The weekend won't offer much of a break. On Saturday, he will continue screening blood work and calling Iditarod mushers with the results.

On Sunday, he may be able to briefly relax.

"There are a lot of things going on right now," said Nelson, the Iditarod's chief veterinarian for 13 years and before that a volunteer trail veterinarian for nine years.

This Iditarod, his 22nd, is the busiest. With 96 mushers due to race, this is the biggest Iditarod field ever. Multiply each musher by the 16 to 24 dogs they are allowed to bring with them to the race's start (only 16 dogs can ultimately be chosen for the team), and you're talking nearly 2,000 canines to check.

It's a demanding job but one Nelson said fits him perfectly. When not putting together each year's field of volunteer veterinarians, researching new health care techniques for dogs or giving seminars to mushers, he travels to remote areas of Alaska as a relief veterinarian.

"He's a rare gem in this society," said Iditarod Trail executive director Stan Hooley. "We're fortunate to have him and to have had him for so long."

And every year Nelson carves out the month of August as his alone time for solo kayak trips down little-known rivers in Alaska and the Yukon. While Nelson's home base is Idaho, Alaska, it seems, is where his heart is.

"I was doing my taxes for last year and calculated that I had 229 days overnight on business," Nelson said. "I don't even have a pet anymore because I'm always on the road. I consider the dogs in Iditarod as my pets."

WAY OF LIFE

Nelson's father was a veterinarian in academia, a job that took the family to such places as Indiana, Florida and Missouri. At the time, Nelson didn't think he would follow in his father's footsteps.

"I have a lot of interests," he said. "I thought about being a geologist, and I was real interested in forestry and being outdoors. Growing up with a dad that was a veterinarian influenced me, I'm sure, but I certainly didn't feel limited to that one thing."

After graduating from high school and veterinary school in Missouri, Nelson thought he'd end up in Wisconsin or Indiana focused on dairy animals. But his interests led him elsewhere.

"I'd always been interested in athletics and sports, and I pursued race horses because they're really beautiful animals and they drew me," he said. "I leased a small-animal practice in Pennsylvania."

OFF TO WEST COAST

After a while, though, Nelson headed toward the West Coast. He was married at the time and talked his wife into moving to Idaho. Little did he know that inching westward would lead him to the Iditarod.

While he enjoyed outdoor recreation opportunities in Idaho, he ended up working with pets and farm animals, losing his interest in equine sports medicine.

But one day he saw a flier appealing for volunteer vets at an event called the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska. Nelson had long wanted to see Alaska, and the idea of working with the canine equivalent of race horses intrigued him.

"I had the opportunity, so I jumped at it," he said. "I went one year, then two years, then three years and eventually it was every year.

"Then one year, Karen Schmidt, who was (Iditarod) chief vet at the time asked me if I might be interested in the job."

He took it. That was 13 years ago. Today, Nelson is just as thrilled with the job as he was when he volunteered. While the job is busiest in the months leading up to the race, it is a yearlong commitment. A huge challenge is gathering volunteer veterinarians for the race.

"The staff is rebuilt every year," he said. "It's not like you have all these employees making $100,000 a year. Fortunately, most of our volunteers are veterans."

Typically, as many as three-quarters of the volunteer veterinarians have helped before. Most come from the Lower 48, some from as far away as Australia and New Zealand. A handful are Alaskans.

"I send out invitation letters to all of my veterans," Nelson said. "There is always an opportunity if somebody is really interested."

The rest of Nelson's time is spent researching ways to keep the dogs healthier. From conducting research to giving lectures, Nelson expects dog care to keep improving.

Some of the most rewarding moments of his career have come quietly, with little fanfare or recognition.

"One of the things I like is when I have talked to the mushers about various conditions and early signs of abnormalities, and they say, 'I did what you told me,' and the dog goes home happy because we took the right steps in recognizing conditions and catching them early."

No one knows it's happened, he said, except the musher and Nelson. But if they hadn't, everyone might know that something went wrong.

'ROCK STEADY'

Jon Little was in the first batch of mushers to take part in Nelson's blood-sampling protocol. Nelson started the screening program in 1998 in an effort to thwart dog deaths and injuries caused by pre-exisiting conditions.

While it doesn't catch everything, the program can detect signs of possible trouble.

"He's rock steady," Little said. "I've seen him at the beginning and the middle and the end of races. His whole life is focused on the dogs."

When Little ran the Iditarod -- 1999 through 2003 -- the prescreening was invaluable, he said.

