B6 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, October 30, 1996 DAVETAYLOR——it*™” S Dogg SKEENA: ANGLER ROB BROWN Brad the bear t was thrce years ago when Buford first shuffled down the wmountainside that casts a shadow over our humble little cottage we call home, and paid us a visit, The female white samoyed/husky cross that has hovered around our dead end of the street so long we now call her ours, heralded Buford’s approach. Chimo, foe of mailwomen and Standard bearers, flyer carriers and peddlars religious and secular, caught a whiff of ursine musk and launched into an hysterical chorus of barking: an apoplectic arroooo followed by an arf and a woof that is Eskimo Dog for BEAR ATTACK! Being less than fluent in Dog we shot our- . selves puzzled looks and asked questions like: What in the hell’s wrong with the dog? We asked ourselves that for a long time, right up to the moming I sallied forth into the front yard to retrieve a brace of brand spanking new garbage cans. When I got to my property line one of the tough fellows I'd bought on sale at Safeway ‘was gone, Now I knew this couldn’t be Bill’s fault. Bill is my garbage maa. He mans one of those right- handed garbage trucks that the City bought a few years back, the kind that enables the opera- tor — no, forces the operator — to drive and ride shot gun at the same time. With this vehicular adjustment the city fathers, who ought to ride with Bill for a few weeks, and slug around,cans full of household excreta just'to see what'kind of physical torment they’re asking a mere mortal to endure for a Jess than princely wage, have eliminated jobs and, in the long run, lost money for all of us. Bill is an amazing guy. One snowy day he stopped his arduous rounds to help me push my car out of a drift onto the road, He’s all heart and muscle, He’s pleasant and full of help. He aches yet he doesn’t complain. He should be mayor. Previous sanitary engineers have smashed my lin cans to smithereens and left them all over the neighbourhood, but Bill stacks them neatly, makes sure the lids are secured, then, if ’m around, asks me if I have any more. No sir, some other force had purloined my new, super tuff, PVC can. Chimo looked at me and cocked her head impatiently and urged me to solve the mystery. Solve it I did. Following a trail of beaten down ferns into the woods, J found my beloved can filled with holes made by tooth and claw. lying on a mossy slope with garbage strewn all around. Ab hah, I thought, bear. Chimo gave me a ‘‘so-you-finally-figgered it out-eh?’? look. The solution appeared simple at first; keep the garbage in until collection mom, but Brad the bear kept coming, lured by the sweet promise of apples that lic neglected on trees in our neigh- bourhood in the fall. And, there were others, like Rachel who often works nights, that put their garbage outside the house on the night be- fore Bill was due to arrive. One morning I looked up the street to sce Chimo amid garbage standing, presumed guilty, amid garbage Buford had scattered ali over Rachel’s lawn, Last year somebody convinced the conserva- tion officers to tow a trap up here, The officers came back to check the trap only to find Chimo, belly full of bait and a satisfied look on her face, sitting inside the trap. This year Brad the bear returns on a nightly basis sending Chimo into barking paroxysms every time. Sometimes the barking starts early in the evening, more often it arouses us well after the bewitching hour. Last week my daughter Cait and I pulled up to the house to discover our faithful doggy limping about. At sixteen years, Chimo is going blind, has lost a lot of her hearing, and her reflexes have slowed, She had obviously gotien too close to her foe for a large chunk of skin hung down from under Chimo’s leg. Under the wound her white fur was stained with blood. We dragged her, shak- ing and panting, into the car and rushed her off to the veterinarian, Dr. Alorza didn't like the look of the tear, and he didn’t Hke her chances of surviving the anesthetic. In the end things turned out for the best. Chimo succumbed to a mild tranquilizer given her in preparation for the local anesthetic enabling the doctor to perform some clever suturing on her papery old skin. We packed our fearless, doped up doggy into the car with instructions to bring her back ia two weeks time to have the stitches out. The nurse handed us some antibiotics and suggested we pull an old t-shirt over our pet to prevent her from licking and tearing at her wound. Cait found a shrunken blue model that fit our sled dog to a T: Against Animal Testing, it " proclaimed across the front. THE FIRST rule of dogsledding is — don’t let go. That may seem pretty obvious, but if you’ve got a team of six dogs in front of you just aching to run, you'd better hang on. “They just keep right on going until they're tired,”’ says dogsled- der Eileen Puge, “You end up doing a lot of walking.” Puge