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A Kid's Thoughts
Mushers
mistreat their dogs during race
Dogs whipped, beaten and bitten
Iditarod
ignored eyewitnesses accounts of dog abuse
Mushers
ate their dogs
When
mushers hallucinate, who's watching the dogs?
Sleep deprived mushers have
impaired mental functioning and reduced immunity
Sleep deprivation raises cortisol
levels, high-sensitivity CRP concentrations, blood pressure, and causes
heart rate variability
Pushing dogs to race faster
is dangerous
Mushers force sick, injured and
tired dogs to race
Bitches in heat fool
weary dogs
How can sick, injured or exhausted dogs love
running?
Myth of effective drug testing
Iditarod won't commit to punishing
drug and alcohol users
Iditarod won't identify
or sanction mushers who tested positive for drugs in 2010
All mushers not tested for
drugs
Mushers smoked marijuana
Mushers
sleep on their sleds while dogs race
Musher sit comfortably on seats
(and sometimes fall asleep)
Mushers cook food and
make hot coffee while dogs race
Dogs
in heat are forced to race
Mushers force
pregnant dogs to race
Strenuous
acitivty is bad for ALL pregnant dogs
Mushers override
vets and force sick and injured dogs to race
No
rest and no vet care for the dogs
Cheating
When
mushers are sick or injured, who cares for the dogs?
Dogs
forced to race when trail conditions are horrid
Mushers give dogs unsafe drugs
Mushers ignore that, by nature, dogs love to sleep
Dogs
are forced to race in the Iditarod
Puppies
are forced to race
Small dog teams pull mushers and
heavy sleds huge distances
Mushers
dance on their sleds and focus on scenery, music and audio books
Old, small, blind, deaf and skinny
dogs forced to race
Dropped dog cover-up?
High risk for dogs racing in both Yukon Quest and Iditarod
Dogs do all the work
No water for the dogs
Dog
food shortages
Dog food deprivation
Mushers don't know dogs they lease, rent or borrow
Dogs lost in the unforgiving winter wilderness
Fact or fiction: Mushers care
for their dogs first?
Alaska SPCA, AK Humane Legislation
Council condemned Iditarod
Mushers abandon dogs during
the Iditarod
Will mushers using GPS pay attention to their dogs?
Musher turns dogs loose on the trail
Mushers don't clean up their team's turds, spilt food
or trash at checkpoints
Iditarod compared to recreational mushing
How does a roaming
wolf compare to a dog running in the Iditarod?
Dogs whipped, beaten and bitten
The Iditarod has no rule prohibiting
the use of whips.
Many other dog sled races do have this prohibition,
including all Can-Am Crown races, International Pedigree Stage Stop Sled
Dog Race, John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon, Percy DeWolfe Memorial Mail
Race, Copper Basin 300, Tustumena 200, Dubois, Empire 130, AttaBoy300,
Yukon Quest, Yukon 500, Grand Portage Passage Sled Dog Race, Sandwich
Notch Races and Kuskokwim 300.
Dogs
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."
-Tom
Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years
-USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno's column
The
Anchorage Daily News didn't want you to read about whips:
On April 4, 2006, Ethel Christensen submitted a personal letter (on
her own and not in her capacity as director of the Alaska SPCA) to the
editor of the Anchorage Daily News. Although this letter was under the
paper's 225 word limit, the editor refused to publish it in its entirety.
The one the newspaper finally published on April 21 excluded the sentence
"Whips are still being used and I have been given the names."
Here is the original letter Ethel Christensen sent to the editor on April
4, 2006:
"This is in response to Laura Kelly's letter to the editor in today's
paper. I have know Laura for years but have to take her to task for she
insults people outside of Alaska and in particular the tourist. Whips
are still being used and I have been given the names.
I have never met Margery Glickman but know she was one of many tourists
who have been appalled by what they see as tourist when they visit the
large dog lots and in particular of well known mushers. These complaints
have also included the wolf tourist sites.
To insult the tourist is certainly non productive and couple that when
an Anchorage Daily News reporter calls Margery a "guttersnipe," I find
it an embarrassment.
In addition, when Dr. Catherine Mormile was contacted at the recommendation
of Duke University to have Anderson Cooper interview her on CNN, the Anchorage
Daily News totally ignored her. Dr. Mormile was CO poisoned as an Iditarod
musher in 1994 and recovered through the help of family and shear determination
on her part. She played a large part in helping the recovery of Randy
McCloy. Dr. Mormile's experience or her recovery could be a positive for
all of us, including the animals.
This is all so sad and to treat a tourist with ridicule is rude, to say
the least."
---- Ethel D. Christensen
Investigative report that Ramy Brooks hit dogs with chain:
"He [David Amuktoolik, Jr.][an adult] told Paniptchuk
he found a short chain where the musher had been.
Two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy, also told the investigator
that Brooks kicked some of his dogs. One of the children said Brooks hit
the dogs with a chain."
- Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, May 18, 2007
Abuse is not rare:
"Rare is the musher who hasn't lost it with
his or her dogs. Ramy Brooks isn't the first and won't be the last."
- Editorial, Anchorage Daily News, May 22, 2007
Dogs beaten for going off of trail to sniff or lift a leg and for going
too slowly:
"Punishable
offenses include pulling off of the trail to sniff or to lift a leg, going
too slowly, not keeping the tugline tight, disobeying a command, being
aggressive to humans, or fighting with each other." "...A 'spanking'
may be administered with...a birch/willow switch."
-
Hood, Mary H. A Fan's Guide to the Iditarod,
Loveland:Alpine Blue Ribbon Books, 1996
Mushers says dogs who won't race should be whacked:
"Her [Sandy McKee's] dogs are being regally
obstinate. They will not move. McKee is talking about dropping out, a
fact that irks [Bill] Borden to no end. 'Those dogs are playing mind games
on you,' he says, pacing inside the community center. 'You gotta whack
them in the ass and say, 'Lets' go.''"
- Bill Donahue, "Sit. Stay. Fetch," Sports Illustrated Women,
December, 2002
Musher says Alaskans like dogs they can beat on:
"I
heard one highly respected (sled dog) driver once state that "'Alaskans
like the kind of dog they can beat on.'"
- Welch, Jim. The Speed Mushing Manual, Eagle
River: Sirius Publishing, 1990
Musher says beating dogs is very humane:
"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."
"Never
say 'whoa'
if you intend
to stop to whip a dog." "So without saying 'whoa' you plant
the hook, run up the side 'Fido' is on, grab the back of his harness,
pull back enough so that there is slack in the tug line, say 'Fido, get
up' immediately rapping his hind end with a whip...."
- Welch, Jim. The Speed Mushing Manual, Eagle
River: Sirus Publishing, 1990
Whips used to drive dogs across the finish line:
"As we came up over the sea wall onto Front
Street, I reached in my sled bag and pulled out a whip just as he glanced
around and saw it. So he reached in and pulled out his. And that's the
way we came down the street, just driving those dogs for all there was
in us."
- Iditarod winner Dick Mackey discussing how he and Rick Swenson used
their whips to drive their dogs across the finish line on Front Steet
in Nome.
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Classics, Seattle: Epicenter Press, 1992
Rick Swenson says to use force on the dogs:
"Then when you do tell him to do something, if he
doesn't want to do it for you, you enforce the command, you force him
to do it, for you."
- Swenson, Rick. The Secrets of Long Distance Training and Racing,
1987
Getting out the whip:
"Rick's [Mackey] dogs had come back from the sickness, but he couldn't
get them to move fast enough, and the trip up the river on the snow machine
trail through deep snow and drifts had worn them down again."
"'Maybe I'll have to get the whip out. Joe Garnie just pulled in
and two or three days ago I was faster than him.'"
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Whip is out:
"Just caught and passed Douglas Sheldon, but he
had his whip out and was cracking that as he pulled away."
- Olesen, Dave. Cold Nights Fast Trails, Minocqua: NorthWord Press,
Inc., 1989
Whip makes dogs panic:
"My whip is something that, as a serious dog trainer,
I do not use without considerable forethought. For the dogs who have tasted
its sting, in a reprimand for a serious fight or some other major transgression,
the sight of the whip and the sound of its crack are enough to touch off
a flood of adrenalin and a wild rush forward powered by sheer panic."
- Olesen, Dave. Cold Nights Fast Trails, Minocqua: NorthWord Press,
Inc., 1989
Musher says mushers should always have the whip with them:
"Denis
Christman passed on a piece of advice that he had gotten from Bill Taylor
years earlier. Never let the dogs see the whip until you are actually
going to use it. Hide it, but always have it with you."
- Welch, Jim. The Speed Mushing Manual, Eagle
River: Sirus Publishing, 1990
Mushers bite dogs to force them to race:
Steve
Fossett chuckles about biting lead dog--
"Steve
Fossett ran into a little trouble during the Iditarod, the 1,100-mile
Alaskan dog sled race. His lead dog decided on his own to stop to rest
and insisted that the rest of the team rest with him.
Yelling didn't work, so Fossett marched to the front of the sled, got
down on his hands and knees and bit the husky's right ear.
As Fossett describes it in his new memoir, Chasing the Wind, the
bite 'was hard enough for him to know that I was the lead 'dog,' that
I was the alpha male in this chain of command.'
Fossett, during a recent Investor's Business Daily interview, chuckled
at the memory of that power of will.'"
- Curt Schleier, Investor's Business Daily,
October 18, 2006
Tom
Daily bit dog who balked at racing--
"[Tom]
Daily tried each of his leaders. Each refused to go. On a hunch, he placed
Diamond-the slow leader he had bought from Barve-in front. The dog balked.
So [Tom] Daily bit him in the ear."
- O'Donoghue, Brian Patrick. My Lead Dog was
a Lesbian, New York: Vintage Books, 1996
-
O'Donoghue was a reporter with the Fairbanks News-Miner
Musher bit dogs in the nose or ear--
"The same musher, in dealing with a wayward
husky, would drop on all fours and actually bite the nose or ear of the
offender."
- Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, February 5, 1984
Musher beats dogs with whip handle:
"'No,'
is something I use a lot," Mr. [Lou] Schultz said, "'and when you
start using it, you have a whip in your hands. You don't lash the dogs,
you use the handle.'"
- Wayne King, The New York Times, March 15,
1980
Iditarod
ignored eyewitnesses accounts of dog abuse
Investigative report consistent that Ramy Brooks kicked his dogs:
The
board received a 21-page report from Anchorage attorney Bob Stewart that
detailed interviews with six Golovin residents who witnessed what happened.
Reports of witness were consistent that Brooks kicked his dogs.
One of them, Maude Paniptchuk, "saw Ramy try to kick a dog or dogs in
the middle of the team," according to the report.
Robert Moses, another witness quoted in the report, said that after hearing
dogs crying he 'turned around and saw Brooks kicking his leaders. ...
Some of the dogs were lying on their side.'
Another Golovin resident, David Amuktoolik Jr., also said Brooks kicked
his dogs."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, May 18, 2007
"Witness
Maude Paniptchuk told the investigator that Brooks was yelling obscenities,
pulling on the dogs' harnesses, and eventually hit and kicked some and
then hit some with a ski pole. She estimated this went on for 10 minutes
before the team began moving again.
Witness Robert Moses, Sr., told the investigator that he was out gathering
wood when he heard "dogs crying as if they were in pain." He reported
that Brooks kicked his lead dogs three or four times. He did not see him
hit the dogs with either a ski pole or the wooden lathe.
David Amuktoolik, Jr., said he was coming home from getting wood when
he saw Brooks kicking his dogs and punching them with his fists. He said
he saw Brooks three times kick and punch his dogs. He did not see Brooks
hit the dogs with a ski pole."
-
Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, May 18, 2007
Investigative report that Ramy Brooks hit dogs with chain:
"He
[David Amuktoolik, Jr.][an adult] told Paniptchuk he found a short chain
where the musher had been.
Two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 9-year-old boy, also told the investigator
that Brooks kicked some of his dogs. One of the children said Brooks hit
the dogs with a chain."
-
Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, May 18, 2007
One of Brooks dogs died the day after the incident:
"One
of Brooks' dogs died the day after the incident."
-
Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, May 18, 2007
[The Iditarod claims it could not determine the cause of the death]
Ignoring eyewitnesses, Iditarod suspends Brooks only for what he admits
doing:
"Stan
Hooley, executive director of the Iditarod Trail Committee, said whether
Brooks actually hit and kicked his dogs remains in dispute. He said the
board did not base the two-year suspension on the Golovin accounts. Instead,
the suspension was for the severity of what Brooks had already acknowledged
hitting his dogs with the wooden trail marker.
