`Winterdance' Takes You On A Trip To Remember

"Cookie was so smart. Every time I made a bonehead move, she gave me a puzzled look as if to say, `OK, you're dumb,' says Gary Paulsen. "The second time around, she'd stare at me, saying, `Let's negotiate.' Then, if I committed another stupid move, she'd offer a resigned glance that said, `I'm taking over.' "

Cookie was novice Gary Paulsen's lead dog in the 1983 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and a central figure in his spellbinding new volume, "Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod," (Harcourt Brace & Co., $21.95).

While "Winterdance" is a fast-moving, action-packed read, you put the book down at rest stops, wringing your arms, feeling like you're the author's racing mate and have just catalyzed a breakthrough on a stretch of one of the most challenging adventures left to man.

Capturing the heart and soul of his first Iditarod, this isn't a racing manual. It blends loopy humor with heartbreak, frustration with flair, contempt with concern. Two years later he ran again, reaching a point 70 miles from Nome, yet failing to finish due to inclement weather that threatened to take the lives of his entire 12-dog team.

Paulsen's symbiotic relationship with his patchwork team is reflected throughout. "One of my biggest challenges was learning how to think like a dog," he explains. "We look at them and anthropomorphize. Dogs are different. They don't relate. They love a lot more intensely than people. I guess that's why I respect them so deeply.

FUN EXPERIENCE

"They are wonderful. Truly. To know them and be with them is an experience that transcends - a way to understand the joyfulness of living and devotion.

"But they are dogs. They have been allied with man for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. And while some of them are close to wild - Eskimo sled dogs, some old village breeds - they are still linked to man, still have the connection to humans that makes them not truly wild. Love, food, life, direction, all come from humans to dogs, and it affects the way they are, the way they can be seen."

In 1989 when 12-year-old Cookie died of a heart attack in the front yard of his Northern Minnesota home, Paulsen was devastated. "I honestly think it hurt me more than when my dad died. The two of us has been through some unbelievable adventures together. I knew that dog would give its life for me and vice versa. It was one of those bonds that we seldom see between two humans."

The Iditarod, according to Paulson during a Seattle book-tour stop last week, is not a sled race, nor a race of people. It is a dog race. And it's those creatures who separate the men from the boys.

"I was stupidly innocent before I ran the '83 race," he says. "I somehow thought that you just came up with the right number of dogs and ran the race that it all worked out somehow."

In fact, his eight-day journey from Minnesota in a rebuilt 1960 Chevy half-ton truck with 20 dogs and two companions to Alaska has all the markings of one of those slapstick "Beverly Hillbillies" episodes. Vivid portrayal

Preparing for the Iditarod is captured crisply and colorfully in a chapter entitled "Becoming Dog," when Paulsen's cranial light bulb was flipped on and he began thinking in terms of dog, not human. That meant "living" in the kennel, eating on the ground and traveling with his team.

"I had in some way become a dog," he acknowledges.

Three months of questioning veterans, running long trail distances and building a cohesive team was a wake-up call for this novice and his 15-dog team.

"The race is truly about nurturing, caring for the dogs. They are everything, and it wasn't enough to merely schlep them some food and let them rest.. . . Every aspect of every dog needs to be considered. Feet, teeth, conditioning, toenails, coat, wounds."

Paulsen characterizes the bond between himself and his dogs as comparable to what a mother feels for a child. "The musher offers care in the form of nutrients, shoulder rubs, foot ointment and booties, vaccinations, nursing, and most important, protection.

"It's a bargain for both, because in return the dogs give everything their bodies can generate on the trail. In fact, the leader's performance can mean life or death for the team and driver in certain circumstances."

Dogs seldom, the author adds, violate this relationship. "Devil might bite me, might kill other dogs, but, by god, he pulled and would die pulling and that was a kind of love."

Conversely, the grueling race, which has resulted in several dog deaths in recent years, has been the target of animal-welfare forces.

"I won't deny it, there are some people who shouldn't be racing," says Paulsen. In fact, in "Winterdance," he details watching another racer kick one of his dogs to death. Paulsen reported the incident at the next stop and the entrant was disqualified from the race and banned for a lifetime from others.

Paulsen and his wife Ruth live in New Mexico with five former pound dogs - a Chihuahua, terrier, half Labrador retriever and two border collies. "I bring 'em home just before their time is up," he says. "I've found homes for some and kept others. They don't deserve the fate that awaits them, simply because some damn owner either got tired of 'em or just didn't care anymore.

"We can learn a lot from dogs. Loyalty, love, companionship," says this passionate Paulsen who was forced to retire from racing because of congenital heart problems.

"You know," he smiles, "an old man in Unalakleet (a coastal stop in the late stages of the race), paid me the ultimate compliment when I found myself nervously pacing the house, going to the window and looking outside as my dogs were resting.

"Finally, he turned to me and said, `You have become one of them. A dog. You pace, you look out, you move . . . like a dog.'

"I remember telling him I smelled like one, too. He nodded and laughed."

FOR RABBIT OWNERS

If you received a live Easter bunny, already have an adult rabbit or are considering adding one to your household, make certain you attend the House Rabbit Society workshop at 1 p.m. Saturday at the former Wilburton Elementary School, 124th Avenue Northeast and Main Street, in Bellevue.

Two of the area's most experienced rabbit-care veterinarians, Drs. Diane Mitchell and Barbara Deeb, will address sterilization, hairballs, fleas and mites, respiratory diseases, antibiotics, obesity and other health subjects.

Sandi Ackerman of the House Rabbit Society will discuss food and housing, bunny proofing your home, litter-box training, bunny toys and miscellaneous subjects.

For more information, call the House Rabbit Society, 868-4839.

Mail information regarding dog/cat events to Classified Division, attn. Marilyn Fairbanks, Dog/Cat Events, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. All releases must be in writing and received by Monday prior to Sunday publication. Be sure to include a phone number. Pet tip of the week is on The Times InfoLine, 464-2000, then press PETS (7387).