Date archives: July 1, 2009

René Marchildon is a succesful musher from South River, Ontario, Canada. René has raced competitively for 10 years, and is also involved with Chocpaw Expeditions which run sled dog tours in Algonquin Provincial park. Renee has placed in the top 5 twice in the Can-Am 250 race, and won the…

Note: Part I of this two-part series on cancer in dogs, which appeared in the May-June issue of Mushing, covered lymphoma, mast cell tumors and osteosarcoma (bone cancer), the most frequently occurring cancers in dogs. These articles are meant to point the reader in the direction of the best treatment…

Beagle was a perfectly good dog. Although a little smaller than most of our old-time freight Alaskan huskies, his long-distance race background meant he’d be a little faster, have more endurance, and recover more quickly. He was good eater, and had decent feet and an above average work ethic. Over…

As I write this it is a blazing 80 degrees (above zero) outside and mushing season seems so far off now. But by the time you read this we should be past summer solstice and the days will be getting shorter as we head into winter once again. Now that…

Dogsled race organizers take note: the bar has officially been risen. The inaugural Bootleg Gap Dog Sled Races, held Feb. 21-22 just outside Kimberly BC, could easily be called Western Canada’s most successful mushing event of the season. With 2,500 spectators on the first day alone, 49 competitors racing 69…

Colorado musher Leslie Fields needed to learn six team commands in Russian when she partnered with a Russian musher to compete in the North Hope stage race held in late February at Kotkishevo near  Russia’s western Ural Mountains February 24 to 26.North Hope was billed as the first international stage…

As I watched my beloved Dusty slowly deteriorate in health, I believed that he had entered his senior years and that it was only a matter of time and not much I could do to improve or extend his life. Dusty was a Siberian Husky whose beauty would stop strangers…

For over twenty years as a sports medicine veterinarian, not a day has gone by where I haven’t sometimes wished a patient could talk to me and tell me where they hurt or what they were feeling. However, being a realist and knowing that I am never going to get…

Alaska’s arctic Brooks Range is the land of where extremes and adventures are created. Temperatures can vary 70 degrees in a day. Wind can shift from a soft whisper to a frost biting 60 mph blast in an instant. Dark winters can make a person dream of warm sunshine, and…