'The board did not feel they could act on those allegations," Hooley said,
of the eyewitness accounts.'"
- Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, May 18, 2007
[From
the Sled Dog Action Coalition: By ignoring eyewitness accounts of
abuse and only suspending Ramy Brooks for actions he admitted, isn't the
Iditarod encouraging animal abuse? Knowing that eyewitness accounts are
disregarded, aren't mushers more likely to beat, kick and slug their dogs
and then lie about it? ]
Before
investigation, Iditarod warned mushers not to speak against Brooks:
"The announcement [of an investigation] came just
days after Burmeister [President of Iditarod Board of Directors] sent
a separate letter to most former Iditarod finishers warning them to "be
careful what you say" about the accusations against Brooks.
'Don't go making announcements that will bring (this) issue back to the
attention of the press,' he wrote. 'Be careful of what you do and what
you say. ...What we should be doing is supporting Ramy as a friend, even
though we do not agree with his actions. We should not be trying to dig
a hole and putting him there.'"
- Richard Burmeister is President of the Iditarod Board of Directors
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 31, 2007
Dog abuse is not rare:
"Rare
is the musher who hasn't lost it with his or her dogs. Ramy Brooks isn't
the first and won't be the last."
-
Editorial, Anchorage Daily News, May 22, 2007
Mushers
ate their dogs
"To
the musher, a sled dog is a workmate and sometimes a meal. Snowmobiles
may be faster, even more reliable - but when you're trapped in a blizzard
or lost on the taiga, try eating a fan belt. More than one stranded Alaskan
has survived such an ordeal by converting loyal Sashka into stringy stew."
- Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, February 5, 1984
When
mushers hallucinate, who's watching the dogs?
Tired mushers hallucinate:
"[DeeDee]
Jonrowe has had 3 1/2 hours of sleep since the race started on Sunday
— was causing her to have audio hallucinations. She keeps hearing someone
coming up behind her on the trail and calling out her name."
-
Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 11, 2009
"The Nenana musher has been suffering a severe head
cold that robs him of sleep."
"The Nenana musher has been hallucinating along the trail – likely
because he’s sick, he said.
'Every time I close my eyes,' [Aaron] Burmeister said. 'Trains were coming
at me. The dogs were a bunch of cars. I thought I was going the wrong
way.'"
- Kyle Hopkins, Iditarodblog, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2012
"More than the dogs, [Emmitt] Peters says mushers
have to watch out for hallucinations from their own lack of sleep.
'All mushers do that,' Peters said. 'They just hate to say that, but I
know -- it runs through my experience.'
He remembers a time when he ran going from Shaktoolik to Koyuk, and he
thought he was meeting up with a snowmachine.
'So I turned my light on to see who was there, but there I am -- talking
to a chunk of ice,' Peters said."
- Emmitt Peters won the Iditarod in 1975
- Jason Lamb, KTUU-TV, KTUU.com, March 12, 2010
"Fatigue can do funny things to long-distance
mushers, [Lance] Mackey said. On Thursday night, he was riding the sled
and saw a girl sitting by the side of the trail doing something, probably
knitting.
'She laughed at me, waved, and I went by her and she was gone,' Mackey
said of his hallucination."
- Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 13, 2009
"I
was exhausted and had already begun to hallucinate during the last hour
of traveling, seeing the small people of the woods, hearing low-flying
airplanes in the middle of the night."
- Frederic, LIsa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
"Trailworn,
sleepless mushers often hallucinate, especially at night. They see wolves,
dogs, people, lights, buildings."
-Editorial
staff, Anchorage Daily News, March 4, 2000
"Ghost dogs, freight trains and even phantom
orchestras are among the bizarre images of the hallucinations that Iditarod
mushers see because of sleep deprivation and fatigue.
Race leader Martin Buser Sunday was on the part of the trail where
he has faced some of his strangest Iditarod moments. 'I've seen villages,
freight trains and cabins that were not there,' Buser said before the
race."
- Mark Downey, Great Falls Tribune, March 16, 2002
"I am now incredibly tired and drift back
into my on-again, off-again dance with reality. The next 12 miles or so
are a confused jumble of images. At one point I'm flying for the race
and watching myself down below. Then I'm driving a car along the wide,
smooth road and am suprised when I turn the steering wheel and nothing
happens."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack,
Anchorage: Publication Consultants, 2000
"And then I began to hallucinate. I saw people standing
beside the trail, never anyone I recognized. They talked and laughed among
themselves like they were waiting for my arrival at a nonexistent checkpoint.
I turned and as the light of my headlamp swept over them they stopped
talking and turned their heads to stare at me as we passed. Sometimes
they were back from the trail and I only heard voices, catching snippets
of conversations, never any intelligible words, but I assumed they were
talking about me."
"Then once again, it happened. I began hallucinating. This time it was
not something as benign as people standing beside the trail. I saw animals-a
rick pile became a bison, a stump became a moose."
- Scdoris, Rachael and Steber, Rick. No End in Sight: My Life as a
Blind Iditarod Racer, New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2007
"Some time later during the same run the hallucination
took me to a different setting. I was home from school, about 7 years
old, standing in my grandmother's kitchen with my chin just about counter
height, watching, smelling while Granny slathered a slice of homemade
bread with bacon grease."
- Warren, James and Warren, Christopher. Following My Father's Dream,
James and Christopher Warren, 2005
"When I got to Safety I found out I was 2 ½ hours behind the next closest
team. I was just really, really tired and getting a little discouraged.
I was hallucinating, too."
- Brian O'Donaghue, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by
the Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
"Emmitt Peters, 43, a cagey Indian driver known
as the 'Yukon River Fox, yanked a frozen beaver carcass from a burlap
sack and began methodically hacking it into bite-size chunks for his team.
'You know, I was mushing along out there and kept drifting in and out
of sleep,' [Emmitt] Peters said softly, pausing between strokes of the
hatchet. 'When I slept, I dreamed about mushing dogs. And then I'd wake
up and be mushing dogs.
After a while, it got all jumbled together: dream dogs, real dogs. Dream
race, real race. Until it got so I couldn't tell the difference no more.
Couldn't tell where the dream left off and the real began,' said the Yukon
Fox. 'I was just floating.'"
- Emmitt Peters won the Iditarod in 1975
- Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, February 5, 1984
"'This time, I [Lance Mackey] saw a woman ahead
of me. She was sitting beside the trail and not really doing anything
except staring at me. The closer I got, the more real she was, and when
I passed, she smiled. But when I turned around to wave good-bye, she was
gone. I felt I was really awake and had no doubt she was there. It was
such a strange experience that it rattled me.'"
- Helen Hegener is quoting Lance Mackey from his book, The Lance Mackey
Story.
- Helen Hegener, Alaska Dispatch, March 12, 2010
"Hallucinations
have taken many strange forms in the isolation of the Iditarod. Some mushers
have 'seen' lights under the feet of the dogs. After many hours on the
trail, others have imagined the dogs running up in the air." "And
one musher constantly found a strange man riding in his sled."
- Dolan, Ellen. Susan Butcher and the Iditarod Trail, New York:Walker
Publishing Co., 1993
"Sleep deprivation catches me and I start
hallucinating." "They come while you are awake, come with your
eyes open and are completely real." "I see my dogs all running
in flame, their feet and lower legs on fire." "The hallucinations
do not go away. Indeed they get more complicated. Often I nearly get lost
by going up rivers that aren't there, following lights that do not exist."
-
Paulsen, Gary. Woodsong, New York: Macmillan Publishing Company,
1990
"The
Iditarod is commonly called a sleep deprivation test for the humans who
enter it and [Joe] Garnie had a classic hallucination mushing into Elim.
He was convinced a man was riding in his sled bag. First, he politely
told the man he didn't belong there and had to leave. When the man didn't
move, Garnie patted him on the shoulder and asked again. Finally, Garnie
just swatted the guy."
-
Lew Freedeman, Anchorage Daily News, March 19, 1993
"My
acute lack of sleep, aggravated by the increasing pain in my hands despite
the naproxen, isn't helping matters and I'm starting to hallucinate. At
least once I stop the team and try to pull them onto the shoulder to let
an imaginary truck by. Another time I find myself carrying on a conversation
with someone walking alongside the sled; the dogs slow and stop wondering
what strange commands I'm giving them."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
"Twice
in past races, [John] Barron has experienced similar hallucinations, where
his dog teams glowed eerily like the luminescent dial on a watch."
- Lew Freedman, Anchorage Daily News, March
17, 1995
"Mushing
on her merry way, weary a bleary-eyed [Peryll] Kyzer watched her top-notch
Iditarod dogs turn into lobsters right before her eyes.
- Freedman,
Lew. Iditarod Silver, Fairbanks: Epicenter Press, 1997
"When
extreme fatigue sets in hallucinations are common. Zirkle sometimes watches
Roger Rabbit characters suddenly appear beside the side of the trail.
DeeDee Jonrowe says she starts ducking from branches that aren't really
there."
- Annie Feidt, Alaska Public Radio Network, March 13, 2006, website
“'I think everybody probably hallucinates,' [Celeste] Davis said.
'It’s funny. You’re totally with it, but then I’m seeing daisies in a
tree. And I’m thinking, ‘That took a lot of work. It’s really nice they
hung daisies in the tree.’
There followed a tree trunk made of horseshoes."
- Kim Briggeman, The Missoulian, April 24,
2010
"Not
too far into the run after snacking the dogs, I started getting dizzy
and trembly. It seemed like the trail was going on forever as I got weaker
and weaker. It got so that all I could do was hang on the sled and watch
the hallucinations. As I slipped in and out of consciousness, trees, shrubs
and rocks became couches, quarterbacks, toasters and all kinds of things."
-
Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008
"I had the sense that a pack of wolves was
following me."
- Mackey, Lance. The Lance Mackey Story, Fairbanks: Zorro Books,
LLC, 2010
Reactions
of tired mushers are the same as people who are legally drunk:
"Eventually it [the need for sleep] takes
over, impairing their judgement, forcing their eyes shut while riding
the runners, and sometimes causing hallucinations." "The situation
can be hazardous." "A person who gets five hours of sleep for
just a few nights has the impaired reactions of someone who is legally
drunk."
- Anne Morris, medical director, Sleep Disorder Center, Providence Alaska
Medical Center
- Staff and wire reports, Anchorage Daily News, March 6, 2000
At
the race start mushers are sleep deprived:
"I
haven't had more than three hours sleep a night since sometime last week.
I'm already reacting like someone on the verge of sleep deprivation which
isn't a good sign so close to the race." "Race day." "If
I wasn't a zombie from lack of sleep, I'd certainly be wondering if I
wasn't finally in over my head."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
"Most
first-time Iditarod dog drivers can find themselves weak and tired well
before they reach the first checkpoint at Yentna. I couldn't sleep for
four or five days. Boy, I've been a nervous wreck," said Carmen Perzechino
of Sterling, Alaska."
-
Jon Little, Cabelas website, March 7, 2004
- Little is a former reporter with the Anchorage Daily News and was an
Iditarod musher
"'I [Patty Friend] just wanted to run the race and
have fun doing it and do the best job I could. But even when we started
we were exhausted, me and the dogs.'"
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Mushers
are sleep deprived:
"I
was out with the team of dogs in nerve-wracking conditions that demanded
common sense and good judgment and at the same time I was nearly delirious
from exertion and lack of sleep."
- Olesen, Dave. Cold Nights Fast Trails, Minocqua: NorthWord Press,
Inc., 1989
"He’s
slept three hours since leaving Willow, he said, and struggled to remember
which day he left Nikolai as he ate forkfuls of omelet and ketchup."
- Hopkins is talking about Iditarod musher William
Pinkham.
- Pinkham left Willow on March 7, 2010.
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News - The Sled Blog, March 10,
2010
"I kept a log once showing that in thirteen days of mushing, I slept nineteen
hours."
- Terry Adkins, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by the
Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Seattle: Epicenter Press, 1992
"[Doug]
Swingley said he figured that during a competitive race he got about 20
hours of sleep over a nine-day period."
-
Mark Downey, Great Falls Tribune, March 16, 2002
"Normally,
she [DeeDee Jonrowe] averages three hours of sleep every 24 hours during
the race."
