Keon Playing on the Lake. Keon is a good DOG!! I would go as far to say Keon is the best dog ever!!
Keon is are dog, not the dog from the story below!!!
So today began like many days here in the north, with the sun shinning bright and tricking you into thinking that its nice and warm out. Today I was tricked into getting out of bed and heading outside. This was all pleasant enough, there was a nice steady 35km per hour wind, lots of sun and reasonable temperatures for being active outside. I loaded up stanley (our snow machine) and headed down to the sea ice for some kitting.
My kite session started out nice! I put up are smallest kite as I thought there was a little more wind then there was. After about 10 minutes I was feeling a little underpowered. No big deal, just land wrap up and launch the other kite I brought. As I was launching I looked up to see another kite in the sky!!! What a treat I might have a friend. So off I went to chase down this mystery kiter. Ive been on mission of late to find more people to kite with, including teaching a few people with various results. So to see someone out with there own gear, ripping around was awesome!!!
As I was following this other person, my goggles froze and the sun was blinding me from being able to see my kite. This amounted to a much slower chase then I had hopped for. I finally got close to the mystery man and realized that something was chasing him around. As I got closer I realized it was a dog, and it didnt look like he wanted this dog chasing him. Now heres were things head south a little. Some were in the next minute or two the dog must have notice me, and I guess for what ever reason I was more interesting to him, and before long I was became the pray.
The mystery man and I ended up being with in yelling distance of each other well being chased by this stray sled dog. I found out that this other guy had been trying to get away from this dog for the last 30 minutes or so. Thinking that the dog was going to get tired my plane was that if I just cruised around for a wile the dog would eventually run out of interests and energy. During this time the mystery man took off and headed in, leaving me to be chased by the dog.
At first it was fun being chased around, and I was having a great session. After about half an hour of this I came to a stop, and thats when things changed. The dog that had been chasing me around came at me snarling and growling, with his teeth out. He lunged at me a few times, and circled behind me. He nipped at me a few times before getting a good chomp in on my left calf.
I hade enough of that so still hooked up to my kite I took off, dog in chase. I was still thinking that he would eventually loose interest in me. But I was wrong. Again I stopped and sure enough the dog came at me again, but this time he was met with a ski to his face. Now I really thought that would be the end of it. I dont wont to sound like a dick but I gave he a good hard kick to the face! But the dog wasn't done. He backed off a few feet but was still snarling with his teeth out!! So again I took off thinking that after he had taken my ski to his face he would leave me alone, Again I was wrong.
So now I was starting to feel a little helpless. As long as I was moving the dog just chased me. But as soon as I stopped he would come at me. So digging into my bag of tricks I took to the offensive. Well on the move I felt I had the upper hand the dog was having to run to fast to be able to attack. The dog was running 10 feet besides me on my down wind side. I quickly turn strait at him and ran him strait over!! I hit him strait with enough force to knock him over and off his feet! Again I was thinking that would be it, and he would realize the fight was over. But he just backed off a few feet but kept close. I was running out of ideas and energy. So I did a few more tacks back and forth and came up with my plane for exit.
I couldn't just head into town on my kite, well I could but I would have to slow down allot to safely kite through the rough pack ice and I felt that the dog would easily be able to cache up to me and take a few more chomps at me. So that didnt seem like a good idea. My other option was to pin it to my Stanley.
I was a few hundred feet up wind and about 500m total distance away from my Snow machine stanley so I powered up and headed full speed towards him. Now I can safely say this is the fastest I have gone by kite power! It was fun but also a little scary! I was worried that if I bailed it would be over! I would be on the ground and more more or less defenceless from a dog attack! But I needed to put some distance between me and him so I would have some time to land, get out of my skies and fire Stanley up. I looked over my shoulder and I had managed to put some good distance between myself and the dog. I didnt feel I was going have enough time to land my kite get my skis off and fire up stanley. So I did a full emergency release of my kite and glided the last few feet to stanley. My kite was now getting blown down wind and turning into a big messy ball of nylon and lines!! I quickly got out of my skies and got stanley fired up.
I was feeling "safe" again, but I still had to chase down my kite and get home. The dog took interest in my kite that was blowing away so I took chase to make sure he didn't try and rip it apart. Once he saw me coming towards him he ran off in the other direction. I felt that I won!! I got to my kite and set to wrapping it up. Well doing this I looked up to see the dog running off with my backpack witch had my other kite, gloves, and goggles inside it. I quickly bundled up my kite, and gave chase. The dog had B-lined it back to what I think is the pack of sled dogs that he escaped from. Thankfully my other kite, 1 of gloves and goggles fell out of the bag before he got it all back to the pack. By the time I got there 5 dogs had taken to shredding my bag, and I didn't feel comfortable jumping into the middle of the fray to get it out. One dog had my awesome Black Diamond mitt that Kellie got me for Christmas. He was removed from the main pack that was going to town on my bag. I had one of my skies so I want in swinging it at him, (I didnt hit him) and he drop my glove and backed off. I grabbed my glove and road off leaving my much loved backpack to the dogs.
I rode Stanley back to the rest of my gear, and called a friend to meet me at the edge of the Ice as I no longer had a bag to carry 2 kites, 2 kite bares, and a pair of skies home. Im sure I looked like a real fool trying to ride with all that stuff on my lap, but I made it off the ice, tossed all the gear in Brads truck and made it home.
Once I got home I took a look at my calf and sure enough there was dog bite in it. Its not huge but the skin was broken. Since sled dogs are more or less wild animals I took a quick trip to the hospital to make sure I didnt need to get any shots. Thankfully I didnt. After a quick chat with the enforcement office about what the dog looked like and were it was last scene Kelz and I headed home . Over all things worked out ok considering I was being chased by a very big angry and possibly hungry animal. All the kites and I made it home safe, and the only casualty was my bag.
So let this be a lesson if your out on the ice watch out for dogs some are nice and just want to go for a run, others are looking for there next meal.
Boz out.
