Dogs in the Village

I was forewarned before going to Alaska: "Dogs are not pets there!" And I understood that. Or so I thought. Because as I heard this warning, I thought, "Well, they're still dogs and dogs love me!"

That's not quite what the warning was about as I found out. As with everything in Alaska, the dogs are kinda wild. There are some Fido's & Fifi's out there, but mostly the dogs I came across were more like stray dogs. Some were friendly, but other's were scared of you. Even the dogs who actually weren't strays really only trusted their owners.

The kids I saw love their dogs. One puppy followed a girl to the summer camp at the school and ran through my legs to find her inside the school. Everywhere I looked, there was a cute puppy! Normally following a group of kids.

But there's still an untamed nature about the dogs. I'd say they all seemed to be part wolf, but I saw a corgi who was skittish, so there goes that theory!

Dogs in the village can be dangerous. 15 miles from where I was, a 3 year old wondered into a dog yard & the dogs were hungry. Isn't that horrible? I have a feeling that gnarly stories are going to become a fact of life for me. I was only there for one week, but I already have a couple - nothing that happened to me, but I can tell my brain will have to switch over & start to think SURVIVAL as opposed to "Oh! That's pretty! What's over here?" and even "Doggies? Dogs LOVE me!" Yeah, for dinner!

A dog yard is an area where the dogs are kept. And not in fences. Each dog has it's own area with a dog house & is tied down to a post. These are the sled dogs. Now, some people are going to think "Outside!?! Doesn't it get freezing!?!" And the answer is yes. However, these aren't your normal dogs. This is what they are built for. Surviving in snow & running. Puppies are kept indoors until they are about a year old. A good musher takes good care of his dogs, but they aren't made for the inside. It takes 13 dogs to pull a sled. So you can imagine a dog yard.

Walking by several dog yards was actually kind of intimidating. They watch you. And not a tail wags. They sit and watch you. Their eyes follow you as you walk by. If you walk by close enough, they start to bark at you. I'm pretty sure those ones were part wolf. I'm telling you, common sense tells you to be careful in a dog yard!!

I did venture into one though. Mike Williams, Jr ran the Iditarod last year. His father has been running it for years. A teacher who taught in the village last year invited us newbies over for dinner, and she invited Mike Jr. He was very nice. He was very polite and soft spoken. After dinner, we went to his dog yard. He has 40 dogs. Probably more than 40....I didn't see his puppies.

Can you say night & day difference with the dogs? These dogs were so friendly! One dog (my favorite) was howling to get our attention! Huskies, malamutes, & mixed dogs - all were gorgeous! Some dogs tails were wagging so hard I thought they were going to hurt themselves! That was one of the coolest moments...everywhere you looked there was a dog wanting your attention. I was in dog lover HEAVEN! Okay, some of the dogs weren't too sure about us, but most of them were happy to see us. Now, I kept to the edge of the path, I didn't want to walk through the middle of all those dogs. But I probably would have been okay.

Mike is planning on running the Iditarod again. I think that's very exciting! There's also a smaller dog sled race that happens right on my river in the winter time! You can bet I'm taking pictures of that!! (I didn't bring my camera that day, otherwise you'd be seeing tons of pictures of dogs.) (Especially of Flash, he was my favorite!)