-
Beth Bragg, Anchorage Daily News, March 2, 2003
"'I
have slept only six hours since the race began.'"
-
Musher Robert Sorlie
- Rachel D'Oro, Associated Press, March 7, 2003
(The race restart was March 3, 2003)
"Sorlie,
the 2003 winner, looked mighty weary, saying he hadn't slept in two days."
-
Steve Wilstein, Associated Press, March 8, 2005
"DeeDee
Jonrowe of Willow, fourth this year, said she probably slept only six
or seven hours over the duration of her 9-day, 11-hour, 24-minute race."
- Lew Freedman, Anchorage Daily News, March
17, 1995
"[Rick]
Mackey, who had slept less than two hours in the past four days, swayed
on his feet and blinked painfully into the lights."
-
Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, February 5, 1984
"Only
then did [Eep] Anderson, who had had perhaps 12 hours' sleep in the past
six days and who was suffering from a cold verging on pneumonia, gobble
a candy bar and stagger down to the ice-bound Iditarod River."
- Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, March 15, 1983
"I
get about 20 hours of sleep throughout the Iditarod."
- Lance Mackey said this to Dennis Zaki during an
interview.
- Anchorage Daily News website video, March 6, 2011
"Trent Herbst sleeps about 5 hours in 5 days "By the time
he [Trent Herbst] got to Iditarod he said he had only had about five hours
of sleep."
(From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: According to
the Iditarod's website Herbst left Anchorage at 10:04:00 on March 5, 2011
and arrived at the Iditarod checkpoint at 5:29:00 on March 10, 2011)
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 11, 2011
"As he talked, someone wished [Ramey] Smyth a happy
birthday.
When was it?
'Today I guess,' Smyth said.
It's hard to think straight when you've slept roughly five hours in six
days."
- Kyle Hopkins and Beth Bragg, Anchorage Daily News, March 15,
2011
--
Even mushers who were not the front-runners get exhausted:
"I
was having trouble staying awake. It was long and flat and boring."
"Oh my God, I was too. If I'd realized you were catching up to me, I would
have woken up."
- Mushers Ramy Brooks and Tim Osmar talking about their trips between
Shaktoolik and Elim checkpoints.
- Doug O'Harra, Anchorage Daily News, March 19, 1998
"I
just want to watch Jeff ramble on and not make any sense,' said [Martin]
Buser [watching Jeff King's victory on television], well aware of the
fogginess of sleep deprivation after nine days on the trail with little
rest."
-
Craig Medred and Doug O'Harra, Anchorage Daily News, March 18,
1998
--
Mushers get little sleep before the race even starts:
"As the days counted down (to the start
of the race), Sagoonick slept less and less. Four hours one night, three
the next."
-Lew Freedman, Anchorage Daily News, March 4, 2001
"Race
day." "If I wasn't a zombie from lack of sleep, I'd certainly be wondering
if I wasn't finally in over my head."
-
Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
--
Musher falls asleep and dogs crash into a tree:
"Plettner was standing on the runners during
a mean stretch of her 2000 run when she got lost in a sleepy daze."
"'I was so tired, so fatigued, that I fell asleep going downhill,
and we crashed into some trees,' she explained."
- Josh Niva, Anchorage Daily News, March 1, 2002
Sleep deprived mushers have impaired mental
functioning and reduced immunity
What are the effects of sleep deprivation?
From Susan E. Conner, Ph.D., Caltech, Assistant
Director, Counseling Center:
- Mood shifts, including depression, increased
irritability
- Stress, anxiety and loss of sense of humor
- Reduced immunity to disease and viral infection
- Impaired memory functioning
- Reduced ability to handle complex tasks
- Reduced ability to think logically, critically
- Reduced ability to analyze new information
- Reduced decision-making skills and vocabulary
- Reduced motor skills and coordination—more likely to have an accident
- In more severe cases of sleep deprivation, individuals may become disoriented,
hallucinate or become psychotic.
- Caltech website, 2002
Lack of sleep makes it difficult to do
even mundane acts:
"A
lack of sleep makes it difficult to carry out even mundane acts, such
as conversing intelligibly or calculating a waiter's tip.""A
lack of sleep makes it difficult to carry out even mundane acts, such
- B. Bower, Science News, February 12, 2000
After day seven, it's hard to make a rational decision:
"By day seven, your body is run down from sleep
deprivation. You can't hardly make a rational decision."
- Musher Ed Iten talking about his Iditarod experience
- Hannah Guillaume, The Northern Light, March 7, 2006
Sleep deprived mushers have much lower resistence to infection:
"Simply put, if you're sleep-deprived, your
resistance to viral infection is significantly lowered."
- Dr. James B. Maas, Power Sleep (New York: Villard, 1998).
Sleep deprivation
raises cortisol levels, high-sensitivity CRP concentrations, blood pressure,
and causes heart rate variability
"Previous research has shown that the effects
of short-term reduced sleep duration include increased blood pressure,
heart rate variability, decreased glucose tolerance and increased cortisol
levels."
- HarvardScience, website: harvardscience.harvard.edu, January 27, 2003
Elevated cortisol levels supress the immune system and are associated
with more infections:
"It is known that elevated cortisol levels result
in immune suppression and are associated with an increased incidence of
infection rates"
- Claudia Spies, Verena Eggers, Gyongyi Szabo, et al., American Journal
of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Vol. 174, 2006
Sleep deprivation results in elevated high-sensitivity CRP concentrations:
"Both acute total and short-term partial sleep deprivation
resulted in elevated high-sensitivity CRP concentrations [hs-CRP], a stable
marker of inflammation that has been shown to be predictive of cardiovascular
morbidity."
- Meier-Ewert HK, Ridker, PM, et al. Journal of the American College
of Cardiology, 2004 Oct. 6; 44(7).
Back to the top
Pushing dogs to race faster is dangerous
Compare the current speed record of 9 days with the speed record for the first Iditarod:
"Dick Wilmarth wins the inaugural in just over 20 days."
-
Anchorage Daily News website, March, 1999
Iditarod rule 36 encourages mushers to race dogs faster:
"A
team may be withdrawn that is out of the competition and is not in a position
to make a valid effort to compete. If a team has not reached McGrath within
seventy-two (72) hours of the leader, Galena within ninety-six (96) hours
of the leader or, Unalakleet within one hundred twenty (120) hours of
the leader, it may be presumed that a team is not competitive."
- Iditarod rule 36, Iditarod website
Dick Mackey advises driving dogs like they're going drop dead in Nome:
"'From here they're going to do in two and a half
days what it took them five to do coming out of Anchorage fresh,' [Dick]
Mackey said. 'From here on, you've got to drive the dogs like they're
going to cross the finish line in Nome and drop dead.'"
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Hank DeBruin told he's not going fast enough and must quit:
"Nordman wanted to know why the 47-year-old DeBruin
and his 13 Siberian huskies had taken more than nine hours on the 50-mile
run from Galena. DeBruin explained that it had been 40 below and that
the team was fighting a headwind on the wide-open river.
Nordman, according to DeBruin, wasn't buying that excuse. He told DeBruin
he was too far behind the nearest mushers down the trail. Jane Faulkner,
of Kenai, and Celeste Davis, from Montana, were closing on Kaltag, the
next checkpoint, as DeBruin was leaving Nulato.
DeBruin argued that though his team was slow, it was still on pace to
finish as the fastest-ever red lantern in the Iditarod. Nordman wasn't
buying that, either, DeBruin said
The race marshal announced he was imposing Rule 36, the "competitiveness"
rule."
"DeBruin was well within all of these time limits. He had cleared McGrath
with days to spare and reached Galena less than 72 hours behind the arrival
of then-race leader Jeff King from Denali. By DeBruin's reckoning, he
was a full day ahead of Iditarod doomsday.
Still, Nordman decided DeBruin was too far out of contact with Davis and
Faulkner, who teamed up for most of the 150-mile push up the Yukon to
the Kaltag Portage. In the race marshal's eyes, that apparently put DeBruin
in the "unreasonable risk" category, although DeBruin appears as comfortable
traveling on the trail as most Iditarod veterans. He has spent a long
time around dogs and in the Bush, and it shows in his trail skills."
- Mark Nordman is the Iditarod Race Marshall.
- Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch, March 17, 2010
Rob Loveman removed from Iditarod for not going fast enough:
"And
Rob Loveman, a rookie musher removed from the race because he wasn't traveling
fast enough, has protested his withdrawal as unfair and cited pressure
on back-of-the-packers to keep moving as a possible contributing factor
in dog deaths."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, May 15, 2009
Musher wants to accelerate pace of Iditarod:
Martin Buser says that "he wants to accelerate the pace [of the Iditarod race] even more."
- Doug O'Harra, Anchorage Daily News, February 23, 1997
No limit on how fast mushers will push the dogs:
"'In the old days,'" said Martin Buser
of Big Lake, "'we use to drool over a 10 mph average. (Now) we don't
really know where the limit is.'"
- Staff and wire reports, Anchorage Daily News, March 13, 2000
“We went 14 hours nonstop,” Sorlie said earlier
at Eagle Island, 420 miles from the Nome finish line."
- News Staff, Anchorage Daily News, March 13, 2005
Dogs run from 100 miles to 200 miles a day:
"They run 100 miles to 200 miles a day for 10
straight days."
- Iditarod veterinarian Dr. Harvey Goho
- Tarah Holland, The News & Record, March 18, 2007
Increased speed makes for sleepy mushers and more hazards:
"The speed record for the Iditarod is 9 days, which is less than half the time it took to run the first race. Mushers push their dogs beyond their abilities by depriving both the dogs and themselves of sleep. Just as sleepy automobile drivers are more likely to fall asleep behind the wheel and have accidents, mushers who operate their sleds while half asleep create more hazards for both the dogs and themselves."
- Roland Windsor Vincent, Last Chance for Animals, September, 1999
Increased speed results in two dogs spraining their backs:
"'Our
speed required all my strength to manhandle the sled. I hit a tree, breaking
the sled's main runner. This made it impossible for me to steer properly,
resulting in two dogs spraining their backs.'"
-
DeeDee Jonrowe talking about an incident in the 2000 Iditarod
- Grace Fox, The Salvation Army War Cry, February 16, 2002
A musher's desire to win by going faster outweighs any concern for dogs'
health and safety:
"That's the nature of today's Iditarod: They fast want to go faster."
-The Anchorage Daily News, March 7, 1998
"I'm
still working off my high starting position, of course. We're 41 and 62
so that, of course, that was a bit of a drawback on this Iditarod I think.
The trail got progressively worse and we've had snow and snow and snow,
so we had to jump on the bandwagon and short rest and get up here a little
faster than we wanted. So sometimes those high starting numbers don't
work in your favor."
- Iditarod musher Martin Buser, Anchorage Daily News, website,
March 6, 2012
"[Musher DeeDee] Jonrowe...is aiming for as many long runs and short rests as possible."
- Associated Press for Fairbanks News-Miner, undated 1998 article on website
"As mushers drive closer to the finish line, most said they are racing their dogs more and resting less than earlier in the race."
- Jolie Lewis, Fairbanks News-Miner, undated 1998 article on website
"If she left, I would have followed, even though it wasn't the best for either of our teams. We both were ready to race each other to the finish."
- First place Jeff King referring to second-place musher Dee Dee Jonrowe
- "King ran the race the way he wanted" by Casey Ressler, Outside Online
Event Coverage, March 17, 1998
"I got my puppy team here. I went a little too hard, I guess. I kind of ran the legs off the dogs a little bit."
- Rick Swenson, five-time Iditarod winner who finished 11th in the 1998
race
- Jolie Lewis, Fairbanks News-Miner, March 19, 1998
Accidents hurt dogs and mushers:
"Mushers
had to maneuver sleds over tree stumps, logs and tussocks. They darted
between trees. Sometimes they made it; other times they didn't."
"In Nikolai, mushers shared horror stories about their crashes...."
- Elizabeth Manning, Anchorage Daily News,
March 7, 2001
"We got wrapped around a couple of trees. It was hard to distinguish where the trail was."
-
Musher Dee Jonrowe - Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1998
Sleep deprived dogs suffer from extreme stress
and exertion:
Margery Glickman: "Dogs
like to sleep a lot. And, maybe Dr. Kislak would like to speak about it.
My understanding is that the average dog likes to sleep anywhere from
14 to 18 hours a day."
