Ivy's first bikejor!

It's always a bit nerve-wracking taking out newbie dogs on their first bikejor. Here's 10 month old Ivy (blue harness) with trusty ol' Ripper after her first bikejor! Yay Ivy! With the exception of the rocky start that had her wrapped up in the harness and lines, as she bounced around and jumped on Ripper, slammed into me on the bike, she did fairly good once we got going. Something just seems to *click* once they actually get going.


Sage and Loki also had their first bikejor experience. Surprisinly, Sage was less tangled than his sister. He's known for being a bit more wild. No, a LOT more wild. She is the calm, in-control, serious sibling, who thinks everything through. He is just a maniac who is so strong, I was hesitant to take him out with another dog. He was totally in control though, and had an almost flawless run - except for when we passed one yard that must have looked so appealing that he wanted to go visit. He dragged Kate and me on the bike over to go visit. All it took from me though was guiding them back onto the road with a few commands. Didn't even have to get off the bike. Just like old pros!

Loki was great and even ran without a neckline. I forgot to put one on him - he's is still pretty skittish, but ran well with his buddy Octane. Really well, considering he had no neckline so he had the chance to go anywhere, but kept speeding down the trail. And man! He is one fast dog! Heck, I think he may be too fast for us!! He's a sprinty little bugger.

Ripper manages to get an amazing amount of his own slobber on his face no matter when we run, how far, or how warm or cold it is...

Bike trip

A most recent bike trip up the Haines Road and off on a side road to a distant lake:


No grizzlies around on this trip. However, there were a LOT of ptarmagins which kept catapulting themselves out of the brush.



Decent scenery eh?

And then, the highlight of the weekend:

Me hiding... or, fishing in the extremely bushy shore of Stella Lake.

Stella Artois... meet Stella Lake!

This was just good karma. Laura's artsy shot.

Good karma all around resulted in me finally catching a fish! It was a Dolly Varden, and was a bit small. It was barely legal, but I decided to let the little guy go. Live little Dolly, Live! Swim on to swim another day!

This is what I did on my day off

Yes, I think my computer is officially *buggered* right now. Yet, I am so committed (or... should be committed?) to blogging, that I will find a way to subject you all to the crap in my life!

So... Ivy went back into surgery for the third time on her neck abcess. She was out a few days and doing fine. The day the drain was supposed to come out, I decided I'd yank it out myself, since it was practically falling out. That process went fine, but in doing so, I also made the moronic decision to take out her stitches too. This was not a good idea since they had only been in a few days. First, let me defend my poor decision-making skills: I remembered last time I had taken her in and they took everything out at once, so really, I was just following what the clinic did. However, I just didn't think it through CLEARLY. That time, the drain and stitches had been in much longer. Fast forward to me yanking out the stitches and being all proud of myself, then immediately realizing it was the wrong decision. Oh yeah. This wound was really gaping open now. Good job. Pat yourself on the back for that one...

Then the lightbulb went off in my head!! I have skin staples! Easy right? I'll just staple her NECK together. I found the staples and attempted to staple away. Well, the first one didn't go in, and the second one seemed to jam. It's not too easy with a little hyper dog bouncing around. I suppose working on her neck nice and close to the jugular is a bit intimidating as well. So I go to take a closer look at the stapler - it seemed they weren't coming out properly - and THWAP!!! I succesfully staple.... MY FINGER!!!! Owwww....ok, so those do sting as they go in. Good to know.

Even more difficult is trying to get a staple out of your finger with one hand. Really. Take my word for it. See, the staples have to be spread apart, THEN removed... this is just FYI - if anyone else out there manages to do this to themselves.

But, I overcame this little obstacle and went out to chase Ivy down (while bleeding out of two new little holes in my finger) to staple her again. She knew what I was up to. The fun doesn't end here... oh no! I had bought new sunglasses a few weeks ago (this does relate... just be patient). They were for biking, and a pair I REALLY liked - not too expensive, 'cause I know me. Good thing, because I thought I lost these things last week. Great I thought. One week and they've disappeared! Ok, so this afternoon (prior to the staple scenario), I FOUND THEM! Woohoo... I was so excited, because I had my big round-trip commute planned the next day.

