Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Iditarod '09, EKG's Mike Suprenant

Looking in the back of Mike's dog truck. The black & red (and white) at bottom left is a pile of booties.
Preparing to drop the dogs (take them out of the dog truck) for a brief potty break before they're taken inside for the examinations.

Hurry up and wait?
Bonnie Foster was on hand to lend a helping hand.
There's lot of lifting involved in being a handler, even if the dogs do help out most of the time by pulling themselves inward.
Sometimes the dogs need to be sweet-talked into coming out.
Convinced, the dogs show trust in their owner and handlers with a bit of a leap of faith.

Mike's behind the truck as they wait for Jan and her crew to finish setting up.
Wondering why they're here, the dogs entertain themselves.
Mike leads the way into the trailer as Bonnie leads a dog in behind him.
Blood-work is usually the first order of business. The dogs are amazingly well-behaved through all this, especially since they're largely surrounded by total strangers.
Soothing Trixie, first up on the table, Mike listens as Jan tells him what's going to happen and checks the equipment (below) to make sure everything is working as it should.
Clips are attached (sprayed by alcohol to increase "connectivity") and the EKGs are taken. Trixie is being VERY good through all this.















1 comment:

jmans64 said...

This man is a pig and shouldn't be allowed to run the Iditarod with the other greats. He places ads on Craigslist to get help with his team, then as in the case of my wife, gets her drunk and takes advantage of her. Even when I confronted him face to face, he stuttered and stammered like a coward. He has forever soiled the Last Great Race in my eyes, and those of you that knew about it, like members of the Chugiak Dog mushers group, are no better. Can't you police your own? Or do you have the same ethics as this man? It's a shame nobody cares about honor and dignity anymore.