Dr. Paula Kislak: "Yes,
that's correct. If we are going all the way back into the instinctual
behavior of dogs, they sleep all day and hunt for maybe two to four, maximum
six hours in the evening. The rest of the time is spent in the cave cleaning
and sleeping. I certainly have found in my practice and with my own animals
that that's probably an overestimation of the amount of time they'd really
like to be sleeping. They'd really like to be sleeping much more, obviously,
since they don't have to hunt. They'll typically sleep anywhere from 14
to 20 hours in a day. Which brings up the point that when the musher is
sleeping [while the dogs race], of course, the dogs are not able to sleep.
Not only does that create extreme stress and exertion on the dogs, but,
also leads to accidents where the dogs do get strangled by the towlines
and gouged by the sleds. It's completely irresponsible behavior."
- On February 23, 2003, Andrea Floyd-Wilson, the
host of All About Animals Radio Show, interviewed Margery Glickman, Director
of the Sled Dog Action Coalition, and Paula Kislak, DVM, President of
the Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights.
"Runyan's
thinking was that if the teams did their 24-hour rests there [at the Ruby
checkpoint], they would be able resume the race with so much energy restored
that they could catch any teams that might pass during the layover. The
strategy didn't work. Runyan took so much out of his dogs that they ended
up getting sick."
-
Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 12, 2004
Mushers force sick, injured and tired dogs to race
Mushers start race with sick dogs:
"Aberdeen's
presence on the team is even more of a surprise. He was a standout yearling
last year, but in the spring we found a large lump on his hind leg. We
had the cancer removed, but the vet said it was sure to come back and
would likely result in him losing his leg. He also said that the tumor
had been growing around the tendons and hock joint, and there had been
some damage in removing it, so he would likely have joint problems. The
lump did start to reappear...."
-
Karin Hendrickson, Iditarod 2009, article on her website
"As
soon as we hit the warmer weather in Anchorage, however, I was confronted
with canine health problems. With the warmer temperatures, and possible
exposure to a hundred teams and fifteen hundred dogs, many from the Lower
48, I started having digestive episodes, some of them a real drag on the
team."
-
Lance Mackey. The Lance Mackey Story, Fairbanks: Zorro Books, LLC,
2010
"He
[veterinarian Terry Adkins] saw very little diarrhea along the trial from
the ceremonial start Saturday, he said, adding though that John Barron
of Helmville told him his dogs had it. Loose stools are a sign of ill
health. Sled dogs relieve their bowels on the run."
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Because the
dogs "relieve their bowels on the run," it is likely that the dogs in
back of those who were stricken with diarrhea inhaled this fecal material.
The bacterial material it contains could cause infection and death. Sick
dogs should be pulled out of the race.]
- Mark Downey, Great Falls Tribune,
March 4, 2002
"Last
year, I started my run in the Iditarod swinging for a homerun right out
of the starting gate. We did well for a while, but a gift basket assortment
of nagging injuries left over from the Beargrease the month prior knocked
me back somewhat, and a wicked nasty case of the doggy flu pretty much
finished me off by the time I reached the Yukon."
"Oh well–that’s just the way it goes sometimes. I met some pretty neat
people while I was limping along–Pete Kaiser was one of them."
- Jason Barron, Jason Barron's blog, March 2011
"One
of his dogs caught a virus three days before the start and it went dog-to-dog
through his team through the first two-thirds of the race, he [John Barron]
said."
- Mark Downey, Great Falls Tribune, March
14, 2002
"Zirkle,
of Two Rivers, limped along the trail Tuesday morning with an ailing dog
team. A few of her dogs got sick just before the race, and the bug has
spread through her entire team she said."
-
Aliy Zirkle, musher in 2001 Iditarod
- Elizabeth Manning, Anchorage Daily News, March 8, 2001
"Two of his [Bartlett's] veteran dogs were
unable to keep running." "Bartlett suspects the dogs were suffering
from a virus. They had not wanted to eat since the ceremonial start Saturday
in Anchorage...."
- Rachel D'Oro, Associated Press, Wednesday, March 5, 2003
[In 2003, the Iditarod restart was in Fairbanks on Monday, March 3, two
days after the Anchorage ceremonial start. According to the AP report,
Barlett's dogs raced for at least three days even though they were too
sick to eat.]
- Schnuell, Anderson, Gatt, Willomitzer and Land start race with dogs
who have kennel cough:
Kyle Hopkins: "So you have a little
bit of illness also on your team?"
Sebastian Schnuelle: "Oh yah, for sure I had that stupid kennel
cough like big time. It started like two days before the race."
Kyle Hopkins: "Do you think they got it on the Quest?"
Sebastian Schnuelle: "Oh yeah for sure, Ken [Anderson] had
it, Hans [Gatt] had it. So I guess we three kind of stuck together there.
So I guess we all got it."
- iditablog, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2011, Takotna checkpoint
- Kyle Hopkins is a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News.
- The 2011 Iditarod started on March 5.
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Sebastian Schnuelle won the Iditarod's
2010 Humanitarian Award.]
"As the race got underway, [Hans] Gatt said
about half of his team was battling kennel cough."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 9, 2011
"He [Ken Anderson] did drop 2 dogs, including
Pikea because his kennel cough was getting worse and he didn’t want it
to progress to something more serious, like pneumonia."
- Gwen Anderson, journal, Forest Lake Times, March 9, 2011
- Gwen Anderson is Ken Anderson's wife.
- The 2011 Iditarod started March 6.
"Disappointment in the Iditarod. After contacting
Kennel Cough before the race I had hopes the team would recover in time.
Unfortunately only some of them did. By McGrath I was down to 9 dogs
from the 16 that started, due to a combination of illness & injury. The
remaining dogs were still showing strong symptoms of the cough, and with
only one leader remaining I decided it was in the best interest of the
dogs to end the race at this point."
- Iditarod musher Gerry Willomitzer, www.gerrywillomitzer.com, March,
2011
"One dog had a cough the day the race started
and that illness spread through the team, he said."
- Terry Adkins, DVM, discussing musher Karen Land's dogs
- Mark Downey, Great Falls Tribune, March 8, 2003
- Dogs start race not eating well:
"This was a very arduous race. We started slow,
pushing through 3 inches of soft snow. The dogs worked hard and didn’t
eat well."
- Dogs not eating well when race starts
- Eric O. Rogers, Ph.D. personal blog, March 30, 2009
"For now, his [Lance Mackey] dogs have what he believes
are the early symptoms of kennel cough. A wheel dog named Pat 'hasn't
eaten probably a pound of food since the starting line,' he said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2011
-
Dog allowed to start race with open sore on foot pad:
"He's [Don Bower's dog Batman] had an open
sore on one of his front footpads since before the race and even with
booties and lots of ointment, it's not improving."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
-
Mushers force sick, injured and tired dogs to continue racing
Rachael Scdoris forces sick dogs to race:
Rachael Scdoris's
dog Karelan was sick at the Rainy Pass Checkpoint. Scdoris raced this
sick dog for 322 miles before dropping her at the Iditarod checkpoint.
Dutchess was also sick at the Rainy Pass Checkpoint. Scdoris raced this
sick dog for 490 miles before scratching at the Eagle Island Checkpoint.
Rainy
Pass Checkpoint
"I noticed Dutchess and Karelan had picked up a bug and now had runny
diarrhea."
Rainy Pass to Rohn - 48 miles
"Their diarrhea had not improved, and I could tell they were not as healthy
as at the start of the race."
Rohn to Nikolai - 80 miles
"Dutchess and Karelan nibbled at their food."" Dutchess and Karelan and
Kitty still suffered from diarrhea and a couple of others had sore wrists...."
Nikolai to McGrath - 48 miles
"The veterinarian expressed her concern about the virus sweeping through
my team. She said I needed to keep a close watch on Dutchess and Karelan...."
McGrath to Takotna - 18 miles
Takotna to Ophir - 38 miles
Ophir to
Iditarod - 90 miles
"When we were ready to leave [Iditarod] I dropped Karelan.
Iditarod to Shageluk - 65 miles
"I started crying because my dogs were sick and skinny and I had lost
the bootie bag."
Shageluk to Anvik - 25 miles
Anvik to Grayling - 18 miles
"There
were long stretches when noting seemed to change. I knew that for a team
of sick dogs this might prove to be our undoing."
Grayling to Eagle Island - 60 miles
"Angel
was the only dog in my team that seemed the least bit interested in leading
and she was now my thinnest dog." Bernard, Ned and Dutchess were nearly
as skinny."
"It
was obvious from the thinness of the dogs, but the veterinarian was trying
to make conversation and asked if the diarrhea medicine had helped. I
was honest. There was really no sense in trying to be deceitful. My team
was in trouble.
'I haven't been able to keep weight on them, not since Tokotna. That's
were the diarrhea started getting bad and they began losing weight.'"
"When
I saw my spent team and saw the way they were curled up on the straw,
how skinny they had become from the diarrhea-causing virus, my decision
was made for me."
"All that remained of my 2005 Iditarod run was to make it official. Jim
got a piece of paper and a Sharpie. He wrote my name and the words 'Scratched
in Eagle Island.' I signed it."
- Scdoris, Rachael and
Steber, Rick. No End in Sight: My Life as a Blind Iditarod Racer,
New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2007
Lance Mackey's dog in awful pain from ripping out his own toenails
forced to race:
Annie Feidt: "He's [Lance Mackey] further
back in the race than he was at his point last year when he finished 16th
and he's leaving with nine dogs, one of whom has a minor injury. But he's
too stubborn to drop the dog."
Lance Mackey: "Because it was kind of a self-inflicted wound keeping
this female in heat and it's caused other issues that are fixable. This
particular little issue is he's been working hard to get to that female
in front of him. He ripped off his toenails. He's still able to walk with
no toenails. It's just kind of painful."
- Annie Feidt from Alaska
Public Radio interviewed Lance Mackey on March 12, 2012, APRN.org website
--Ripped off toenails are extremely painful:
"The worst
type of broken toe nail is called an avulsed toe nail. This is when the
nail is actually pulled off. This type is also extremely painful and tends
to bleed a lot."
- Dr. Ellen Leonhardt, DVM, Animal General of East Norwich, East Norwich,
NY, website article, 2012
"Any toenail ripped or cracked at the base will
be very painful and may bleed-sometimes LOTS!"
- Dr. Emily R. Roberson, DVM, Animal Hospital of East Davie, Advance,
NC, website article, 2012
Lance Mackey forces sick dogs to race:
"'I'm still dealing with some diarrhea issues that I can't
seem to get control of for whatever reason,' said [Lance] Mackey, speaking
about his dog team's health and performance."
- Kevin Wells, KTUU-TV, March 7, 2008, web site article
Lance Mackey forces dog to race who's having groin chafing:
"He's down to only nine of the 16 dogs with
which he left Willow on Sunday, and he's worried he might have to drop
Rev. The dog is having problems with harness chafing in the area of his
groin. [Lance] Mackey said veterinarians told him it's because Rev has
a 'bigger package.' I don't at all know how it feels, but I can imagine.
I'm sure it's not comfortable. I'm deathly scared he is not going to make
it too much past Grayling.''
- Jill Burke, Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch, March 11, 2011
- Lance Mackey was at the Anvik checkpoint.
According to the Iditarod's website, Lance Mackey still had a nine dog
team when he arrived in Unalakleet on March 13, 2011 at 16:04:00.
Lance Mackey forces dogs with kennel cough to race:
"At about 8:30 p.m., hours before Mackey was
scheduled to leave, he stood in the dark as a vet checked one of his leaders,
Rev. The dog made a hacking sound."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2011
- Mackey and Hopkins were at the Takotna checkpoint
"Some of his [Lance Mackey]dogs were coughing
and one is in heat."
- Associated Press, March 12, 2008
Heather Siirtola forces sick dogs to race:
"The
intestinal virus that was plaguing the team earlier continues.
But, after talking to friend and fellow dog owner Kathleen Holden, [Heather]
Siirtola apparently decided to keep going."
- Tony Spilde, Bismarck Tribune, March 11, 2008
DeeDee Jonrowe forces injured dogs to race:
Veterinarian: "Get
some povidone-iodine. Beta iodine."
DeeDee Jonrowe, holding a dog's leg: "OK."
Veterinarian: "Beta iodine. Then I think it would
probably be better to wrap it. It's been cold all this time so it doesn't
stiffen up on him while he's going to be racing."
DeeDee Jonrowe: "OK."
