With support from the Waseca Area Veterinary Clinic, Barney’s Drive-In and The American Legion, the first Doggy Play Date and Picnic was held on Saturday at Waseca’s Dog Park.
Waseca Caregivers Executive Director Kelly Boeddeker said that attendance was a bit lower than expected, perhaps in part due to the time conflict with the 10th and final Caleb Erickson Memorial hosted at the Legion, which drew a massive crowd.
Still, a visit from Sparky the Waseca Fire Dog proved popular with guests like Beyza Nordstrom and her kids Kysi and Clea. Beyza said she traveled down from Northfield at the behest of her kids, who love dogs and have been looking forward to getting a puppy of their own.
With Sparky came Jake Heinz of the Waseca Fire Department. An Owatonna resident, Heinz is relatively new to the Waseca Fire Department, having been hired in March.
The festivities kicked off at 10:30 a.m. with a tail wagging talent show, followed by a puppy/dog wear contest, and a puppy/dog race. Among the dogs competing in the contest was Morgan Stankowitz’ black lab, who recently moved with his parents from Alaska.
The dog survived the several thousand mile journey from Alaska surprisingly well, Stankovitz said, mainly by napping along the way. With his energetic spirit he put up a strong showing in the tail wagging contest.
Stankovitz and her dog weren’t the only celebrities at the event with ties to Alaska. A highlight of the Doggy Play Date was the presence of Linda Joy, who in the late 1990s competed in the state’s famous Iditarod race several times.
A Key West, Florida native, Joy recently moved to Waseca, where her daughter has lived for years. When she and her dogs raced in the Iditarod 25 years ago, she was a trailblazer as one of just a handful of women competitors. Now, close to half of the race’s contestants are women.
Joy said that when her youngest child was getting ready to graduate from High School, she realized she was about to have much more time on her hands. After volunteering for a wilderness exploration group at the Boundary Waters, she became addicted to sled racing.
Inspired by women such as Libby Riddles and Susan Butcher who had not only raced in but won the Iditarod, Joy took a leave of absence from her job, packed up her truck and dog and began training to run in the brutally tough, close to 1,000 mile long race held each March.
Joy raced the Iditarod four times and received a belt for finishing the race once. Along with her status as one of the few women to run the race at the time, her dogged efforts to plow through significant adversity earned her numerous write-ups in publications at the time.
In 1996, she attempted to make her first run through the Iditarod, but Joy had torn her ACL in her left knee a week before the race began. After years of preparation, Joy attempted to make her way through the race but quickly ran into problems.
“At one point, I was going down the hill probably about 25 or 30 mph and the only thing that stopped my team as I was being drug behind my sled was my face,” Joy said.
Joy still came close to finishing, but was pulled from the race after her leg swelled up so bad that she couldn’t get her boots off and on. The next year’s race was again disrupted after Joy sliced her fingers to the bone while cutting frozen dog food.
Ever determined, Joy kept on trying to race but lost so much blood that she became comatose. Her dogs dragged her to the next checkpoint, where a traveling doctor stitched her fingers back together, but for Joy the race was over.
On her third attempt, Joy finally managed to finish the race in 1998. Though she sold her sled dog team soon after, she continues to sponsor racers in Alaska — and even after all these years, her dogs still have a special place in her heart.
“This is why we do what we do — it’s really about the dogs,” Joy said.
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