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World’s toughest athletes are off in the Iditarod
By Keith Turner
March 3, 2008
The thermometer is registering somewhere near 10 degrees below zero and the wind is whipping of the inlet at a brisk 25 mph. But that minor irritation can’t possibly stop you from arriving early to get a good spot to stand along Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage for the start of what many people call the toughest sports event in the world.
It’s the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, where highly trained dog teams race more than 1,150 miles across the frozen Alaska wilderness — from Anchorage to Nome — in search of adventure and a grand price of $70,000 to the winning team. This year’s race started Saturday with the traditional “Ceremonial start” in downtown Anchorage, and will continue for the next 10 to 17 days until a winner emerges from the trail to claim the prize in downtown Nome.
A record number 96 mushers are entered in this year’s race. They come from all over the world with their teams of up to 16 dogs, truckloads of food and medical supplies, and a support crew to help keep the dog happy and healthy as they prepare for the big day.
During the seven-plus years that I lived in Alaska during the 1980s, I made several trips to the starting line to get an up-close look at these hardy beings — dogs and people — as they set out on “The Last Great Race.” On this day, everyone is smiling and jovial. The mushers are happy to finally have all the months of training and preparation behind them as they make their way to the starting line. The media is there and the crowd is abuzz with wide-eyed excitement and anticipation.
And the dogs are ecstatic. Barking, yelping and pulling at their harnesses, they know the big day has finally arrived and they are ready to run. In fact, they are too ready, so most mushers add extra weight and even a second sled for the start to help slow their dogs down so they don’t burn themselves out too early. This race, after all, is not a sprint. It’s not even a marathon. It’s an endurance test of unbelievable proportions.
My former colleague, Craig Medred of the Anchorage Daily News, writes a wonderful story about the late Joe Redington, who will forever be known as the “Father of the Iditarod.” In it, Craig points out a couple of facts that help to put the Iditarod in perspective:
More people have made it to the top of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest and deadliest mountain, than have made it to Nome in the Iditarod.
The number of men who have played in the Super Bowl outnumbers the approximately 600 men and women who can say they have made it to Nome in the Iditarod.
The number of cyclists who have ridden the Tour de France vastly outnumbers the people who have ridden a dog sled to Nome.
Of course, like any ultra-endurance challenge, this is not a race for softies and the squeamish. In the best of weather, the Iditarod is a brutal, life-threatening adventure that requires every ounce of energy and stamina from humans and dogs as they push to make their way across the frozen Arctic. Other times, when Mother Nature unleashes her winter furry, the Iditarod becomes much less of a race and more of a test of survival where failure — or even just bad luck — means paying the ultimate price.
For complete race coverage, including detailed profiles of some of the sled dogs, visit the official site of the Iditarod.
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Keith and my other friend Ann Cony, who also worked as a reporter in Alaska, tease me something horrid when I talk about how much I appreciate heated car seats in “winter,” as we call it in California, but what in Alaska would be something like a mild fall day.
I admit it: I’m a wimp. And I NEVER would have gone to Alaska, not for twice the money I was making as a reporter in California. Not for three times, either. Brrrr. Brrr. Brrrr.
Keith double-blogged today, taking a cute spin off Pet Connection BFF Dr. Patty Khuly’s post on DogCars for veterinarians. Keith’s post is here.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — March 3, 2008 @ 7:52 am
“Double-blogging” . . . . hmmmm . . . is that anything like “double-dipping”?
`
G!
Comment by The OTHER Pat — March 3, 2008 @ 7:58 am
The Iditarod is terribly cruel to dogs. For the facts, visit the Sled Dog Action Coalition website, http://www.helpsleddogs.org.
Here’s a short list of what happens to the dogs during the Iditarod: death, paralysis, penile frostbite, bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons, vomiting, hypothermia, sprains, fur loss, broken teeth, torn footpads and anemia.
At least 133 dogs have died in the Iditarod. There is no official count of dog deaths available for the race’s early years. In “WinterDance: the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod,” a nonfiction book, Gary Paulsen describes witnessing an Iditarod musher brutally kicking a dog to death during the race. He wrote, “All the time he was kicking the dog. Not with the imprecision of anger, the kicks, not kicks to match his rage but aimed, clinical vicious kicks. Kicks meant to hurt deeply, to cause serious injury. Kicks meant to kill.”