Veterinarian: "Wrap it."
DeeDee Jonrowe: "Wrap it with a hot pack?"
Veterinarian: "Yes."
DeeDee Jonrowe, taping the dog's leg: "OK."
Veterinarian: "Tape it more."
[Sound of the dog crying.]
- Outdoor Life Network (OLN), Kaltag checkpoint, Iditarod, 2005
DeeDee Jonrowe arrived at the Kaltag
checkpoint with 12 dogs and left with 12 dogs.
- Iditarod website, 2005
Ramey Smyth forces injured dogs to race:
"Ramey Smyth
is nursing a dog team that’s been whittled down to a meager seven. Aches
and pains have just taken their toll this year, he said."
- Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 14, 2005
Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
Greg Parvin forces sick dogs to race:
"Many of his
dogs [Greg Parvin] were stricken with diarrhea early on, he's crashed
his sled more times than he could count and a lack of sleep has shrunk
his eyes into slits."
"By Friday afternoon, his dogs were rebounding, thanks to numerous
visits with volunteer race veterinarians."
- Rachael D'Oro, Associated Press, March 12, 2005
Aliy Zirkle forces dogs with
kennel cough to race:
"It was my first Iditarod; I had
to finish the ding-dang thing. The dogs all had fevers. The vets gave
them a powerful antibiotic.
"Every time I came into a checkpoint, the vets
knew about me and asked how the dogs were doing." "They [the
dogs] had a virus with a fever, and they were coughing mucus."
-
Aliy Zirkle, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
"The
run from TAKOTNA to OPHIR is short, but hilly. I gauge my team by the
time interval we take to cover this distance. A good time is 2 and a half
hours. I always think back to my first Iditarod. My entire dog team had
kennel cough and were moving slowly right here."
- Aliy Zirkle, SP Kennel Dog Log, Iditarod Trail Notes, 2010
- According to the Iditarod's website, Aliy Zirkle's first Iditarod was
in 2001.
Vern Halter, John Baker and many others force sick dogs
to race:
"Two of the MANY (emphasis added) mushers who
battled viruses in their dog teams and placed well below their expectations
were Vern Halter...and John Baker...."
- Lew Freedman, Anchorage Daily News, March 17, 2000
Doug Swingley forces sick dogs to race:
"... (The dog's) recovery in the checkpoints
was slowed by some sort of virus."
- Doug Swingley, the 2000 Iditarod race winner
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 14, 2000
"Around Nikolai, about 350 miles into the race,
some of his dogs caught a virus." "'They had some bad discomfort'" said
Swingley. "'It was hard for me to manage them.'"
- Doug Swingley, the 2000 Iditarod race winner
- Lew Freedman, Anchorage Daily News, March 15, 2000
Lindwood Fieldler forces sick dogs to race in 2000:
"COAXING SICK DOGS: Linwood Fiedler, DeeDee
Jonrowe's Willow neighbor, finished just ahead of her in 19th and had
to nurse sick dogs much of the time."
- Staff report, Anchorage Daily News, March 17, 2000, article on
website
Jason Halseth forces sick dogs to race:
"I just
couldn't keep fluids in them," the musher said. "I'd get in
the checkpoints, and they'd look good, and I'd get out and they'd lose
their hydration."
- Jason Halseth, musher in 2001 Iditarod
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 15, 2001
Ramy Brooks forces sick dogs to race:
"Although one or two dogs in his [Ramy Brooks]
team attacked their food bowls with gusto, most poked at their chow or
ignored it."
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: According
to the Iditarod website, Ramy Brooks was at the Unalakleet checkpoint
with nine dogs. The race ends in Nome which is 260 miles from this checkpoint.]
- Joel Gay, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2003 report from Unalakleet
Lindwood
Fiedler in 2003 forces sick dog to race:
"With another, he [Lindwood Fiedler] opened
its [the dog's] mouth and fed it antibiotics to fight an infection. 'Better
mushing through pharmacy,' he quipped."
Joel Gay, Anchorage Daily News, March 12, 2003
Rick
Swenson forces injured dog to race:
[Sound
of a dog crying]
Rick Swenson: "Oh yes, your foot is so sensitive."
Annie
Feidt: "Swenson rubs a clear gel on the lower leg
of one of his lead dogs and wraps it in it a red neoprene-like material.
He holds up the tiny bottle and calls it the magic ointment."
Rick Swenson: "That's like 25 bucks. We buy it by
the case-- about like drinkin scotch, good scotch."
- Rick Swenson was a musher in the 2006 Iditarod
- Annie Feidt interviewed him for the Alaska Public Radio Network, March
16, 2006, website
Ed
Iten forces sick dogs to race in 2006:
"I guess my hiccup is how it seems like it's always
early in the race coming for a remote kennel here about three days into
the race we get massively sick and then so I felt I was, you know I, I
actually stopped at Ophir and then I stopped at Rainy and then I stopped
again at Rohn, which was unplanned and then I stopped at Salmon River
and I stopped at McGrath and I stopped at Ophir and then I camped again
on the way to Iditarod just trying to keep my team together because they
were just really throwing up, really sick."
"It was hard to get them to eat, because they couldn't keep anything down."
- Musher Ed Iten talking about his dogs
- Interview with Steve Heimel, Alaska Public Radion Network, February
28, 2006
Ed Iten forces sick dogs to race in 2007:
"Considering his dogs struggles with diarrhea from
Day 2 of the Iditarod all the way to his 24-hour stop in the ghost town
of Iditarod, he's [Ed Iten's] pleased.
'I saw my first turd today,' he said."
- Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2007
[The 2007 Iditarod started on March 3.]
[After the 2007 Iditarod, the veterinary staff gave
Ed Iten its Humanitarian Award.
-
Iditarod website, 2007]
Jamie
Nelson forces dogs with kennel cough to race:
"Jamie
[Nelson] said her team had come down with what the vets thought was kennel
cough."
- Iditarod musher Karen Ramstead, North Wapiti Iditarod 2000 Journal -
Finger Lake to Rainy Pass, northwapiti.com
Paul Ellering forces sick dogs to race:
"The diarrhea had taken the spark out of the team."
"I hoped the medicine the vets gave me would work...."
- Paul Ellering. Wrestling the Iditarod, Bend: Maverick Publications,
2005
Zack Steer forces sick dogs to race:
McGrath checkpoint person near Steer's dogs: "Do you have any meds on
you?" Musher Zack Steer: "Yeah, they're all medicated."
- KTUU website video taken March 6, 2007
[The video showed pools of fresh diarrhea under
Steer's dogs.]
Robert Sorlie forces sick dogs to race:
"And two-time champion Robert Sorlie of Norway, lagging much of the race
with dogs suffering from diarrhea...."
- Anchorage Daily News, March 10, 2007
Aaron Burmeister forces sick dogs to race:
"He'd [Aaron Burmeister] been battling canine diarrhea
for days, then his dogs got depressed plowing through the rough tundra
over to Iditarod."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod website, March 10, 2007
- Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News.
Slim Randles forces dog with kennel cough to race:
"It's the first Saturday in March, 1973, and more
than 40 dog mushers are ready to leave the semi-pro baseball stadium in
Anchorage and drive their teams more than 1,100 miles to Nome."
"The dog I borrowed had kennel cough and I had to stop every couple of
hours and dose him with cough syrup, which he hated and caused him to
run all out in panic when he saw me coming with the bottle. I still think
I'd have won that race if all my dogs had kennel cough."
- Slim Randles, Magic City Morning Star, March 2, 2005
James Warren forces staggering dog to race:
"One mile out of Nome, Harley began staggering.
I stopped the team for about 10 minutes. He stood motionless with his
head low but wagged when I called his name. I showed him the lights of
Nome across the ice covered sea. We pressed on. I was hoping he could
make it. As we neared the snow ramp up onto Front Street he was staggeringly
badly."
- James Warren talking about his dog Hartley in the 2004 Iditarod
- Warren, James and Warren, Christopher. Following My Father's Dream,
James and Christopher Warren, 2005
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Warren could
have carried Hartley on his sled.]
James Warren forces ailing dog to race:
"Jim: Rohn: Both King and Cookie had been ailing
since the 'snow holes' and to make matters worse several other dogs were
ailing which shifts the burden to the others."
"Jim: Nikolai: After 6 1/2 hours we left for Nikolai. King was ailing
even more and now we were pulling him."
- James Warren, Iditarod '06 Journal, published on the Internet
Mitch Seavey forces sick dogs to race:
"I've a really nice team and was threatening to
charge to the front. And yesterday they all got diarrhea and got sick
on me, not all of them but a bunch of them. Lance is out of reach for
me so I'm doing something else now."
- Mitch Seavey talking about his sick dogs
- KTUU-TV, KTUU.com website, March 17, 2009
(From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: According to the Iditarod's website,
Seavey dropped one dog before leaving the Unalakleet checkpoint on March
16 and dropped one dog before leaving Shaktoolik on the same day. On March
17, Seavey didn't drop any dogs.)
Joe Runyan forces sick dog team to run:
"[Joe] Runyan's dogs developed an illness early
in the race with forced him off the pace set by leaders King, DeeDee Jonrowe,
Rick Mackey and Susan Butcher the first four finishers and some of Runyan's
usual companions on the trail."
- Lew Freedman, Anchorage Daily News, March 19, 1993
Jeff
King forces tired dogs to race:
"He’s feeling good, he [Jeff King]
said moments before stepping on the runners of his sled, but his dogs
are tired."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily
News - The Sled Blog, March 13, 2010
Jaimee Kinzer forces tired dogs to race:
"It was 6 to 12 inches deep so my guys are pretty
tuckered right now."
- Iditarod musher Jaimee Kinzer, Anchorage Daily News website video, March
7, 2012
John Baker forces tired dogs to race:
"As [Ryan] Redington paused for a smoke, [John]
Baker kneeled nearby, rubbing ointment into the foot pads of a charcoal-colored
husky. The dog whined.
The team is tired Baker said. It’s unlikely he’ll capture a second-straight
win unless the mushers ahead of him falter, he said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Iditarodblog, Anchorage Daily News, March 12, 2012
GB Jones forces tired dogs to race:
"It's a long haul to Cripple. The day wore on and
the dogs were getting tired."
- Jones, GB. Winning the Iditarod: The GB Jones Story, Wasilla:
Northern Publishing, 2005
Eep Anderson forces tired dogs to race:
"I watched Eep [Anderson] leave. You could tell
his dogs didn't want to go. They're tired."
- Rick Mackey, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by the
Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Seattle: Epicenter Press, 1992
Rick Swenson forces tired dog to race:
"'He [Rick Swenson] weaved out there, untangled
the dogs and shook the handle bar to go and the wheel dog did one of these
Laugh-In things, just keeled over. He went back and set the dog up and
went back and shook the handlebar and the dog fell over the other way.
He looked at me and he said, 'You know, Joe [May], that's the third time
that guy has fell over on me.'"
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
C. Mark Chapoton forces tired, injured dogs to race:
"It was a long slow haul along the beach in the
sunshine. The dogs were tired, and we were passed by a few of the teams
that we have been traveling with since the shelter cabin. Along the coast,
and around the headlands; all afternoon, slower and slower we mushed."
"Little Foot, Orca and a few others who had been
running with sore wrists got some different salve massaged in."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008
Collen Robertia forces injured dog to race:
"[Colleen] Robertia was worried
she'd have to leave the dog here in Ruby because Crumb has been ailing
with a shoulder injury."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News - The Sled Blog, March 13,
2010
[According to the Iditarod's website, Robertia did
not leave her dog Crumb at the Ruby checkpoint.]
Judy
Currier forces dogs with kennel cough to race 223 miles:
"'(Pebbles) started coughing in McGrath. We put
her on drugs right away, but it's getting down into her lungs,' [Judy]
Currier said."
- iditablog, Anchorage Daily News, March 12, 2011, Anvik checkpoint
- According to the Iditarod's website, there are 223 miles between the
McGrath and Anvik checkpoints
Newton Marshall forces injured dog to race:
"Musher Newton Marshall arrives in Galena over the
weekend." "Marshall reported that Larry is limping a bit, but wasn’t sure
he would need to be dropped.
- Alaska Public Radio, March 15, 2010
[According to the Iditarod's website, Marshall did
not drop any dogs in Galena.]
Aliy Zirkle forces exhausted dog to race:
"Pud started to show his fatigue even more."
