Category archives: Kennel

Growing up in Anchorage, I decided (at the age of 7) that I was going to be a dog musher someday. In the summer of 2010, fresh out of high school, I began learning the ropes from a local musher, Christine Roalofs, who taught me the basics of sled dog care and kennel management. After leaving for college at the University of Alaska Fairbanks that fall, I returned during every school break and subsequent summer to continue learning about running dogs.

In 2014 I got my “gateway” dog, Panda. With one dog of my own, my daily focus shifted to sports such as skijoring and bikejoring. I signed up for the skijor division of the 25-mile Tanana River Challenge that spring with Panda and Storm – a second dog I borrowed from Christine.

The day prior to the Tanana River Challenge, temperatures dropped to -25F. I realized I would need jackets for Panda and Storm, so I swung by Cold Spot Feeds to purchase some. When I walked in the local mushing and pet store with Panda, I was met by a dog that clearly had some intense medical needs. Most of his fur was missing, and scabby bloody sores covered his hairless body. He was thin and boney and his ribs and hips jutted out under his damaged skin. I had to know this dog’s story. I walked up to the lady, and Panda and the scabby dog sniffed noses. His eyes lit up and he wagged his tail, and Panda dropped down onto her front legs in play mode.

The lady was a foster volunteer for the Fairbanks shelter and this 11 month old Alaskan husky pup was on a long journey of healing and finding his forever home. He had come from a bad situation and the vets at the shelter were unsure what to do. They almost euthanized him immediately to put him out of his suffering and pain, but the pup had crawled into a staff member’s lap and looked at her, and she decided they needed to try. The Fairbanks Animal Shelter Fund, a nonprofit  that puts donations towards the medical needs of animals at the shelter, stepped up to help this pup. He was started on some medications and put into foster care to work on his recovery.

Now he stood before me at Cold Spot, and I could tell he was in pain still but had a strong will to live. I exchanged contact information and said I was interested in adopting him, but I needed to sleep on it. I knew that taking on an extreme medical needs dog wouldn’t be the easiest decision while in college.

The next morning I woke and went to the skijor race. I thought about the scabby dog the whole race. Immediately after crossing the finish line, I sat in my car and texted the foster lady. I was going to adopt this dog. We met at the shelter on Monday and I filled out the adoption paperwork. The shelter staff gave me a discount on his adoption fee “for taking on such a monumental task”. I named him Zeke. I walked him out to my car and he jumped in. He shook off, and the interior of the car was immediately filled with a cloud of dead skin that was sloughing off his body. We rode out to my dry cabin in the Goldstream Valley and our lives together began.

Zeke’s healing journey wasn’t easy. The medications weren’t working. He had regular checkups with the vet, and the vets made it clear to me from the beginning that it was a possibility he’d still need to be euthanized because his mange was too far gone to recover from.  He had a whole-body skin infection that we were worried would go septic.

His raw and exposed skin went from bright red to black from the damage. The entire counter of my cabin was filled with rows of medications, and Zeke had to see a vet once a week for injections.

Zeke needed a bath every single day – a prescription bath on even days and a soothing oatmeal bath on odd days. He had to wear a t-shirt over his sores and booties on his back feet to keep him from scratching his open itchy wounds. We switched medications and tried different combinations until there was only one left to try; if it didn’t work, it would be the end of the road.

When I got home from one of my appointments with Zeke, I was stressed and he was in discomfort. I put a clean t-shirt on him and looked at him. We both needed some fresh air. I put a harness on Panda, who started barking with excitement. Zeke cocked his head and came over to me when I held up a second harness. I slipped it over the top of his t-shirt and clipped him next to Panda on the bungee connected to my bike. He snapped forward immediately, taking Panda’s lead and pulling his heart out.

When Zeke was running, he wasn’t hurting. The itching didn’t exist, the mange didn’t exist; all that existed was the snowy bike trail in front of us. We turned onto the packed trails through the swamps. Zeke quickened his pace when we passed a moose. He just ran and ran and ran and never looked back. He wasn’t a medical needs dog anymore – he was a sled dog. Panda reached over mid-stride and licked his face, and the two picked up the pace until we were sprinting, barely in control. When we got home, Zeke didn’t pace around the living room.

He didn’t scratch his wounds or paw at his t-shirt. He slept. He was happy, he was finally comfortable. Zeke started coming on our runs every day, and the more he ran the less he scratched and the quicker he improved. His scabs stopped bleeding, his skin stopped sloughing off. Slowly, his hair started growing back. He grew a beautiful coat. It became sleek and black and tan and white. We stopped going to weekly vet appointments, and the line of medications on my counter slowly diminished until the counter was empty. And each day, we ran. We ran farther, faster, longer. He was confident and head-strong, and he picked up his commands quickly.

