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Iditarod 2008 - A Personal Journal
By Dr. Erica McKenzie, 541-737-2858

Well I’m heading home after my third trip to the 1150-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, about my 10th trip up here working with sled dogs and trying to fly under the radar around the dog guys as a large animal vet! Despite trying to think ahead, our study had been organized and funded in about six weeks leaving me feeling quite disorganized. And in a fit of temporary insanity I had decided on a topic that unfortunately would involve about four days playing with fresh dog poop, with a strong bias towards diarrheic samples. By day two I decided that no amount of funding would ever get me to do it again! I haven’t even had the first clinical signs of Salmonella infection yet, hopefully because I became transiently obsessive compulsive and washed my hands 30 times a day.

The first two days in Anchorage were spent frantically trying to sort out unexpected kinks. The 30-year-old "reliable" incubator I had borrowed from UC Davis as a backup for our scientific assays (ahh, anyone for the aroma of cooked canine scat?) became our only incubator, and refused to heat to more than 92 degrees. That led to an interesting field trip with my three helpers Heidi, Jocelyn and Alina, during which we spent half a day investigating the various characteristics of toaster ovens (like the unfortunate fact they seem to come no cooler than 150 degrees) since there was no other option in Alaska. We eventually settled on the $40 Black and Decker version. Displaying refined scientific skills with occasional breaks for expletive outbursts, I figured out the best way to get our incubator to 100 degrees was to perch it on top of the heated toaster oven with two clipboards and some papers between them. I’m still debating how to footnote our incubation method in the scientific manuscript, but at this point I think "acknowledgements to Black and Decker"’ is the least likely to result in the paper being thrown out. Alina suggested we could revert to plan B and attempt to publish "novel methods of incubation for scientific assays", inspired by a paper she had read describing the use of a leaf blower to ventilate an anesthetized giraffe.

We scored tickets to the pre-race banquet, compliments of Kelly and Rick Swenson who I’ve very much enjoyed working with the last five years. Rick is currently the only 5-time winner of the race and I’m rooting for him to hold that title if he can in his 32nd Iditarod! We had a nice time sitting at their table and watching people drop crazy amounts of money bidding on various items of Iditarod paraphernalia.

A room at the fancy Millennium hotel, headquarters of the race, became our initial temporary laboratory. Within an hour or so of commencing work there was a knock on the door and some sort of weird air cleaning machine was literally forced upon us. My next foray out into the hallway found a very annoyed-looking maintenance man running up and down fumigating the entire lower floor with Lysol air-freshener; luckily we finished up our work before they sent security to forcibly remove us with a lifetime ban.

Sunday we were free to attend the official re-start of the race in Willow. It’s inspiring to watch the teams harnessed up and to listen to their screaming and howling as they get ready to commence their incredible journey. Most teams have multiple handlers with a leash on each dog just to make sure they get to the starting line and actually stop there. The mushers themselves all have an interesting history. The current star is Lance Mackey. After surviving a very nasty cancer that has left him with some permanent disabilities, he won Iditarod in 2007 just two weeks after winning the 1000 mile Yukon Quest with the same team of dogs, a feat which has never been done in the same year. It was his sixth Iditarod attempt and he randomly drew bib number 13 — quite remarkable considering both his brother and his father (infamous for beating Rick Swenson to a win in the 1970s by only one second) won Iditarod on their 6th try and both were wearing the unlucky number when they succeeded. Lance won the Yukon Quest again this year and when I left Anchorage a few hours ago he was still in first place in the Iditarod trying to make unrepeatable history. He has some of the top mushers breathing down his neck and they seem to be feeling confident they might get him this year.

Monday night my friend Wes flew in (planes land on the frozen lake in front of the hotel) to take me to the McGrath checkpoint 400 miles or so into the race. However, after telling me to prep for a bumpy ride, I have to admit I was slightly relieved when a recheck of the weather led to the planes being grounded until the following day — although I did try to act heartily disappointed that I would not be riding in his little red flying bucket with seatbelts!

McGrath checkpoint was located in the middle of nowhere, with a lot of snow and friendly locals. We slept in an old diesel shed on some mats with the mushers and dog handlers, and found a secret spot for our lab tucked away in the fire engine and ambulance shed. Lance was the first to arrive on Tuesday night, smiling and with his dogs in good shape. Amazing to see them at 400 miles, wolfing down chunks of frozen fish and barking and leaping to get out and run some more! Media were everywhere, as well as the "Iditatourists" that fly along the trail. Eventually, after the top teams had passed through, the media became progressively more desperate for material and subsequently several of them tracked me to my hiding spot in the fire engine shed and tried to convince me that a study of dog diarrhea was publicly palatable! The guys filming for "Iditarod Insider" deserve an emmy in my opinion, they showed me a clip of their interview of me and they almost made it sound like a fascinating topic, with some thankfully tasteful footage of us at work. Next I encountered a guy snapping multiple photos of me as I walked through the checkpoint. Slightly disturbed, I asked what he was up to and he told me he was taking photos of all the dog mushers. This was a good indication that in my 30th hour with no sleep I was looking truly awful. After taking the hint and paying for a shower, I hit the sack in the diesel shed finding myself wedged between Alina and a large and pungent musher, grateful at least that my sleeping bag was unoccupied!

The "back of the packers" came through while we were there (the last 30 or so mushers) and were great fun to talk with, but I also got some time to chat to Rick since he took his mandatory 24-hour layover in McGrath. His dogs looked a bit stiff, but soon after he left he was ranked in 6th. I recognized at least three little bottoms in his team that I had performed muscle biopsies on a few years before. They did not appear in anyway impaired by the small muscle deficit I had once created.

At the end of our work, Heidi and I found our way to one of the two local bars in town and spent an hour trying to understand an old native woodsmen talk about his working dog team and his perceptions of the difference between them and Iditarod dogs. Although only every 5th word was vaguely coherent, his face certainly spoke of a hard and interesting life. After a snowmachine ride in the dark to the local airport, I was crammed onto a small plane with two other passengers in the only three seats and about 35 dropped dogs were wedged in behind us. It was slightly surreal flying in falling snow for 90 minutes with a sled dog on my feet and the rest of them bundled in the back shifting and whining but the photos are hilarious. The day before the pilots had brought in a plane load of dogs and when they landed all the dogs ran to the back to be the first out the little dog door and ended up sitting the plane on its tail! It was nice to see most of our furry cargo was tied to some part of the plane this time to stop that from happening again! It, however, was a bit of a bumpy ride. The snow and dark decreased the visibility and it was somewhat disconcerting to see the two pilots motioning to each other and constantly wiping the windshield with some paper towel about four feet from our noses! One of my fellow passengers turned out to be a neurosurgeon from my very own town of Corvallis whom I had spoken with several months before on the phone about his team, so we had a nice discussion until we quieted down for a somewhat nerve-wracking landing.

I'm now back in Corvallis and looking down the barrel of a tough week at work before flying to Ohio for a llama conference. Switching species gears again is always tough!

About the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine:
The primary mission of the college is to serve the people of Oregon and various livestock and companion animal industries by furthering the understanding of animal medical practices and procedures. Through research, clinical practice and extension, the college provides Oregon's future veterinarians with one of the most comprehensive educations available.