- Aliy Zirkle is talking about her dog Pud before he reached the Koyuk
checkpoint.
- Aliy Zirlke, SP Kennel Dog Log, July 31, 2010
Aliy Zirkle forces exhausted dogs to race:
"The dogs nodded off even as they ran the frozen river."
- Aliy Zirkle is talking about her dogs.
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2012
Lisa Frederic forces tired dogs to race:
"The dogs were tired and I could barely keep my
eyes open from depression."
- Frederic, Lisa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
Kelly Maixner forces sick puppies to race:
"Like Jones, rookie musher, Kelly Maixner is also looking at possibly
dropping to 14 dogs.
"During a training run Wednesday, [Kelly] Maixner
noted a few dogs having some trouble.
'I got a few little banged-up dogs,” said Maixner. “They are doing pretty
good, but a little bit gimpy. There (are) two of them, so we will see
how they do.”
- Robert DeBerry, Frontiersman, March 6, 2011
(From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Kelly Maixner
started the 2011 Iditarod with these "banged-up," "gimpy" dogs as part
of his team of 16 dogs. His team consists of one and two-year old dogs.)
Jessie Royer forces dogs with kennel cough to race:
"Kate was also coming down with kennel cough
which was going around the other teams too. My team had managed to not
get it before the race but once we got around the other dog teams it was
hard not to get."
- Jessie Royer, Jessie's Sled Dog Page, Iditarod 2004
- Royer and her team were near the Finger Lake checkpoint which is 194
miles from Anchorage.
Bitches
in heat fool weary dogs
"I had heard of using a dog in heat to your advantage,
the philosophy being that hormones can give a weary dog team something
else to think about. I decided to try it and unhooked Nickel from her
tug line."
- Frederic, Lisa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
"She [Dolphin] came in heat about half way through
the race."
"I simply put her in front instead of the back. It worked. We went like
a pack of mad rats for 500 miles with those boys chasing Dolphin and her
trying her best to run away."
- Seavey, Mitch. Lead, Follow or Get Out of The
Way!, Sterling: Ididaride Publishing Company, 2008
"Revelation, the female in heat tied to the stanchion
in Ruby was Canon, a main leader. Jeff [King] says the dog is really keeping
his male team dogs moving."
- Runyan, Joe. Winning Strategies for Distance Mushers, Sacramento:
Griffin Printing Co., 1997
How
can sick, injured or exhausted dogs love running?
Craig Medred, outdoors columnist for the Anchorage
Daily News, told Weekly Reader Current Events (3/3/06),
"It's pretty hard to imagine the enthusiasm these dogs have for racing...."
But dogs feel pain just like humans do. They are not machines.
How can dogs be enthusiastic about running when they're sick, injured
or exhausted?
For more information about dog sickness and injuries, click SICK.
Myth of effective
drug testing
[When it's been so difficult to develop effective drug tests for humans,
you know the same difficulties also occur with dogs.]
"You can test for designer drugs, but only if you
know what you're looking for, says Jon Danaceau, an associate toxicologist
at the University of Utah's Center for Human Toxicology.
'If somebody comes up with a completely novel drug that we don't know
to look for it, yeah, it's possible that we can miss it,' Danaceau says.
Another problem is that dopers are using synthetic versions of stuff the
body already makes — like human growth hormone and erythropoietin (EPO),
which boosts red blood cells. Even sophisticated tests can't always tell
the difference.
And there are so many new drugs that it's hard for testers to keep up.
[Dr. Charles] Yesalis say these drugs are intended for people with potentially
deadly diseases such as cancer or muscular dystrophy.
'But there are these unethical medical scientists that are sitting up
in the trees like vultures waiting to pounce on them for their use in
athletics,' Yesalis says. 'And some of these drugs work well.'
Even knowing what drugs to test for might not be enough. Future dopers
are likely to try gene doping, which will be almost impossible to detect.
Lee Sweeney from the University of Pennsylvania is working with a gene
that can be injected into a muscle to make the muscle larger. It works
on rodents and dogs."
- Jon Hamilton, NPR, All Things Considered, July 10, 2008
"'We are not testing for everything that may be out there,' said Dr. Barry
Logan, one of the nation's leading toxicologists.
That's because they can't.
Clandestine labs are using more than 100 chemical compounds to make synthetic
marijuana, but even the most sophisticated lab can only test for 17, said
Logan, director of Forensic and Toxicological Services at NMS Labs in
Pennsylvania....
Bath salts, also known as synthetic amphetamines, are also hard to track
for the same reason.
There are hundreds of bath salt compounds out there, but toxicologists
can only test for 40, Logan said.
'This is always a moving target,' Logan said. 'As soon as a test exists
for something, there are new compounds waiting in the wings. We are always
a step behind.'"
- Susannah Bryan, Sun Sentinel, July 6, 2012
Iditarod won't commit
to punishing drug and alcohol users
The
Iditarod's policy and program of testing mushers for drugs is a total
sham. Iditarod officials don't even get the results of the drug tests
until many days after the race has ended. As a result, mushers who used
banned substances can't be disqualified from the race when they tested
positive. Under Iditarod "Rule 29-Use of Drugs and Alcohol," (Rule #30
in 2012) violators of the race's drug and alcohol policy may be ineligible
to participate for a specified period of time in future races. It's important
to note that the Iditarod didn't commit to punish violators of its rule,
and it didn't commit itself to report illegal activity to local authorities.
Iditarod Rule 29 (Rule #30 in 2012 and 2013):
"Alcohol or drug impairment, the use of prohibited
drugs by mushers, and positive results on drug or alcohol tests administered
during a Race are each prohibited. Violations of this policy shall result
in disqualification from a particular Race, and may result in ineligibility
from participation for a specified period of time in future Races."
Iditarod
won't identify or sanction mushers who tested positive for drugs in 2010
"Two mushers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
have tested positive for THC, the pyschoactive compound in marijuana,
race officials said Thursday.
But Iditarod Trail Committee executive director Stan Hooley said a new
rule calling for drug testing isn't clear enough to allow them to impose
sanctions against the mushers, who were among the back-of-the-packers
in the 1,000-mile race."
"When discussing the new testing policy before the March 6 start of the
race, Iditarod officials said any positive results would be announced
along with the names of those testing positive for banned substances."
"Without sanctions, it would 'not be prudent' to release the names, Hooley
said. But he acknowledged they were among the last 15 competitors to reach
the finish in Nome."
- Rachel D'Oro, Associated Press, May 7, 2010
Mushers who tested positive were among the last 15 competitors to reach
Nome:
"Without sanctions, it would 'not be prudent' to
release the names, Hooley said. But he acknowledged they were among the
last 15 competitors to reach the finish in Nome."
- Rachel D'Oro, Associated Press, May 7, 2010
According to the Iditarod's website, the following
15 mushers were the last to reach Nome in 2010: Cindy Gallea, Sam Deltour,
Blake Freking, Tamara Rose, Arthur Church, Jr., Wattie McDonald, Lachlan
Clarke, Newton Marshall, Billy Snodgrass, Trent Herbst, Chris Adkins,
Dave DeCaro, Ross Adam, Jane Faulkner and Scott White.
All mushers
not tested for drugs
Iditarod
said all mushers would be tested:
"The tests will take place somewhere along the trail,
but race officials will not say where or when. [Stan] Hooley also says
every musher will be tested, not just certain mushers."
- Stan Hooley is the Iditarod's Executive Director.
- Megan Baldino, March 5, 2010, KTUU-TV, KTUU.com
Top mushers tested for drugs at White Mountain, others after
reaching Nome:
"This is also the first place I've seen
drug testing of mushers on the trail. The checkpoint is in the village
city hall building, and Mackey spent a few minutes behind a door with
a hand-made "Work Safe" sign."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News - The Sled Blog,
March 15, 2010
- Kyle Hopkins is at the White Mountain checkpoint, which is 77 miles
from Nome.
"As mushers arrive in White Mountain, they’re being
pulled aside for testing. Mackey was the first."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 16, 2010
"Top mushers were tested in the Eskimo village
of White Mountain, the second-to-last checkpoint where competitors take
a final mandatory eight-hour layover. Others were tested after reaching
Nome."
- Rachel D'Oro, Associated Press, May 7, 2010
"The Iditarod Trail Committee on Thursday said tests
conducted on the first 40 race finishers came back with no sign of drug
use." "Results on the other seven Iditarod finishers are expected next
week."
- Mike Campbell, Anchorage Daily News, March 24, 2011
[From the Seld Dog Action Coalition: The drug test
results on the seven other finishers hasn't been published.]
Mushers
who didn't finish the Iditarod were not tested for drugs:
- 2010 Iditarod:
The 16 mushers who dropped out of the 2010 Iditarod were not
tested for drugs. According to the Iditarod's website, the following mushers
scratched: John Stewart, Hank Debruin, Ryan Redington, Warren Palfrey,
Judy Currier, Emil Churchin, Tom Thurston, Linwood Fiedler, Justin Savidis,
Karen Ramstead, Kathleen Frederick, Karin Hendrickson, Soya DeNure, Michael
Suprenant, Pat Moon and Kirk Barnum.
- 2011 Iditarod:
The 15 mushers who didn't finish the 2011 Iditarod
were not tested for drugs. According to the Iditarod's website, they are
the following mushers: Mitch
Seavey, Karin Hendrickson, Robert Bundtzen, Mike Santos, Kris Hoffman,
Judy Currier, Newton Marshall, Brennan Norden, James Bardoner, Gerry Willomitzer,
Paul Gehbardt, Jessica Hendricks, Zoya DeNure, Melissa Owens and Bob Storey.
- 2012 Iditarod:
The 13 mushers who didn't finish the 2012 Iditarod were not
tested for drugs. According to the Iditarod's website, they are the following
mushers: Tom Thurston, Wade Marrs, Jeff King, Michael Suprenant, Pat Moon,
Gerry Willomitzer, Jake Berkowitz, Kirk Barnum, Zoya DeNure, Silvia Furtwangler,
Josh Cadzow, Lachlan Clarke and Ryan Redington.
Mushers
smoked marijuana
Mushers smoking marijuana:
"[Lance] Mackey, a throat cancer survivor who has a medical marijuana card, admits to using marijuana on the trail...."
-
Matias Saari, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, December 5, 2009
[Should the Iditarod have allowed Mackey to risk
the safety of the dogs and of himself due to impaired judgment?]
"Alaska was no longer a pot smoker's haven.
As a result of the recriminalization measure adopted during the November
general election, possession of small amounts of marijuana was now punishable
by a $1,000 fine and up to 90 days in jail. But cops weren't patrolling
the Iditarod Trail as [Tom] Daily and I shared a few puffs on the crest
of a barren hill."
- O'Donoghue, Brian Patrick. My Lead Dog was
a Lesbian, New York, Vintage Books, 1996
- O'Donoghue was a reporter for the Fairbanks News-Miner
"While mushers have been known to blow marijuana
smoke near their teams to calm the dogs, some suggest the testing program
is aimed at the wrong group.
'We joke that they should test more mushers than dogs,' [Martin] Buser
says.
- Douglas Robson, USA Today, March 10, 2008
Musher who tested positive for marijuana isn't banned from Iditarod:
"Juneau musher Matt Giblin has been stripped
of his 38th-place finish in the 2012 Iditarod after testing positive for
THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, race officials said Thursday."
"An appeals board found that the veteran racer must
repay the $1,049 he earned for finishing this year's race, said Race Marshal
Mark Nordman."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage
Daily News, July 6, 2012
- From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: The Iditarod could have made
Matt Giblin ineligible from participating in future races, but they did
not do so. Rule 30-Use of Drugs and Alcohol says "Alcohol or drug impairment,
the use of prohibited drugs by mushers, and positive results on drug or
alcohol tests, administered during a Race are prohibited. Violations of
this policy shall result in disqualification from a particular Race, and
may result in ineligibility from participation for a specified period
of time in future Races."
Mushers sleep on
their sleds while dogs race
Lance Mackey sleeps while dogs run mile after grueling mile:
He [Lance Mackey] dozed off while riding his sled
after leaving the Shageluk checkpoint on the way to Anvik, about 500 miles
from the finish in Nome. When he awoke, he was up a slough without a trail
marker in sight."
- Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 13, 2009
Mike Williams, Jr. sleeps on the sled while his dogs race:
Laureli Kinneen:
"Besides the art of feeding dogs, the Iditarod also requires the art of
resting. Williams said he was able to catch up on that in Takotna, but
he only got a few winks getting to McGrath, 283 miles into the race."
