Meanwhile back at the Kennels

The snow is melting fast in Alaska, even quite a ways north. It was in the 50s in Fairbanks today. That means even the tail end of the mushing season is over for another year. Dogs still will run a little bit, usually hitched to an ATV or cart but many get to loaf more. New litters arrive and some kennels send part of their team off to take visitors on rides, perhaps sleding on the glaciers or demonstrating for travelers on the cruise ships and train and bus tours. In short, lots is still going on.

SP Kennel had an update recently on the Survivor Five which includes my beloved Ginger. Poor baby, in March she had a serious digestive problem and had to have intestinal surgery to fix it. However she is healing well and seems on the road to total recovery, now well enough to share space with an older dog for some milder play than her four rowdy brothers would allow. With Aliy and the others, I am hoping and praying fervently that she will be able to be in harness come the fall and catch up for the time she has missed due to this problem. She shows great promise and is a brave, tough and determined girl!

I lifted this photo off the SPK blog. That is Ginger with her uncle Biscuit, and it's hard to believe she was the little fuzzy scrap Aliy was holding to show me last August! They grow so fast. I think Ginger weighs about 42 pounds now. This shot is just about where she was that day, too, the enclosure called The Play Pen!

The four "boys" are going great guns, three of them getting to be big dogs near the fifty pound range which is large for the SPK lines.  Of course their daddy Clyde is one of the larger males where their mommy Chica is about the average in the lower 40s range. Ernie and Ginger are smaller but Scooby, Rodney and Five are all big stout guys. I know we will hear more of them in the future. I'm also looking forward to whatever litters arrive this summer and hope to be there to see some of them.

I'm working on a kind of table with some canine genealogy of the SPK kennels stars. If I can find data on some of the other kennels' lines, I will attempt to do the same for them but SPK is so generous with their info and sharing about the dogs we all love so much that they make it easy.

I am still pursuing a goal of a brief visit to Alaska in early summer to meet a new pen pal who may be helping me with a place to stay and some other assistance and to set up some projects for later. Then I intend to go again probably about mid September when the tourist season is nearly over and the mushers are in from summer jobs to begin the serious training season. I've added more names to the list of women I want to meet and talk to and would love to contact every one who ran in the Iditarod and the Yukon Quest this year or signs up for the 2016 races! Wish me luck!