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Mackey sled dog Zorro hurt … Itchmo blog takes a break … and the ‘F’ word
By Gina Spadafori
March 30, 2008
I live in California, the sunny part. I have never been on a snowmobile. You gotta understand that going in. But what is up with snowmobilers running into sled dog teams? One of the dogs killed in the Iditarod was hit by a snowmobile, and now Iditarod champ Lance Mackey’s Zorro was airlifted in serious condition during a race after Mackey’s sled was slammed into by snowmobilers. From the AP:
A man on a snowmobile ran into Mackey’s team, seriously injuring a key animal in his kennel. Mackey broke down in tears Saturday telling how a veteran race dog, Zorro, was injured as the animal rode in the sled’s basket.
The snowmobile driver has not been identified.
Mackey was in third place in the Sweepstakes around midnight Friday just 20 miles from the finish line when two snowmobiles came up fast from behind.
“I was flashing them like mad with my headlamp,” he said. “I was shining my headlamp right in his face, but they kept on coming at me. I jumped aside, and by 30 feet further up the trail, there was a snow machine sitting on the middle of my sled.”
The machine impaled the sled bag with its runners.
“Three or four dogs were sucked underneath and Zorro was trapped in the sled bag,” Mackey said.
The driver who hit Mackey and his partner on the other machine helped Mackey right the mess, then left as Mackey continued on.
“I would give my life for my dogs,” Mackey said. “I can’t make anyone know how important animals are to me.”
By midday Saturday, Zorro was on a commercial flight to Pet Emergency, a veterinarian facility in Anchorage, for medical treatment. Zorro had broken ribs and perhaps internal injuries.
“If he lives, I don’t think he is going to want to race to Nome again,” Mackey said.
Several other dogs had injuries, but they were not life threatening, Mackey said.
The 9-year-old injured dog has been a star in the teams that won Alaska’s two major long-distance races the last two years.
Here’s the rest. Would it be out of bounds to imagine that — as recreational boaters and jet-skiiers do down here in the warmer climes — snowmobiling is a recreation that often goes with an overindulgence in adult beverages?
C’mon, Zorro. We’re praying for ya!
[Updates are being posted on Lance Mackey’s Web site.)
***
Ben and Emily Huh of Itchmo are one of the handful of people behind the Web sites and Web blogs everyone turned to for information during the pet-food recall last year. Itchmo started out as a blog meant for Seattle-area dog-lovers, and then … things went crazy.
The Huhs have real jobs — Ben is one of the geniuses behind the great ICanHasCheezburger site — and it has been really difficult to keep up Itchmo with all their other responsibilities. Itchmo the Web log is now easing up. From the Huhs, as posted on their forums:
When we first started Itchmo in February 2007, it was just a hobby to share what we were doing with our dog around Seattle. Due to the needs of the Pet Food recalls, it quickly grew into a destination for all of us who needed information, support and each other.
Unfortunately, the time has come for us to put Itchmo on hold as we focus on the parts of our lives that we put on the back burner for the last year.
As a family, we decided that the ItchmoForums are self-sustaining and will continue, however Itchmo will no longer be updated on a regular basis. We were heartbroken over our decision, but it was inevitable as there just isn’t sufficient income to maintain the level of posts that we’d like.
On the other hand, these forums have become a wonderful place for pet-lovers to hang out. We’ll continue to support the forums. We thank all of you for visiting Itchmo, and hope that you will stick around and continue to make the ItchmoForums a wonderful place.
We will not be accepting any donations, if you do wish to make any donations to us, please consider making it to your local shelter.
Sincerely,
The Itchmos: Ben, Emily, Fil and Nemo
Enjoy the break guys, and hope to see you back soon.
***
The “F Word”: That would be “Foxtail.” There are few things in life I can say that I hate with all my heart, and the foxtail would be in the top five. Not that long ago, my retriever McKenzie picked up one in her hip. It took seven months, three surgeries, thousands of dollars and multiple courses of antibiotics to get rid of the thing.
Hate. Hate. Hate. Burn in hell, foxtails.
Over on Lassie Get Help, Luisa shares my feelings, my pain, and much much more.
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What a wonderful site they have had at Itchmo!! It has been a definite daily stop as is this site!
And I love ICanHasCheeseburger.
For those of you who used their main site to get to the forums/blog and don’t have their forum/blog link saved, here is that link since the main site seems to be down per OpenDNS:
http://itchmoforums.com
Comment by Dennis — March 30, 2008 @ 10:43 am
That is horrible news about Zorro and the team. It is to bad they don’t know who to prosecute or find to pay the vet bills. It sounds like a case of to much beer and not enough brains for sure.