Mike Williams, Jr.: "I took a lot of catnaps going up those hills
and on the flats. I closed my eyes and woke up in a different spot. A
couple of times I woke up the dogs are stopped. I'd get them going again
and not long after start dozing off a little but we were moving pretty
good."
- Laureli Kinneen from KYUK, Alaska Public Radio interviewed Mike Williams,
Jr. on March 8, 2012, KYUK website
Newton Marshall slept while his dogs raced:
"Exhausted, he [Newton Marshall] sometimes found
himself falling asleep on his moving sled."
- James Bone, The Times, March 23, 2010
John Baker sleeps, falls off sled and loses dogs:
"Baker reported falling asleep on his sled, tumbling
off and losing the team in minus-30 cold. It was the second time this
race the team has gotten away. The first time, Baker hit a tree outside
of the Rohn checkpoint in the Alaska Range and the gangline snapped, leaving
him with only two dogs."
- Kevin Klott and Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 16,
2009
Mushers known to sleep and fall off their sleds during Yukon River portion:
"The Yukon River portion of the nearly 1,000-mile
Iditarod is dreaded by many mushers because of its long, boring stretches
of nothingness. Mushers have been known to be so sleep-deprived and so
bored by this section of trail that they simply fall off their sleds."
- Associated Press, March 9, 2012
Karin Hendrickson sleeps on her sled:
"I doze off repeatedly, only to snap awake just before crashing into
trees."
- Karin Hendrickson, Iditarod 2009, her website article
Susan Butcher sleeps on her sled while her dogs run:
"Driving up the river [Susan] Butcher dozed on the
back of her sled, dropping into sleep now and again."
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Jeff King is sound asleep:
"King passed Mackey while he was camped.
The 90-mile run from Kaltag to this point, the first of the villages of
along the Bering Sea, was long and slow, King said, as his dogs broke
trail on fresh snow that fell days ago. Some times, he said, he dozed
off and missed large parts of it.
He claimed not to even have gotten a good look at Mackey's team when he
passed.
'To tell you the truth, I was sound asleep,' King said. 'I just barely
saw one of (Mackey's) dogs.'"
- Kevin Klott and Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 9,
2008
While
Martin Buser sleeps, his dog gets loose:
"He hooked up a burly dog named Quebec in the
lead to help Luna, a smaller female, power through an overnight storm.
But Buser kept dozing off. So when he shone his headlamp on his team to
make his regular check on them, he thought, 'Ah, Luna is doing a really
good job in single lead.'
That's when his tired brain jolted awake with, as he says, a 'doy-oy-oying.'
Where was Quebec?
He didn't know when Quebec got loose from the line, but knew the dog had
to be either ahead or behind."
- Nicole Tsong, Anchorage Daily News, March 19, 2005
Rachael Scdoris falls asleep while navigating a treacherous cliff:
"While navigating the treacherous cliff, the legally
blind musher fell asleep then crashed into a thick spruce, snapping her
guideline. The dogs ran away."
- Outdoor Life Network announcer talking about Rachael Scdoris
- Outdoor Life Network (OLN), Iditarod coverage, aired March 25, 2006
Rachael Scdoris falls asleep again and dogs veer off trail:
"Scdoris said she had fallen asleep on the sled,
as many mushers do, and veered off the trail.
'It was so flat and so early in the morning, it was hard not to doze,'
Scdoris said. 'I woke up in jumbled ice and no other dog tracks.'
As it turned out, Scdoris was close enough to Koyuk to make out the lights
of the village and guide her dog team there."
- Jeannette J. Lee, Associated Press, March 19, 2006
Questions:
Why didn't Scdoris fall off the sled when she fell asleep? Was she tied
on?
Jeff
King sleeps, falls off his sled, and his dogs run away:
"King's
sled was getting a lot of attention from the other mushers. The sled,
which King calls a tail dragger, allows the musher to sit down. Part of
the load is carried behind the driver. King said the sled is so comfortable
he actually fell asleep, and then fell off the sled, losing his team in
an area near Rohn."
- Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 12, 2004
Heather Siirtola sleeps and falls off sled:
"She
[Heather Siirtola] fell asleep and fell from her sled...."
-
Editorial, The Bismarck Tribune, April 2, 2007
Iditarod co-founder slept on his sled and lost control:
"I was traveling between Kaltag and Unalakleet
at night, and I fell asleep on the sled. I hit a tree and it knocked me
off the sled, broke my light, and the dogs took off."
- Joe Redington, Sr., co-founder of the Iditarod
- Sherwonit, Bill. Iditarod, Seattle:Alaska Northwest Books, 1991
Jonrowe worries about falling off sled when her dogs are racing and
she's sleeping:
"You doze on the back of your sled, hoping
you don't fall off if you hit a bump, or get hit in the head by a tree
branch when you've got your eyes closed."
- Musher DeeDee Jonrowe
- Freedman, Lew and Jonrowe, DeeDee. Iditarod Dreams, Seattle:Epicenter
Press, 1995
Buser tied himself onto the sled to avoid falling off while his dogs raced
and he slept:
"Martin Buser became physically exhausted and
decided to tie himself on to the sled for a quick nap." "Having
told lead-dog D-2 that he was in charge until White Mountain, Buser entrusted
the whole team to D-2 and co-leader Dave, totally relinquishing control
for a period of twenty to thirty minutes."
- Hood, Mary, A Fan's Guide to the Iditarod, Loveland:Alpine Publications,
1996
Martin Buser sleeps on sled and his head bounces around:
"Buser said he kept nodding off during the 25-mile
run from Shageluk to Anvik. 'He looked like a bobblehead,' [Lance] Mackey
told Kyle [Hopkins]. Mackey said he shouted to Buser as he passed him,
yelling at him to wake up."
- Iditarodblog, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2011
Mushers sleep tied to sled while the dogs race:
"Sometimes mushers tie
themselves to the handlebar, and it is not uncommon for a lead dog to
arrive at a checkpoint with its musher doubled over the handlebar asleep."
- Mattson, Sue. Iditarod Fact Book, Seattle:
Epicenter Press, 2001
"His [Ramey Smyth] remedy for averting
a sleep-induced mishap on the trail? Tying himself to his sled with one
of the team's neck lines."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 13,
2011
Author Gary Paulsen sleeps on his sled while
the dogs race:
"The night drags on forever as the dogs keep
trotting and I reel in and out of half-sleep on the back of the sled,
but at long last it is dawn."
- Paulsen, Gary. Woodsong, New York: Macmillian Publishing Company,
1990
Brian Patrick O'Donoghue sleeps while his dogs race:
"I kept dozing, repeatedly catching myself in the
process of falling off the sled."
- O'Donoghue, Brian Patrick. My Lead Dog was
a Lesbian, New York: Vintage Books, 1996
Ken Anderson slept on sled seat:
"He [Ken Anderson] also was driving one of the so-called
tail dragger sleds – one with a seat on the back – and said he spent a
lot of time sitting down, occasionally sleeping."
- Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 19, 2005
- Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
Aliy Zirkle slept on sled while racing her dogs:
"'I fell asleep for a while. They feel asleep
for a little while. You're not supposed to do that while you're mushing,'
the musher said. Zirkle, who gained the lead by rocketing through checkpoints
and resting along the trail instead, lingered nearly six hours before
leaving for Unalakleet and the windy Norton Sound coast."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2012
Gerry
Willomitzer slept and fell off his sled:
"A veteran of both the Yukon Quest and the
Iditarod, [Gerry] Willomitzer knows to keep a security line in hand, and
he said he usually does, but as fate would have it, at the very moment
it would have come in handy, it wasn't within his grasp. He woke up as
he was tumbling off the seat of the sled, with his team fading at a good
clip into the distance. He tried to run after them, but the heavy clothing
mushers bundle into against the harsh cold turned his effort to sprint
into futile fumble."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 19, 2010
Herbie Nayokpuk slept and fell off his sled:
"Herbie Nayokpuk, one of the most seasoned of all the veterans, fell asleep
on the next leg of the race and fell off his sled."
- Iditarod The 1000 Mile Marathon, New York: Crescent Books, New
York, 1985
C. Mark Chapton slept
on his sled while the dogs raced:
"I was sitting on my sled seat watching the
dogs run, getting tireder and tireder."
"I know I was going under and I knew the dogs would take care of me."
"It was with a smile on my face that I tied a line around my back and
put my head down. Four hours later, I opened my eyes 200 yards out of
Koyuk."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake:
CMC, 2008, pages 93-94.
"An hour later, by the time we regained the trail, we were all happy and
the dog team was smoking down the trail, again toward sea level and Golovin.
That takes another hour and a half or so, and I became very tired. It
was one or two in the morning, clear and cold. My team was running well,
and I climbed into my sled bag, head first, and dozed. Soon we came into
the Golovin checkpoint."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008,
page 97.
Sleeping on the sled is thought to eliminate boredom:
"To take over any boredom along the trail mushers
either listen to music or read a book, or even take a nap, provided they
don't fall off the sled."
- Wendt, Ron. Alaska Dog Mushing Guide, Wasilla: Goldstream Publications,
1999
Mushers injured when they slept on their sleds as the dogs raced:
"...(Dewey) Halverson fell off his sled."
"'I usually rope in, but I didn't last night,'" he explained.
"'I fell off and the dogs kept running.'" "Falling off
the sled is not the only hazard, however. Over the years several mushers
have received nasty injuries when they've banged into low-hanging branches
while sleeping on the run."
- Sherwonit, Bill. Iditarod, Seattle: Alaska
Northwest Books, 1991
"Ramey Symth says he was nodding off on his sled
when he collided with a tree and maybe fractured some verterbrae."
- Gabriel Spitzer, Alaska Public Radio Network, website, March 10, 2006
Sleeping musher gets thrown off of sled and the
dogs run away:
"...Lisa [Moore] who is casually hiking up
the trail after her wayward puppies. She laughs after I pull up and sheepishly
admits she dosed off and got deposited on the sidelines when the sled
hit a bump."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
Emmitt Peters sleeps as the dogs keep running:
"He [Emmitt Peters] made a nest in his sled bag,
fastened his marten hat and slipped on his beaver mitts and fell asleep
as the dogs kept running."
- Jon Little, Cabelas website, March 13, 2004
- Little was a reporter with the Anchorage Daily News and was an
Iditarod musher
Lavon Barve sleeps on his sled as the dogs run:
"Lavon Barve is still moving, but he is asleep
on his sled."
- National Geographic Channel, May, 2005
Paul Ellering sleeps while dogs race in minus 50 below temperature:
"Out on the trail passing through the vast
nothingness from Ophir to Cripple, with the thermometer flirting with
50 degrees below, Ellering dozed on his sled."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, April
9, 2006
Sleeping
on the sled while dogs race is thought to eliminate boredom:
"To take over any boredom along the trail mushers
either listen to music or read a book, or even take a nap, provided they
don't fall off the sled.
- Wendt, Ron. Alaska Dog Mushing Guide, Wasilla: Goldstream Publications,
1999
Boredom makes mushers fall asleep (and sometimes
they fall off their sleds):
"I was having trouble staying awake. It was long
and flat and boring." "Oh my God, I was too. If I'd realized you were
catching up to me, I would have woken up."
-
Mushers Ramy Brooks and Tim Osmar talking about their trips between Shaktoolik
and Elim checkpoints.
-
Doug O'Harra, Anchorage Daily News, March 19, 1998
[Katie] Davis said she dozed off a lot early and late in the race, such
as during one night when her team traveled along a flat stretch of the
Yukon River that was about 150 miles long, 1.5 miles wide and monotonous
as could be."
- Paul Strelow, Spartanburg Herald-Journal, April 6, 2006
"The trail on the river is dreaded by many Iditarod
mushers because of its long, boring stretches of nothingness. Mushers
have been known to be so sleep-deprived and so bored by this section of
the trail that they simply fall off their sleds."
- Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 11, 2011
Mushers sit comfortably
on seats while the dogs race
(and sometimes fall asleep)
King redesigns sled to make sitting more comfortable:
"But
the real beauty of the design is the rear compartment, which makes a comfortable
place to sit.
'Riding in comfort is the number-one goal,' he [Jeff King] said."
