Iditarod
I used to mush in the Iditarod and I have some stories to tell
Jack was blowing his coat again. Jesus, does that shit get everywhere! Every April we fill entire garbage bags full of his undercoat when he starts to shed. No matter how much we brush him, it never seems to be enough, and even then, he doesn't look much different. This is the case with all cold weather dogs, mind you, but Alaskan malamutes seem to take it to the extreme.
Jack is 14 now. In his prime he was an amazing sled dog, we completed the Iditarod twice. Sadly the rest of our team has passed. 14 is certainly old for a malamute, but he has cousins who have lived to be 17. Something in his genes that just keeps him going.
Jack mainly just lays around now. He prefers to be outside. He hangs out on our front porch. He's a good boy and he's not going to run away or go chasing after something. Occasionally he gets into the neighbors' garbage cans. So we've gotten in trouble a few times with that, but we really only bring him inside if it's going to be super hot out.
The two of us have been through a lot together- I know how corny that sounds... During our first race, we were just outside of Finger Lake, that's one of the early check points in the race. It was getting late and the dogs seemed to be getting spooked. This is particularly unusual when they're working- Usually not a lot distracts them. Every once in a while one would seem to want to stop and growl. This is obviously impossible to do when you're tied to a sled with 13 other dogs (that early in the race anyway). It's my job to be aware of how they're feeling so after a couple instances of this I decided we needed to stop and figure out what the problem was.
One dog, Sophie, seemed to be the most freaked out- Barking into the woods while peeing and growling. Most of the other dogs were simply just whining at this point. Suddenly all the dogs got quiet and I could hear what I can only describe as what sounded like a monkey or a chimp off in the woods. I never saw anything but these sounds went on for about 20 seconds. Definitely not a sound native to Alaska. The dogs have seen countless moose, elk even bears, and wolves, but they've never reacted to wildlife like this.
I decided to get the dogs focused back on the track. We were still about 15 miles from the checkpoint at Finger Lake. It was getting dark fast and I was pretty freaked out myself. We just powered through until we arrived safely at the check point.
I told some of the mushers about our weird encounter earlier. One of them, Todd, had something similar happen at about the same place.
"Oh yeah, that's 100% Bigfoot, man!" He exclaimed. "He's also a huge dick. So be careful!"
Credited to KP59
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