IditaProject Forum

Faloo Update:
As a result of an angry moose on the trail, Faloo was flown into Anchorage and was taken to an Anchorage Vet Clinic. Faloo arrived in critical condition and soon after arriving she went into surgery. We received an update yesterday evening that she is out of surgery and remains in critical condition. We promise to keep you all updated once we receive more updates.
We appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers.

Poor Dallas. He's had a hard time with his dogs this year. Sending lots of healing vibes to Faloo.

Oh dear . . . prayers and good wishes to Faloo, Dallas and the rest of the team.

He has had a tough year

Poor Falco, but after reading the recent post from Iditarod about Warren Palfrey's investigations into the incident, I'm having a hard time thinking "poor Dallas". Quite the opposite. According to Dallas, Falco was severely injured by the moose. So what does Dallas do? He departs the scene without having properly gutted the moose as is required by the rules, BUT THEN ELECTS TO MUSH FOR ANOTHER HOUR DOWN THE TRAIL AND THEN CAMP FOR 3 HOURS instead of mushing the rest of the way to Finger Lake! Or he could have gone backwards to Skwenta (14 miles from where the moose injured the dog - about 90 minutes of mushing). With Falco being so severely injured that he has (according to Dallas) less than a 20% chance....but instead of immediately going to the closest and quickest source of help (either 3 hrs up the trail or 1.5 hrs back down the trail), it took him 6.5 hours to get Falco to the trail vets and air evac.

He might not have realised how severely the dog was injured, though, if they were internal injuries and the dog was still fired up with adrenaline over the attack? It might be that it only started showing symptoms an hour down the trail (slow internal bleed?), so he stopped for a bit (3 hours is short for him at that stage) and then continued on?

Latest from 4 hours ago on Dallas' FB account:

"Faloo Update
We are excited to announce that later today Faloo will be coming home.
Faloo has received excellent care from the Iditarod vet team and the team of vets at PET ER.
We can’t tell you how much we’ve appreciated the prayers, calls, texts and endless support.
We will keep you updated on Faloo, she will be in the care of our awesome team here at the kennel."

Just read of the committee's 2hr penalty for not gutting sufficiently. It's hard for me to process how a determination can be made, by those who did not observe it. I can understand if no attempt was made, but to think His mind was on a "complete, butchering ready field dressing", and not on his injured dog, is a very subjective decision.

Just read of the committee's 2hr penalty for not gutting sufficiently. It's hard for me to process how a determination can be made, by those who did not observe it. I can understand if no attempt was made, but to think His mind was on a "complete, butchering ready field dressing", and not on his injured dog, is a very subjective decision.

First, it is important to note that the rule is in place to ensure that the competitors comply with laws in the State of Alaska which dictate the proper procedures for a "DLP" wildlife kill (i.e., Defense of Life or Property). These laws require that the shooter (or in Matt Failor's case some time back, stabber when he had to defend his team during training with his pocket knife) salvage the carcass for human consumption. That means completely removing the viscera so that leakage does not contaminate and ruin the meat. For the typical adult moose, that's a couple of hundred pounds of wet, sloppy, uncooperative guts that you have to wrestle out of the body cavities. It takes time, but that is state law - the carcass can sit in the snow for quite awhile before it starts to become inedible, and during that time (assuming you have done the other part that is required by law and notified authorities) the authorities will come out with motorized equipment, quarter the beast, and haul it to a processing/distribution facility. Typically, the meat goes to low-income families and charities. But it is supposed to be eaten, so the initial gutting/dressing is supposed to be with that in mind - even if it isn't the shooter that is going to be the eater.

Second, Dallas is a life-long Alaskan, as are most of the folks that would be making the determination of whether the gutting was consistent with Rule 38 and the corresponding state law. He certainly knows what is required - he has no doubt done it dozens of times for his own freezer. And while he might be forgiven for doing a subpar job if his mind was on his injured dog, his subsequent behavior (not going to the nearest checkpoint and instead camping out for 3 hrs) would seem to suggest that he was not overly concerned with the condition of the dog.

So yes, it is a subjective determination - the care that I take when field-dressing a moose for MY freezer is considerably greater than many folks I've seen do what they perceive to be a sufficient job (and the resulting moose stroganoff on my stove is much better than theirs). In the end, the nature of the rule and the law requires a subjective determination and it is a determination being made by folks that are well-qualified to do so.

Has anyone heard or seen any description of or the extent of Faloo's injuries? Broken bones, head trauma, anything? Or what the surgeries addressed?