"They're just checking dogs to see if there are abnormalities or disease ... that can be found. Every musher running Iditarod gets their dogs run through the tests. Then you'll get a call from Stu about one or two of them, saying 'You might want to think about dropping this dog or having it retested.' "

Now it's something every musher must do in preparation for the race.

"Every dog that comes through Iditarod gets an ECG (electrocardiogram) every year too," Hooley said. "That's something that some people don't have. These are programs (Nelson) has championed that are not only valuable to him but to the dogs and the mushers. It's something that sets this population (of dogs) apart."

But such tests haven't eliminated something no musher or vet is ever ready for.

"It's hard for everybody (when a dog dies)," Nelson said.

For him, "the ultimate achievement that we would all love to have (is a race in which) no dogs would die. But we're looking at maybe 1,400 dogs over a two-week period.

"Anything can happen in a dog's life in that period of time, and statistically it would be real hard to have a perfect year."

Still, that does not keep him from trying. Since taking on the role of chief vet, the dropped-dog protocol has been strengthened, blood screening has been fine-tuned and quality of dog care presentations to veterinarians and mushers has been a greater focus.

But Nelson is a realist. He knows the critics are there.

"The criticism from animal rights groups? I'm pretty vocal about my opinion," he said. "A brick could offer criticism if it could talk, but these groups make a lot of money criticizing and talking, but I've never seen the first penny from any of them to learn more about the conditions or improve the sport.

"They criticize; they're really good at that. But they haven't done a darn thing for the sled dogs, who have a passion for this sport."

DOWN TIME

When the Iditarod is over and the dogs are back home, sleeping off their marathon in straw-packed dog houses, Nelson begins recruiting next year's team of volunteer veterinarians. He also communicates with mushers about dogs that may need special attention. He writes reports, participates in meetings and reviews the 2008 race.

When done, he will move out of the Millennium Alaskan Hotel (or the back of his camper-shell pickup, a place he is known to prefer over the comfort of a hotel bed) and go on to the next Alaska town that needs him to fill in as a veterinarian for a while. There, he will care for dogs, cats, horses, birds -- whatever comes into the office.

And he will dream of August.

When August arrives, it will be Stu Nelson, the outdoorsman, no longer Stu Nelson, DVM.

He'll inflate his portable kayak, pack enough food for a few weeks, and fly in to a remote river somewhere.

"I do have a passion for remote wilderness expeditions and usually go into the Yukon Territory for 400- or 450-mile river trips," he said. "I try to fish along the way, get berries, cranberries, rose hips."

"He'll take a bag of granola, a sack of rice and go," Hooley said. "He's a rare breed, and he travels light."

Nelson said his favorite area of the far north is up by Eagle, where he owns property, and in the Yukon.

"I've been focusing on the tributaries of the Peel River. I always go solo, and I've had a lot of grizzly encounters -- I've been charged in the river where I thought it was all over. This (past) year, I had one come busting out of the brush out of the blue. I heard that crashing and banging, and I thought, 'That ain't no porcupine.' "

Despite such encounters, Nelson keeps coming back. It's his down time, and he feels comfortable outdoors.

After all, he's used to animals.

"Usually I don't really look directly at them (bears) because that seems to aggravate them. I look off to the side and talk to them in a normal tone," he said.

"But this one (last August) was like a bad dog, so I talked to him like a bad dog, in a bad dog voice, saying 'Go on, get out of here.'

"And he did."

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Find Melissa DeVaughn online at adn.com/contact/mdevaughn or call 257-4482.

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VET FACTS

• Want to be an Iditarod vet?

Nelson, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race's chief veterinarian, needs a small army of volunteer vets during the race. With 96 dog teams racing down the trail, there must be caretakers at every checkpoint. Beside returning vets, another 30 or so apply.

• How many in 2008?

About 45, most of whom will be on the trail. A few will be based in Anchorage.

• How many in 1996?

There were 30 vets Nelson's first year as chief vet: 30 vets, but just 60 teams that year.

• Most common ailment among Iditarod dogs?

Diarrhea and dehydration

• What's in it for volunteer vets?

Veterinarians get free lodging at the Millennium Alaskan Hotel and transportation to and from checkpoints. Vets pay their own airfare to Alaska. Rookie vets get no stipend. Vets with two to four years Iditarod experience get $500. Vets with five or more years experience earn $1,000.

• Iditarod budget for veterinary care?

Approximately $80,000 a year.

• What makes a terrific volunteer Iditarod vet?

High energy, a solid veterinarian practice, experience in other races and the ability to thrive in less-than-forgiving conditions.

-- Melissa DeVaughn