In 2016, still traveling back down to southcentral during my breaks from school, I began training for my first Iditarod qualifiers with Al Eischens. I brought Zeke down with me and let him come with us on training runs. I kept waiting for him to hit his limit, to decide he’d run enough and was ready to go home. After all, he was just a random dog I picked up from the shelter. That limit never came. Zeke always wanted to go. He screamed and jumped 4 feet in the air during stops, and he gobbled up every bit of food put in front of him. I could trust him to nail every command, and he had the best instincts on the trail. With one “come haw” command from me on the sled, Zeke could U-turn an entire 12-dog team without a single tangle. I signed up for the Copper Basin 300, and Zeke came along. He finished the Copper Basin. He finished the Goose Bay 150 shortly after. I was shocked when Al asked if he could take Zeke on the Iditarod with him. Like an overprotective mom, I hesitantly agreed.  Zeke entered the Iditarod.

I remember driving a bit outside of Nome to watch the team come across the sea ice. There was Zeke, trotting strongly in the team heading to the finish line. I couldn’t believe how far he’d come both in this physical journey and in his own personal healing journey. I truly believe running saved him. After the race, I ducked out of the Nome finish banquet early to bring him a plate of steak and chicken I had pocketed from the buffet table.

In 2022 I signed up for my own Iditarod. I borrowed a stellar team of dogs from Wade Marrs, and my husband, Justin, and I worked together to train them out of our newly-purchased off-grid property just outside of Fairbanks. Zeke was 8, and for the last couple years had been mostly going on fun runs and sleeping on the couch. I didn’t think he’d have another Iditarod in him, but every time we hooked the race team up for a run he’d scream so dejectedly that I couldn’t stand it. We started letting him come along for fun, and he just kept coming along all season. He ran in lead through the throngs of people at the Ceremonial Start.

Zeke was a rock star on Iditarod. When we had a water crossing in the Dalzell Gorge and the team was nervous to go across, I put him up front and he pulled us through. When we got stuck in a bad storm outside McGrath, I put him in lead and he helped find the trail. By the time we got to Cripple, something seemed off. The vets couldn’t find anything wrong, but I could tell by a look in his eyes that that was the end of his race. I gave him a kiss and left him in the hands of the capable vets and continued on without him. 2022 was a very challenging Iditarod, but leaving Zeke behind in Cripple was probably the hardest part for me. 

The rest of the team and I conquered -40 temperatures on the Yukon, 70+ mph winds in Shaktoolik, glare ice on Golovin Bay, and everything else Iditarod throws. After the race, I spent the spring napping in the sun with Zeke and going on short fun runs. Wade’s dogs went back to live with Wade and his wife Sophia in Wisconsin, and Justin and I were left with a ghost yard of empty houses.

We went to the Fairbanks animal shelter, and ReRun Kennel was born.

At that point we had 12 dogs of our own, 7 of which were already from the shelter or other rescues. Most of them were old couch potatoes. Justin had the racing bug and we wanted to expand our kennel while helping more dogs in need.

Many dogs come through the Fairbanks shelter each year for a variety of reasons, and just because they’re at the shelter doesn’t mean they don’t have potential as fantastic sled dogs. We look for dogs who are not thriving in a pet dog setting – the dogs who have been reported to be destructive, hyper, wild little nuisances. The ones climbing fences and getting into trouble, who clearly want…NEED…a physical outlet.

Domino is a wild guy who we’ve had for 4 years and is still too wiggly to harness easily. He broke my nose out of excitement getting clipped into the gangline for a run. Phantom was stressed living in a house and he bit a child during some Christmas commotion. Poppy was experiencing an incredible amount of anxiety and was destructive. River was getting into the trash, climbing fences, and starting fights. Loki was a frequent flier and went through the shelter system three times for behavioral issues. Once given an outlet and a job, the behavioral issues have become easier to manage and in some cases have gone away entirely. The dogs with anxiety show none of that living with their pack. They know where they fit in and they know they get to do what they love. They are great pet dogs too, once their physical needs are being met.

Other dogs such as Quinn, Fly, Tippet, Jig, and Tango were brought to the shelter because their previous owners could no longer care for them, afford to feed them, or had medical needs of their own. Some dogs are brought in from villages because of the dwindling salmon runs. Regardless of their reason, they’ve all found their way home.

Justin entered the Copper Basin 300 in 2023 with our first true team of ReRun kennel dogs, nearly a whole team originating from the shelter. We were not sure how our hodgepodge group would perform, but when all 12 dogs crossed the finish line, our suspicions about what these dogs were capable of was confirmed. Justin finished the race once again in 2024. Both years, the dogs also successfully finished Jr. Iditarod with our younger mushers we mentor, Keira and Torleif. We drove over to Canada and ran the Yukon Quest 450, which was shortened to a ~240 due to river conditions. It was a tough 240 with many new trail conditions and experiences for the dogs, but they once again pulled through spectacularly.

This year the ReRun dogs alongside Justin will face the ultimate challenge: the Iditarod. Many  dogs in the team will have a varied past with rollercoasters of ups and downs, but one thing is for sure: together they’re getting a second chance. They’re getting to feel the excitement, visit new places, see new things, and take it all in. We’re forever thankful to be giving them a ReRun.