Blood, Chips, and EKG Fun - Bet

Howdy Ho Everybodies!!!!

Did you know that we now have only 6 days left???  SIX!!!!!!!  HOLY MOLEY!!!

Time sure is flying, and I've been much busier helping the Pretty Curly Tails and Musher get ready than I thought I would be... it's been nothing but non-stop busy, busy, busy, really busy here!!!

If it ain't one thing, it's another.  From training, to paperwork, to media interviews, to meetings, planning, plotting, scheming, googling, and general go, go, go!!!!

I truly didn't think this whole Iditarod thing would be so frantic, but it really, really is!  There is just so much stuffs and things that have to be done before the race, it's like a race before the race!!!

Yesterday we had to pack all of the Pretty Curly Tails up and take them to the official Iditarod Vet place so they could get their blood taken, have EKGs and get their official Iditarod microchippy implanted.

Now, you may be asking yourself "self, why do they do all of these things and stuffs?".

Good question, I'm glad you asked! 

They take the blood to run tests to make sure there's nothing wrong with any of the sled dogs!  The mushers wouldn't want a dog to look perfectly healthy, but then get on the trail and end up having the flu or something going on... that would be bad for the sled dog!  So all of the Iditarod dogs get a full blood work-up and that has to happen earlier than the vet checks so the vets have time to get the results back.

So this is how it works... all of the Pretty Curly Tails arrive in the dog truck and get "dropped" which means that they get out of their cushy boxes and hang out around the truck enjoying the scenery and the veterans make bets on which rookie will scream like a little girl when they get blood drawn.  For the record, the big money was on Skecher who is a bit of a drama queen in my opinion.

Each dog gets taken into the clinic where they see this

Oodles and oodles of needles and vials.  Yep, Squib nearly passed out when he saw that (he hates the sight of blood).

Just to show them all that this one no big thing, I volunteered to go first to show them how all of this is done.  Easy Peasy peoples!!!!

Blood draws are from jugular, and of course they don't shave the area at all because having a bare spot out on the Iditarod trail would NOT be cool... I don't think there's a little toupee to glue to a bare shaven spot anyway, so you have to sit between the legs of a vet tech like so

The tech feels your neck to find a good vein spot and you have to be very, very still so they hold your head and massage your nose, which feels pretty good.

Here I'm using my laser eyes to tell the handler that her foot was on my tail.

Then they jab the needle into your neck and get the bloody blood!

aaaand if they can't get any there, they go for the leg... I happen to be a leg girl myself.

OOOH, scratch that ear, yes... oh... I mean, here they are getting blood and using calming techniques to keep us all happy and comfy.

 

Here I am getting my stylish and fabulous bandage after my blood draw.  I'm getting my nose scratched so I don't look down and see the icky stuffs and things.  I really wanted a purple bandage to match my collar... sigh.

Next we move on to the EKG table!  There are 6 alligator clips that get attached to your skin... they are named for a reason peoples and frankly I could do without that part of it, but it's not horribly horrible or anything.

Ouch... OW... hey watch what you're attaching that too!!!

Once they're all attached you have to lay perfectly still for 20 seconds... or 6 hours in dog years.

Are we done yet?

What about now?

Oh come on, it's been a year already!

Can you hurry up, I have to pee!

This is my EKG screeny thing.  All of those lines and things means something vital and important and I have no idea what that would be, but everyone seemed to be making approving noises, so I'm hopeful.

They gave me some time to recover after the horrible alligator things have been removed, then they gave me an official microchip!

My microchip goes in a normal microchippy place between the shoulder blades, but microchips on sled dogs go in high behind the ears.  Why do they go in high behind their ears?  That's because if they went between the shoulder blades, their harnesses would rub against it and cause irritation or problems, so they go up higher to make sure they stay in the same place, and where they won't cause any issues.

Whew, so after I demonstrated just how easy peasy that all was, then the Pretty Curly Tails were all like "OKEY DOKEY, we can do that too!"

For the record... Molly screamed like a little girl, so Irving won all of the money.

Mission accomplished!