Causes of death have also included strangulation in towlines, internal hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and pneumonia. “Sudden death” and “external myopathy,” a fatal condition in which a dog’s muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also occurred. The 1976 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was accused of striking his dog with a snow hook (a large, sharp and heavy metal claw). In 1996, one of Rick Swenson’s dogs died while he mushed his team through waist-deep water and ice. The Iditarod Trail Committee banned both mushers from the race but later reinstated them. In many states these incidents would be considered animal cruelty. Swenson is now on the Iditarod Board of Directors.
In the 2001 Iditarod, a sick dog was sent to a prison to be cared for by inmates and received no veterinary care. He was chained up in the cold and died. Another dog died by suffocating on his own vomit.
No one knows how many dogs die in training or after the race each year.
On average, 53 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do cross, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:
“They’ve had the hell beaten out of them.” “You don’t just whisper into their ears, ‘OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.’ They understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? They are all lying.” -USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno’s column
Beatings and whippings are common. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, “I heard one highly respected [sled dog] driver once state that “‘Alaskans like the kind of dog they can beat on.’” “Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective…A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective.” “It is a common training device in use among dog mushers…A whip is a very humane training tool.”
During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Brooks admitted to hitting his dogs with a wooden trail marker when they refused to run. The Iditarod Trail Committee suspended Brooks for two years, but only for the actions he admitted. By ignoring eyewitness accounts, the Iditarod encouraged animal abuse. When mushers know that eyewitness accounts will be disregarded, they are more likely to hurt their dogs and lie about it later.
Mushers believe in “culling” or killing unwanted dogs, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged or clubbed to death. “On-going cruelty is the law of many dog lots. Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don’t pull are dragged to death in harnesses…..” wrote Alaskan Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska’s Bush Blade Newspaper (March, 2000).
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, “He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens. Or dragging them to their death.”
The Iditarod, with its history of abuse, could not be legally held in many states, because doing so would violate animal cruelty laws.
Iditarod administrators promote the race as a commemoration of sled dogs saving the children of Nome by bringing diphtheria serum from Anchorage in 1925. However, the co-founder of the Iditarod, Dorothy Page, said the race was not established to honor the sled drivers and dogs who carried the serum. In fact, 600 miles of this serum delivery was done by train and the other half was done by dogs running in relays, with no dog running over 100 miles. This isn’t anything like the Iditarod.
The race has led to the proliferation of horrific dog kennels in which the dogs are treated very cruelly. Many kennels have over 100 dogs and some have as many as 200. It is standard for the dogs to spend their entire lives outside tethered to metal chains that can be as short as four feet long. In 1997 the United States Department of Agriculture determined that the tethering of dogs was inhumane and not in the animals’ best interests. The chaining of dogs as a primary means of enclosure is prohibited in all cases where federal law applies. A dog who is permanently tethered is forced to urinate and defecate where he sleeps, which conflicts with his natural instinct to eliminate away from his living area.
Iditarod dogs are prisoners of abuse.
Sincerely,
Margery Glickman
Director
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org
Comment by Margery Glickman — March 3, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
our local newspaper printed the PETA editorial attacking the Iditarod, calling it as bad as dogfighting…
Comment by EmilyS — March 3, 2008 @ 5:51 pm
“our local newspaper printed the PETA editorial attacking the Iditarod, calling it as bad as dogfighting…”
We should probably give all the dogs to PETA, then, so PETA can kill them.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — March 3, 2008 @ 6:13 pm
yeah, Gina.. kind of “interesting” how selective PETA is with their concern…
We can expect HSUS to speak up, as well..
Comment by EmilyS — March 3, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
Sled Dog Action Coalition on the other hand have been very consistent and above board in their approach whether you agree with them or not. It is easy to discredit what some other agencies might do or their motives, but beside the point, I think.
Comment by emily — March 4, 2008 @ 9:13 am
Here are two well reasoned responses to the SDAC’s comments:
Note the comment from the Iditarod vet:
http://blogs.britannica.com/bl.....ent-409055
http://www.adn.com/outdoors/cr.....64479.html
Consistent does not mean correct.
Doug
Comment by Doug — March 5, 2008 @ 6:37 pm