Doggone

           The season's changed. Shit. Motherfucker, the season's changed. I'd hoped it would wait at least two more weeks, but there's the Sun. Well, it is May so that makes sense. See, my owners live in Junea, Alaska (AK) and here days are different than in the rest of the states. In AK the sun is up for three months and down for nine and I'm about to go on of the blessings. I love the blessings. I'm always happy when they choose me for the blessings, but it's easier when the blessings are in the dark, because the snow/ice is more solid and we don't have to think about falling through the cracked ice. See, my human parents run a tourist business where the tourists come to ride on our dog sled. Most of them enjoy themselves and take pictures. Now, there are some protestors (idiots) who want to free us from this bondage, but it isn't bondage. If you're human (if not, ignore this), remember in gym class when there was two team captains who choose their team from the other people. No one wanted to be the last person chosen for the team because everyone knew that meant you weren't good at that sport. It's the same with us dogs. Everybody wants to be the ones who get to pull the tourists and we sometimes fight each other for the priviledge until our master breaks up the fight, but this trip would be one to remember.

           See, I've pulled people on my sled that were adipose before, but always during the winter when the ice is solid. My master knows better than to put an adipose person on thin ice, but the last two seasons were slow and my human parents needed more money to feed us and their family, so they decided to let these two people join them. 

           But I was picked and my tail was wagging, but if I knew what was to come, it wouldn't have been. There were ten dogs on the team this time, which was unusual, because there are eight dogs assigned to a team. My master had to make special ropes to make this work. We tugged hard to start the sled moving. Our sleigh and the sleigh beside us both worked hard to break the ice frozen on the sled (which is typical). Then, we got the inertia going and the sledding was going as usual. My master instructed this woman on how to steer us, how to mush us, and most other techniques for steering a dog sled team.

*

           Now, you, the reader, fall into one of two groups: those who believe in global warming and believe the ice caps in the Poles are melting and those who believe global warming is a bunch of mellarchy. Either way, we had a problem. See, us ten dogs were running with the snow on our faces, loving every moment, when we saw a white haboob ahead and our tourists had never seen a white haboob and so we, as a team, started slowing down to wait for our master's (not our driver, but our master's instructions), but our rider took out his camera after ooing and ahhing and took pictures. Then, he cracked his whip and said “Mush”. All of us obeyed, because we're good dogs and want to stay on the team and if the master says Mush, you mush. But we heard our master say, “Hold up. Come back. Change of plans.” But, see, humans don't have ears like us dogs have ears and these humans never saw a snow haboob before and couldn't hear our master/their instructor. We all looked in the driver's eyes and gave that famous sad dog eye look, but they didn't understand. They thought they knew better. There are 32 names for snow in Alaska because they need to communicate what's going on in their environment. But, this couple only knew two things about snow: the word snow and mush. Great. So, even though I wasn't at the head of the line, I knew something had to be done and with my tail between my legs I stopped running which caused the rest of the dogs to be off kilter. But, we couldn't keep running into the snow haboob, because we'd breathe in the heavy snow and/or be blinded. We're supposed to pull these adipose people with no air or vision? Idiots. What happened next is the sled Jack-Knifed. If you're a truck-driver, you get it. The front went in one direction and the back went in the other direction and this we hit the man's wife's dog sled and it went sliding left and the two sleds wound up going in circles like a figure skater, but not pretty.

           The idiot tourists were dumbstruck. They tried, after the crash, to mush us again but all the dogs were too smart to mush after a crash like this. Some of us were hurt. We had to wait for our master to make an assessment of the situation and, after ten minutes, we began to hear the sled of our master sliding against the snow until our master arrived and had his dogs come to a halt.

           “You both okay?” my master asked.

           They both affirmed they were.

           “You know why your dogs crashed your sleds?” my master asked.

           They took a moment to contemplate this question, since neither thought the crash was intentional, then got interrupted.

           “See that thing up there?”

           The man said, “Yea. It's beautiful. I got lots of pictures.”

           Our master said, “It's dangerous. That's a snow haboob” and my master explained what that was and explained why I crashed their sleds. Then, the idiots had my master assess us (no one was injured enough not to continue) and had us go in the other direction. 

           We headed back and these two geniuses stayed within ear shot of my master. My master guided three sleds at one time, which is not an easy task my friend, not an easy task, but these to people who were adipose had proven their incompetence and my master knew they couldn't be trusted to drive us back. When we got back to the wooden cabin, the idiots demanded their money back, which my master gave them and then they said some curse words and asked, “How often do we get to go to Alaska to dogsled?” and the man took out his keys and started heading out. But my master stopped them again, saying, “I'm sorry you didn't have a better experience. But, I'd like to warn you it isn't safe to drive in this weather. Let's have some hot coffee and relax. The man then stuck his middle finger out at my master and left the cabin. My master never found out whether or not this couple made it to the airport or home safe. Now, I love my job, I love being the first to be picked for the team, I love following orders, I love tourists and I love my master, but I hate idiots.