As I’ve mentioned in this column before, one of my all-time favorite movies is “Balto.” And when I was a kid, I was lucky enough to have a dog who loved winter. Jake was a Newfoundland mix – big, fluffy and dumb as a bag of hammers. Truly a dog for whom the phrase “bless his heart” was invented. He didn’t have two brain cells to rub together, but he was a sweet boy and very patient when 7-year-old Victoria would tie a sled to his collar and pretend to mush him around the backyard.
Of course, lots of little girls dream of being mushers. Most of them, like me, grow up to be fairly boring, 9-to-5-job-having, indoors-oriented people. But one girl didn’t.
Cute dogs, gorgeous landscapes and poignant prose are Twitter gold for Blair Braverman, Colby College class of 2011. As a professional dogsledder and writer – imagine a female, cheerful Jack London – she has amassed thousands of followers, who became fans, who became a family. And out of one grumpy tweet thrown at her – someone said, “Go back to your ugly dogs, Karen” – something rare and wonderful happened. A positive internet community was born.
They (OK, OK – we) call themselves the #UglyDogs, as a mark of pride and proof that they have a sense of humor. (I suspect we can all agree that no dog is actually, truly ugly. Because I’ve certainly never seen one.) They use that hashtag to tweet news at each other, bits of their lives that have nothing to do with sled dogs – a baby taking her first steps, a new puppy learning a trick, a child getting into college.
This year, Blair Braverman set a big goal for herself and her team. They were going to run the 2019 Iditarod – 1,000 miles across Alaska. And she did it, in 13 days, 19 hours, and 17 minutes. The Ugly Dogs tracked her every move, coordinating with race volunteers on the ground in Alaska, cheering when she passed through every checkpoint, theorizing about her race strategy. (How will she pace herself? When will she take her mandatory breaks?) The fans fretted when one dog had to be dropped mid-race – withdrawn and left with volunteers to be cared for until Blair could pick him up after the race. (The dog is fine. He got into the supply bag and ate 15 pounds of chicken skins. Truly a pup after Jake’s own heart.) And we all panicked when Blair’s GPS tracker malfunctioned, leaving us in the dark about her whereabouts. Was she safe? Lost? Eaten by a moose?
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