Tuesday, 28 February 2006

February 28, 2006 Vet Visits

Last week the dogs went in for their bloodwork and EKGs - everyone checked out fine. Today it was into Dr. Baetsle at the Big Lake Clinic for individual health checks. Again, everyone checked out fine. Tomorrow I have to have the 'pool' whittled down to 20 - I guess this is what I get paid the 'big bucks' for! (HA!)

I have actually just filled out the official '2006 Iditarod Dog Microchip Identification Sheet' with 20 names. It was a tough chore, but really I don't think there were any 'wrong' decisions here.
I'll give you the Top Twenty List below and just because I have nothing better to do (HA!) I thought I'd dazzle you all with some statistics.

So (in ALPHABETICAL ORDER) here goes -
Batdog
Barq
Crunchie
Dasher
Draco
Hector
Herman
Jinx
Junior
Kara
Loki
Moses
Odie
Olena
Pepsi
Q
Skor
Snickers
Sprite
Surge 

The 2 missing from that list are Iditarod veterans, Hilda and Nahanni.

Hilda just came into season (a little unexpectedly actually) and after dealing with hormonal 'in season' girls all winter, I just can't see myself putting up with the disruption of the team for another 1100 miles.
Nahanni just has really bad luck. Last year she was having a fantastic season, but was sidelined due to a mild shoulder injury. This year she is injury free, but being a little behind in miles after having her litter late this summer, she just isn't having her best season.

And now for the fascinating, but basically meaningless statistics -
The youngest dogs in the Top Twenty are Jinx and Q at 2 years of age. The oldest is Draco at 8. The average age of the team is 4 ½. There are 7 girls and 13 boys. 

There are 6 rookies and 14 veterans of Iditarod.

The average weight of the team is 48.5 lbs. The heaviest being Draco at 62 lbs (the heaviest of his career - he's been trying to convince me that 'it was all fur' - obviously he was lying * vbg *) The lightest is little Jinx at 38 lbs. 

The 7 girls average weight is 43 lbs. - the heaviest of them at 45 lbs, is Kara. 

The average weight of the boys is 52 lbs - with the lightest of them being Batdog at 47 lbs - who interestingly enough is definitely not the smallest of the males.

All right, the eyes are getting heavy and we have an early morning tomorrow, so I'm off to bed.

'Night!
Karen

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