held a seminar on the basics of dogsledding this past weekend. Five people signed up for the two- day class which included instruc- tion on necessary equipment, sled- driving, canine health and winter. survival skills. And Puge is certainly an experi- enced instructor. She has been dogsledding since she was three- years-old, starting with a child’s sleigh and one dog, All her life she wanted to have a dog team. And seven years ago, when her three children had grown up, she started to work on one. “T started with one female, Panda,’” Puge says. ‘‘And worked from there, I traded puppies for stud service and now I have ten dogs.” Those dogs are all Siberian Hus- Kies, Puge says that they’re the most efficient breed when it comes to food and work. They don’t need as much food as some working breeds. **Bul it still costs us a small far- tune to feed them,’? Puge says. Siberian Huskies are also less ag- gressive than some breeds, which means less fighting amongst the group. Even so, Puge says the dogs have a real pack mentality, almost like _ wolves, , There are. even dominant male and female dogs, who are ac- casionally challenged by other dogs in the hierarchy. That’s not to say these dogs aren't pampered pets, They love Puge to bits and they love to pull her around on her sled too, “The dogs are absolutely crazy about it,’’ Puge says. “I put their harnesses on and they’re like, ‘Alright — let’s boogie!'”’ Puge sees lots of wildlife on her many winter forays into the back- country. She even came across a pack of real wolves once, near New Rema, **They were actually very non ag- gressive,”’ Puge says. Puge usually runs her team with a big bell to wam both wildlife and people that the team is coming through. . ‘Otherwise we can be so quiet that you don’t know we're coming ERRACE-STANDARD PORTS Elfeen Puge is very popular with her 10 Siberlan Huskies. She takes them sledding in the winter, and last weekend held a training seminar to teach others about her sport. toy 638-7283 until we're almost right on top of you,” she says. Puge says she loves those trips out in the valleys — when it’s just her and her dogs, Usually, it’s quite serene, but not always. “It can be quite harrowing too,” Puge says. ‘When you're blasting down narrow trails, its white- knuckles all the way. And for some reason, when the dogs see that it’s getting dangerous — they pick up Girls pounce atp speed.”’ Puge points out that it doesn’t re- quire a whole team of dogs to go sledding. Just one dog can easily pull a sled and rider. “You can use any type of dog too,”” she says. ‘*‘Bven cocker spaniels — although you’d proba- bly need more than one of them,’? And if you don’t have a sled, you could try a sport called skijoring. That's where a dog pulls a person umpkin OUR SKEENA girls’ volleyball team made a@ spectacular team effort to take second place at the Prince George Pumpkin Pounder toumament two weekends ago. That's the team with thelr sliver medals, Members include Chelsea Fladhamer, Reann Sousa, Heather Kelly, Stefanie Fladhamer, Kistine Haugland, Incoronata Maddalena, Pam Austin, Paula Telxelra, Andrea Davis, Nancy A- buah, Kristen Davis, Shannon Chalupiak, Melanie Mahon, Harjag Mattu and Megan Corp. on skis. All you need is the right harness and a dog that wants fo run. Puge says that there are actually quite a few dog sledders in town, and she hopes to add a few more by teaching her seminar. So don’t be surprised this winter if you’re passed by a sled and a feam of dogs, And if that sled.is driverless, just wait — you can bet that a tired, red-faced rookie driver won’t be far behind. pounder OUR SKEENA Jr. girls’ volleyball team spiked their way to an im- pressive silver medal performance October 18-19 at the annual Prince George Pumpkin Pounder, The toumey hosted 10 teams from around northwest and central BC — including Prince Rupert, Terrace, Williams Lake and Ques- nel. The girls got off to a poor start on the Friday night against the John Mclinnes Grade 10s, losing two Straight sets. But Skeena bounced back and took their second match against Kelly Road in three sets, by overcoming a 10-1 deficit in the third and deciding set, winning 15- 11. The next day could be called Su- per Saturday, as the girls won their next four games in a row, against Quesnel, McKenzie, College Heights and D.P. Todd schools to advance to the finals. There, they met the John McInnes Grade 10s for the second time. In a fierce batlle, with some incredible performances, Skeena won their first set 17-16. But they lost the second set 15-9, which took the match to a third game. John McInnes came out on top in the clincher, sending the Skeena girls home with the silver —a feat that bas only been matched once previously at this tournament. The strong finish was a result of spectacular individual and team ef- forts. Following the last game, two Skeena players, Heather Kelly and Nancy Arbuah were presented with All Star awards.