready to run the race next year.

  With Ron’s help, I finally get the long-disused three-wheeler to start after a couple of hours of wrench-bending and some Anglo-Saxon language practice. About 10 o’clock, when it’s good and dark, I hook up the gangline to the handlebars and lay it out in the driveway. I notice the dogs are watching me intently. When I go inside the storage shed and come out with the harnesses, they start barking. When I walk over and put the first harness on Socks, they all go wild.

  I pick out five more of the usual suspects and hook them up amid a deafening bedlam. This will be their first real chance to get off the chains and out of the dog lot since last March and they’re all at a fever pitch. As I start the engine, the team goes completely bonkers and gives a bulldozer-strength yank in unison, snapping the four heavy bungee cords I’d put in the line to absorb the shock of pulling the three-wheeler.

  The next thing I see is the entire team ripping out of the driveway unencumbered by me or the machine. In my haste I can’t get the three-wheeler to start so I shove it out of the way and run over to my van. I roar off after the dogs, betting (and hoping) they’ve turned back toward Ron’s instead of down toward the highway. I hope Socks will keep them out of too much trouble. This isn’t exactly how I wanted to start the season.

  Sure enough, they’re milling around in the entrance to Ron’s driveway like a bewildered six-tentacled octopus. As I walk over to them I’m laughing so hard I can barely stand up. Socks is sheepishly trying to lead them back to my place and they’re all slinking along behind him. I hop back in the van and call to them to follow me as I drive back.

  Sensing I’ve absolved them, they line out and trot behind my van like ducklings following mama to the lake. Back in the driveway I hook them up to the three-wheeler again (this time without the bungees), toss them all a biscuit, and let them rest for a few minutes. Then I hop aboard and we pick up where we left off, streaking down the borough road to our normal start-of-the-season turnaround point (an unused circle driveway) a mile and a half away.

  Socks seems to remember this place from last year and swings into the darkened turnaround just like the pro he is. Suddenly I see somebody
is camping there. Socks runs right past the smoldering campfire, under a tarp, and has his nose stuck inside the flap of the poor camper’s tent before I can get the team stopped. I race up and get Socks turned around and headed back out the driveway before the half-awake and thoroughly befuddled outdoorsman can react.

  With a shouted apology for our interruption, we roll back out on the road. As we trundle back down to the dog lot, I laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Then it dawns on me things could have become serious if the surprised camper had decided to start shooting at what he thought might be a wolf or a bear. To have had several dogs inadvertently shot (and maybe even myself) would not have been an auspicious beginning to the season.

  But it turns out to be a good run and Socks shows he’s still the number one leader. I’m satisfied—and more than a little relieved—that we’re finally back in the swing of training. No more summertime distractions: now the real goal of finishing the 1996 Iditarod is snapping back into sharp focus and I can make concrete progress toward it every day. Maybe it will be a good training season after all.

  August 30, 1995

  Wasilla, Alaska

  I’ve met some interesting people flying for Hudson’s this summer, but I think a pair of young Swedes from the Stockholm area ranks right up at the top.

  Nicolas and Johan came over in July—fairly late in the climbing season—to climb Mount McKinley. In fact, by the time they returned toward the end of the month after reaching the summit in 11 days, they were almost the only people left on the mountain.

  When we flew them back from the long-dismantled Kahiltna Glacier base camp, they announced they were going to spend the rest of the summer in Alaska hiking the Talkeetna Mountains. After we got over our initial surprise—not many people try the trek across the trailless 10,000-square-mile wilderness of the Talkeetnas—we realized they were serious.