Sad to hear about Itchmo too. It was a great site. Perhaps someone else will jump in with a similar site now. Best wishes to the happy couple though.
Comment by Marie Finnegan — March 30, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
I’m very sorry to see Itchmo go, it was a wonderful resource, but I can certainly understand their decision.
Comment by John — March 30, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
Itchmo’s hardly gone. As Ben said, they aren’t going to be posting regularly on their main page (there have been two new articles since their announcement), and the forums are quite active and full of information.
Comment by shibadiva — March 30, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
Praying for Zorro too!
So sorry to see Itchmo go. It has been a friend, as Pet Connection has, through the whole nightmare of the pet food recalls. Wishing them all the best.
Hate foxtails too! I have only indoor cats now, but when I had dogs, thefoxtails were hated, hated, hated. Every summer they would pick one up in their ear.
Comment by Marcy — March 30, 2008 @ 3:56 pm
Shibadiva … they were dark this morning. Glad to see they’ve put the home page back up, even if they won’t be able to do much with it.
And yes, the forums are a lively place!
Comment by Gina Spadafori — March 30, 2008 @ 4:45 pm
FOR UPDATE ON ZORRO, SEE THIS WEBPAGE:
http://www.mackeyscomebackkennel.com/
Comment by glock — March 30, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
glock … thank you for checking on that for us and posting. Geez, it doesn’t sound good. But if any dog is tough enough to get through something like this, it has to be an Iditarod team-leader like Zorro. And I know he’s heading for some of the best veterinarians he can.
Holding a good thought …
Comment by Gina Spadafori — March 30, 2008 @ 7:54 pm
Gina, that’s strange. I was able to get into Itchmo until now, but a number of Itchmovians were asking where the site was. Filbert had said that they were planning to do some system maintenance and an outage could be possible.
Comment by shibadiva — March 30, 2008 @ 9:03 pm
Funny. I came straight here when I couldn’t get into Itchmo today…so sad…
Comment by Dr. Patty Khuly — March 31, 2008 @ 7:29 am
I usually come here first then make the rounds to Itchmo. Filbert would have told us if the main page was going to be discontinued. One of the articles posted in the past week or so indicated that there would be more to come, just not regular updates. I think the server update is just mired down more than they anticipated.
Comment by shibadiva — March 31, 2008 @ 9:24 am
Meant to mention that Zorro is in Tacoma now awaiting his tests. He is apparently able to hobble around a little bit and has feeling in all his paws. There’s a video of him being transported, at King5 news. So sad to hear him squeal when he moves. Hope the MRI shows promise.
http://www.king5.com/topstorie.....94f33.html
Comment by shibadiva — March 31, 2008 @ 9:27 am
I want to thank Ben and Emily for all their hard work - they undoubtedly saved many animals’ lives (as did Pet Connection) through their amazing work during the pet food recalls. My kitties send you many head bumps and purrs.
Comment by 2CatMom — March 31, 2008 @ 9:41 am
Itchmo’s home page is back!
Filbert explains that they had DNS issues. “It looks like the DNS system has finally caught up for the most part and it seems to be working again. There may be some internet providers that will take a few more days to catch up so give it a day or two to start working again.”
Comment by shibadiva — April 1, 2008 @ 8:35 pm
Itchmo Forums’ website seemed to be working just fine until this morning. Yesterday I added a post to the “Is there another big problem brewing out there” topic area referencing yesterday’s CNN article about the deaths of two infants in China and the serious illness of 52 others following consumption of infant formula deliberately adulterated with melamine. I also posted the entire CNN article (with proper citation) because I thought it should be retained there for possible future reference, long after it will disappear from CNN’s site. I suggested that pet owners should take note of this most recent incident and exercise continued vigilance for adverse symptoms in their animals following consumption of new lots of pet foods, since obviously the risk of deliberate use of melamine to fake high protein content is still going on in China. I tried to look at the site today (multiple times since this morning, 9/16), but cannot get it to open on my PC. The problem is not on my side, since I haven’t had any other internet connection difficulties and email is working fine also.
Anyone know what may be going on re Itchmo Forums now? Thanks.
Comment by Pat in Raleigh — September 16, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Pat…Ben and Emily have been sent an email saying forums are down—since midmorning…hope it will be back up soon…
Comment by Carol V — September 16, 2008 @ 10:37 am
It’s been down a week.
It will be a real shame if we lose that resource of information.
I hope pet owners aren’t going back to “sleep”.
Comment by Steve — January 30, 2009 @ 8:05 pm