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Just a quick note - it is 11PM and I have to be up at 04:30 to be on Knik Lake by 09:00 for the Knik 200. The team is the same as the Sheep Mountain Team with Keiko swapped for Rosemary.

The team 

• Platinum
• Keiko
• Balu
• Dukat
• Sisco
• Mocha
• Lycos
• Dash
• Throttle
• Basil
• Jewels
• Picard

Bass is recovering from a shoulder injury, Worf and Dijon are not responding as expected to the thyroid supplements, Thyme has a torn pad from October that is slow to heal (Mocha has an infected nail bed, but ignores it), and Rosemary had to top the whole bunch. Wednesday last week she vomited her breakfast and refused to eat dinner. When she skipped Breakfast the next morning I coaxed some salmon down her, but she skipped dinner and Friday's breakfast again. On Friday the vet said she had an infection and a fever of 103.4. She didn't think there was an obstruction, but that was the concern. Saturday she still wasn't eating well and with the long weekend I took her back for x-rays. The vet thought she saw an obstruction in the stomach and operated. No obstruction so they took biopsy's of the stomach, kidney, and intestine.

Tuesday the results were back - Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

So Rosemary has been on a very bland diet (fish, rice, and cottage cheese) - 1 cup every 2 hours. Plus enough meds to open a pharmacy. And, of course, a full belly shave for the surgery. I meet with the vet on Monday to review Mocha's nail bed, Thyme's pad, Worf's and Dijon's thyroid, and Rosemary's prognosis for this years Iditarod. We will know more then. Suffice it to say that all my good intentions for telling you the great stories I have about these dogs got lost in the shuffle. It has been a very busy time at the old kennel.

With all the vet complications I never got the long training runs on the team that I wanted so I could run the Knik as 2 100 mile runs - so we will be using it as a training run with short rests on each leg.

I'm hearing my bed call my name - more later...
- Eric

Website: www.rnorthbounddogs.com

Photos courtesy of Donna Quante

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