Dogged pursuit

ALFALFA, Ore. – Rachael Scdoris walks out of an isolated high desert house and greets her happy flock. Ninety sled dogs wait for her, perched like grinning gargoyles atop the large wooden cable spools that serve as doghouses.

The dogs are a rainbow of colors and markings, mostly Alaskan husky with a touch of hound and bird dog mixed in. The American Kennel Club doesn’t recognize Alaskan husky as a breed, but Scdoris knows they are a breed apart – among the greatest athletes in the world.

Golden sunlight softens the frost that settled overnight. The training trail beckons. It’s time to work. As the frost melts, the 25-mile run will be easier on the dogs’ feet. The relative health of a dog’s pads is lifeblood to a musher such as Scdoris. She tunes into canine feet as a sailor scouts the wind.

In March, Scdoris will begin an adventure on the real frozen tundra – the Alaskan bush variety. The 19-year-old will fulfill a lifelong dream and compete in the 1,049-mile Iditarod Trail International Sled Dog Race, one of the world’s most grueling sporting events.

She will do it despite being legally blind.

As much as her story inspires people, as much attention as her two-year quest to gain entry into the “Last Great Race” attracted, the essential chapter is here in the dusty dog yard. This is about a girl and her dogs.

Scdoris has congenital achromatopsia, a deficit of rods and cones in her retinas that affects depth perception, light sensitivity and color recognition. She can see a bit, vague shapes out to her lead dogs on days when the light is right. She compares it to gazing through glasses coated with a heavy layer of Vaseline.

Her dogs never see anything but her energy, strength and tenderness. This morning, she tours the kennel like a politician at a party fund-raiser. There are friends to be greeted and hugged – and in Alfalfa, best friends are of the four-legged variety.

“Hi, Gary,” Scdoris says to a 17-year-old retired Alaskan husky. “I still love you even if you are senile.”

“Seth, you’re such a cuddler,” she says as a dog paws the air for a hug.

Romeo, a tan 11-year-old, flexes on top of his house.

“Romeo is the biggest jerk we’ve got,” Scdoris says, laughing. “All the other dogs hate him except Robert.”

Next door, crazy Robert barks at his beloved Romeo.

“They are all individuals,” she says with a wry smile, “just like people.”

Some dogs are dim; some smart. All are good-natured. Scdoris and her dad, Jerry, insist on one thing: no fighting. Aggressive dogs are eliminated from the breeding program. Dogfights are anathema to a musher. Brawls can ruin your race and put everyone at risk when the temperature drops to less than zero.

In the yard, the dogs howl a chorus as she prepares the gangline for the morning run. Eighteen dogs will pull an all-terrain vehicle on a 25-mile loop through the volcanic badlands that loom around their home.

Claude plays with a chunk of ice in his water bowl. Big Boy turns his dish into a Frisbee. Brothers Gus and Rascal howl a duet. Halfway down the dog yard, a quiet black husky with white stocking feet waits patiently.

Duchess is Scdoris’ bellwether, a 7-year-old lead dog that snaps to every “gee” or “haw” command Rachael utters. Duchess has run in every race Scdoris has entered since she was 14. The 40-pound dog even gets to sleep inside sometimes.

“Duchess is Rachael’s soul dog,” said Jerry Scdoris, who passed on his passion for sled dogs to his daughter.

“Duchess is really strong in the head and an amazing athlete,” Rachael said. “And smart, too – sometimes too smart for her own good.”

The tethered dogs reach a frenzy as Scdoris selects those who will pull the red Suzuki ATV. Duchess is the last dog to be put in the traces, at the head of the line as always.

It seems improbable that this line of 18 leggy canines will haul the 600-pound ATV, but when Rachael hollers “Mush!” the ATV leaps forward.

They are off.

The dogs have always loved Scdoris. They became her refuge during a childhood marked by her peers’ cruelty.

“They still are,” she said. “The dogs never expected anything but hugs and food and harness.”

Her parents split when she was 3, but they maintained a good relationship and taught their daughter to focus on what she could do, not what she couldn’t.

At 12, Scdoris began competing in novice four-dog races. There was resistance from some race organizers who said she didn’t belong. But she never believed that; neither did the dogs.