Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Chihuahua Dog Sled Team



When I lived in Tucson, Arizona for a short time I went with my brother Brad to Sears to help him with his purchase of a large appliance. While waiting for them to do all the paperwork Brad and I struck up a fictional conversation knowing that the strangers around would listen intently because I was talking about a place that most people would never visit.

I had lived in Anchorage, Alaska for over a decade and saw many Iditarod Dog Sled Races “Last Great Race on Earth®” (FYI- the start in Anchorage is just for the public, the official start is in the Matanuska Valley).  

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s John Suter ran a team of Standard Poodles in the race. So playing off of this knowledge of using a breed other than huskies I told my bother about the team of Chihuahuas that ran the race . They had to have about a hundred dogs in order to pull a loaded sled. I told him how funny it looked to watch them because all you saw was the sled but no dogs because their diminutive size was too small to see over the deep snow.

I told him about the challenges the musher and dogs had and was internally laughing so hard I wasn’t sure if I could continue my deceptive fictional narrative. Sadly, the team didn’t win but they did finish the 1,150 mile race. He, he.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see that people were listening but pretending not to. The place was silent with the exception of my jabbering. I can only imagine the story they had when they went home to tell their families. This was before the internet hit the general public so researching the validity of my amazing story would had been very difficult.

Of course I never let on that this was just my vivid imagination. What fun would that be?

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