Cut back to me chasing Ivy around, and as we make the corner around the coffee table...CRUNCH!!! The sound and feel under my feet was torture. I knew EXACTLY what I had stepped on. MY NEW SUNGLASSES!!! Awwww..... frick!!! Snapped the arm clear off. They, like my computer, are now completely buggered.

The good news: Ivy is successfully stapled and I am successfully scarred for life... but staple-free!

Dying computer...

I'm trying to get blogging here, but alas, my computer is crashing like crazy. There may be a brief hiatus here on keep-on-sledding till I can get the $$BUCKS$$ together for a laptop.

Meanwhile, the dogs and I are just relaxing and enjoying the nice, long summer days. I'm biking like crazy and commuting quite a bit to work and back. My new spedometer has been a great motivating factor to go even FASTER!!! Plus it's giving me accurate distances and stuff. Very cool. My one-way commute is actually 32.8km. 2.8km more than I was giving myself credit for.

And it wouldn't be a post on this site without a dog photo or three. Here is Ivy telling the tarp who's boss. Don't mess with her.


Here's Sage the other night at around 11:30 pm. Check out the amount of daylight!! Yukoners seem to get very little sleep in the summer (we're just too busy doing stuff!), as do the tourists, who unknowingly stay up way past their bedtime due to the ever-present sun screwing with their schedules. I often see tourists coming into my place of work, sleepy and exhausted. You may ask what the heck are they doing at a museum at 8:30am then?!?! I guess any sight of the sun and their internal clocks WILL NOT let them sleep. On the other end of the spectrum, my internal clock will let me sleep whenever I damn well feel like it. Maybe we are few and far between, but I have no problem sleeping with full sunlight screaming through my window...


Stay tuned and enjoy the summer!!

If you were a dog, you'd be drooling right now...

Behold the freezer full of 250lbs of Arctic Char (Thanks to those good folks at ICY WATERS), and a crapload of bison bones and scraps.... mmmmmmm.....


Let's just say my dogs are diggin' life right now and their bellies are slowly expanding in the warm sun as I type. Thanks to my inability to judge just how big my freezer really is, I've got a crapload of extra fish I have to get dispose of down their gullets.... FAST! They have suddenly been forced to adopt a coastal-type diet (fish, fish, and more fish!), yet don't seem to be complaining about it one bit!

Here's Lucy with a bison bone:


I like Jack's unique method of working a bone. Use the log Jack, use the log...


This is a happy Loki. Really! He does come out of his house, I swear. We're still working through his "issues" but he'll take food right from my hand now, and come right up to me when loose to sniff me out.


Octane looks like he's ready to bolt with that bone if I come any closer...


Ripper, always keeping an eye on the human - just in case he misses something important y'know.

This is one of those oh, so rare moments where he is not spinning around in circles and going 100 miles/hour. Man, it's exhausting just watching this dog.

Sometimes... I think I have wayyyy too much time on my hands...

"It's Canada Day, it's Canada Day!!! Awrrrrooooooooooooooo...."


So, because I seem to get bored easily, or because I'm slightly off my rocker, I actually first attempted to put a temporary tattoo on his head. Has anyone out there tried putting a temporary tattoo on a dogs head?!?! I could be wrong... but those things don't seem to really be made for a dog's head. Too much fur, they want to see what the heck you are doing to their head, so they move, wiggle around, flop on the ground, and there goes the tattoo.

Anyways, this big, bouncy goofball was so freakin' excited (as you can see) -because it was Canada Day and we were *just* about to have our Canada Day cake - that I couldn't get much more than a red blobby splodge on that massive head of his. Hm. Wish I had some red paint.

Ah well, at least the duct tape worked.

So, Happy Canada Day Eh!?!