- Joel Gay, Anchorage Daily News, March 5, 2004
"'Riding
in comfort is the number-one goal,'" he said
- Iditarod musher Jeff King
- Joel Gay, Anchorage Daily News, March 5, 2004
King adds seat belt after falling asleep and falling off sled:
Musher
Jeff King has developed a new, sit-down sled that some have labeled the
Iditarod Barcalounger. King said it helps him get more rest, although
he almost lost his team this year when he got to resting so well he went
to sleep and fell off. He's since added a seat belt.
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, article published in Duluth
News Tribune, March 18, 2004
Other mushers adopt King's comfortable seat:
"Following
a trend started exactly a year ago by Jeff King, several mushers - maybe
a dozen - adopted King's revolutionary "tail dragger" design. The sleds
have short bags up front, and small storage areas in back that double
as seats."
"King calls his sled a tail dragger, and Buser calls his an O.M.S, or
Old Man Sled. Other names include caboose and bark-o-lounger."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod website, March 6, 2005
- Little formerly reported for the Anchorage Daily News.
"Swingley
was smiling and chipper, and happy to show off his redesigned sled, modeled
largely off Jeff King's successful tail-drapper design." "Frustrated last
year by a sit-down sled that jack-knifed like a poorly loaded semi when
he got on glare ice, this one is trimmed down and tricked out...."
"A good third of the field of 82 mushers has some version of the seated
sled, or tail-dragger...."
-
Jon Little, Cabelas Iditarod website, March 4, 2007
-- Mitch Seavey copied Jeff King's sled:
"Still later was the Jeff King tail-dragger
sled which I pretty much copied except unlike his, mine is the 'all time
perfect' sled."
- Seavey, Mitch. Lead, Follow or Get Out of The Way!, Sterling:
Ididaride Publishing Company, 2008.
Gebhardt and Buser have seats:
"The
sled's main feature is a storage compartment behind the musher that doubles
as a seat."
- Jon Little discussing Paul Gebhart's sled
- Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 14, 2004
- Jon Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
"Buser invented a pop-up seat that lifts out of
the way...."
- Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 14, 2004
- Jon Little reports formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
"His sled bag loaded and dogs getting a
few last minutes of rest in their boxes, four-time Iditarod champion Martin
Buser reclined on the padded seat of his sled and joked with friends and
well-wishers."
- Bob Roth, Anchorage Daily News, March 7,
200
Buser: riding in the back is so easy
"In
many ways, the race is easier than the preparation, [Charlanne]Cress said.
'He considers the race his vacation,' she said. 'It’s so easy just to
ride in the back.'”
- Charlanne Cress is talking about her brother-in-law Iditarod musher
Martin Buser
- Charles Lussier, The Advocate, March 9, 2006
Steve
Madsen and Paul Ellering sat on bike seats:
"I
just sit back on this little bicycle seat I have on the sled, the dogs
are kind of in a rhythm, you've got about 30 miles of ocean to cross,
and I just sit back and watch the Northern Lights take it all in."
-
Iditarod musher Steve Madsen
- Kay Richardson, The Columbian, April 16, 2006
"I
anticipated traveling the river with a sense of excitement because I had
a bicycle seat put on my sled."
- Ellering, Paul. Wrestling the Iditarod, Bend: Maverick Publications,
2005
Mushers spend a lot of time sitting:
"'It's a very strong wind
so you cannot stand on your sled,' Sorlie said. 'I must sit all the time.'"
- Rachel O'Oro, The Associated Press, March 11, 2003
"And
the sleds are technological wonders, some with fancy seats...." "I
put down the seat on my sled and settle in for a long ride."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
"Martin
Buser installed a bicycle seat just behind the handlebar on his sled so
that he could sit down comfortably.... During the 1993 Iditarod, front-runners
Rick Swenson, Martin Buser, and Jeff King all traveled up the Yukon River
in comfort sitting on their bicycle seats. Swenson sat facing backward,
because, as he explains, 'the scenery is prettier behind you.'"
- Hood, Mary. A Fan's Guide to the Iditarod, Loveland: Alpine Publications,
1996
Ken Anderson sat a lot and sometimes slept:
"He
[Ken Anderson] also was driving one of the so-called tail dragger sleds
– one with a seat on the back – and said he spent a lot of time sitting
down, occasionally sleeping."
-
Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 19, 2005
- Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
Jim Lanier falls asleep, falls off seat and his dogs run away:
"Jim Lanier was firmly planted on his sled's
seat this morning as the sun rose over the Yukon River on the way to Grayling.
'It was a bright, sunny, windy morning,' Lanier said. 'I was so relaxed,
I fell asleep on my sit-down sled, and the next thing I know I'm off it,
and the dogs are gone.'"
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod website, March 10, 2007
Gerry Willomitzer falls asleep, falls off seat and his dogs run away:
"At three a.m., about two miles outside Shaktoolik,
temperatures had dipped to 30 degrees below zero, and as [Gerry] Willomitzer
was closing in on the checkpoint, sleep deprivation was closing on him."
"He woke up as he was tumbling off the seat of the sled, with his team
fading at a good clip into the distance. He tried to run after them, but
the heavy clothing mushers bundle into against the harsh cold turned his
effort to sprint into futile fumble."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 19, 2010
Ramey Smyth falls asleep, falls off sled and his dogs run away:
"He [Ramey Smyth] fell asleep early in the
race, causing him to fall off his sled and lose his team."
- Alaska Dispatch, March 13, 2012
Jeff King felt like he was home in front of the fireplace:
"Undoubtedly, many of you have heard my latest
invention is a handlebar heater which involves an open flame that vents
heat up through the handlebars," he [Jeff King] said. He set it aflame,
and as he went along, noticed,"There was a three-quarter moon shining
brilliantly, and it was a fewhours from the first hours of dawn." He shut
off his headlamp and turned on a smaller LED light on the collar of his
leader, creating a small glow from the front of the team. "To have the
moon overhead, and the aurora beside the moon, the gentle dawn bracing
over the mountains and the little flicker of light in the heater in my
handlebar made me feel like I was sitting in front of the fireplace back
home."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod Coverage, Cabela's website, March 22,
2006
- Jon Little former wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
Mushers
cook food and make hot coffee while dogs race
Jeff King cooks food:
"'It's a heated handle-bar,'" [Jeff] King
said with gusto as he waved at a small home-built cooking unit hanging
like a lantern from the grips of his dog sled. It's fueled by a small
can of Sterno-like gelled fuel, which lights like a candle. The exhaust
is vented straight into the handlebar, made of hollow metal. The handlebar
IS the stovepipe, open at the ends, and it actually vents wafting smoke
as King moves down the trail. It sounds far-fetched, but it's not a joke.
King has tested the device and says his handlebar heats up to 200 degrees
- hot enough that he better wear gloves or he'll burn his hands. On a
20-below night with wind blowing against the pipe, the temperature should
be just right, he said. 'It's hot enough you'll want to wear gloves but
not hot enough to catch anything on fire.'"
"He also hopes to slow cook some meals while the dogs are running by sliding
foil packets next to the combustion chamber. He was packing some chicken
and mushroom shish kabobs at the starting line. "
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod Pre-Race Coverage,
Cabela's website, 2006
- Jon Little former wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
Doug Swingley's
gizmo makes coffee while the dogs race:
"He (Doug Swingley) has a gizmo called a Jet Boil
that will let him brew instant coffee on the fly, while he's moving down
the trail."
- Jon Little, Cabelas Iditarod website, March 4, 2007
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: The dogs suffer from frostbite. For
more information, click FROSTBITE.]
Dogs in heat are forced to race
Lance Mackey allowed his
dog Maple to be bred 17 times in three days:
Kari Bustamante: "Hey Lance, tell us how
things been going for you so far."
Lance Mackey: "One word I'd say: Entertaining."
Kari Bustamante: "Yeah"
Lance Mackey: "Oh not too bad. You know we've had little obstacles
like everybody else. The biggest obstacle I've had since starting line
is my main leader Maple has been in heat and I'm not exaggerating when
I say she's been bred 17 times."
- Kari Bustamante of KTUU-TV interviewed Lance Mackey
at the McGrath checkpoint on March 7, 2012, KTUU-TV website
- The Iditarod officially started in Willow on March 4, 2012.
Lance Mackey is "entertained" by dogs repeatedly breeding with Maple:
Tim Bodony:
"So I imagine there's a variety of issues that you're dealing with on
dog care. Would you like to just list some of them?"
Lance Mackey: "I have 10 dogs here, but in all reality I have seven
again. It's kind of like déjà vu from last year with new issues."
It's kind of a self-inflicted wound. I started with a female in complete
heat and I'm too damn stubborn to leave her at home and let them get their
way basically. So, by being stubborn I completely destroyed my dog team
not only mentally but a lot of them physically.
What happens when females are in heat is first they stop eating then with
no eating comes dehydration or more cold. With dehydration comes issues
of wrist, shoulders, backs, hips, cramping legs. I could go through three
vet books in injuries right now. I mean they're full. Toenails blown off.
I have a dog that has one toe nail left. I mean stupid stuff."
Tim Bodony: "I'm sorry if I missed it. But what happened to Maple?
Maple was the leader in heat."
Lance Mackey: "She is still the leader."
Tim Bodony:
"Still?"
Lance Mackey: "She is still the leader in heat. She's been leading
every step of the way. The majority of it in single lead because they
can't… She's just about out now. There's only a couple of dogs who really
want to mess with her. She's so tired of being messed with now. If her
shadow gets too close she'll attack it. [Sound of Mackey's laughter.]
It's kind of entertaining. That's what my one word for the whole trip
has been: Entertaining. Every run is a half hour or forty-five minutes
longer than it should be from a breeding."
- Tim Bodony of Alaska Public Radio interviewed Lance Mackey on March
10, 2012 at the Galena checkpoint, Alaska Public Radio website
Dogs in heat mate during Iditarod:
"While traveling through the Burn, Jeff [King] stopped
for a break and got Suspect and Rebel a Honeymoon Suite... wooo wooo!
A little love on the Iditarod trail! (Look for a puppy update in say...
about oh, lets just go with early May!)"
- Husky Homestead Crew, Husky Homestead blog, Takotna
to Cripple, 2012
"For four-time champ Lance Mackey the trouble wasn't
as much about the trail as it was a lead dog named Mayor looking for some
tail.
The frisky boy and another lead dog, Maple -- a champion runner in heat
who was driving the guys crazy -- had been going at it a lot, enough to
slow Mackey's run in from Rohn and stop the team cold on its way out of
town."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 6, 2012
Almost 100 line tangles and at least 100 crashes:
"Phil Morgan is running with dogs in heat...." "We
had close to a hundred tangles," Morgan said. "It's not an exaggeration
to say we've crashed at least 100 times."
- Rachael D'Oro, Associated Press, March 12, 2005
Males don't want to race when a female is in heat:
"One of [Rick] Swenson's female dogs is in
heat. The allure of mating throws a hard curve into the social structure
of the team. If not managed properly, the effect can weaken a team's concentration
on the race. [Joe] Runyan intimated that Swenson had not been able to
overcome the obstacle."
- Mark Downey, Great Falls Tribune, Marcy
7, 2002
Jason Barron races eight female dogs in heat:
"Jason Barron made incredible time to Rainy Pass,
considering he had a whopping eight female dogs in heat."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod coverage, Cabela's
website, March 6, 2006
- Jon Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage
Daily News.
Males on the team show behavioral problems:
"All eight females in her team have gone into
heat since the Iditarod began Saturday, causing the six males in the team,
including Willow [the lead dog], to display 'behavioral problems, said
Gould.
Lured
by hormonal scents, Willow refuses to lead and keeps cranking his head
around to sniff. He is also refusing to eat."
"If the musher detects the heat early enough, he or she can administer
drugs to stop the cycle. But the medications can cause other problems....,
Bowser [veterinarian] said."
- Melanie Gould, musher
- Tim Bowser, veterinarian, Soldotna, AK
- Paula Dobbyn, Anchorage Daily News, March 6, 2002
"I forgot
to mention that all my females were in heat; so that only added to the
mess of unruly dogs."
- Jessie Royer, Jessie's Sled Dog Page, website, 2004
"He made it through the storm and
into Rohn, where a pack of females in heat caused his team trouble."
"'They were worked into a breeding lather,' [Kevin] Morlock said."
- Steve Begnoche, Ludington Daily News, March 12, 2007
Martin Buser races dogs in heat:
"He [Martin Buser] has one female in heat...."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod website, March 6, 2007
- Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News.
"Celine is in heat and created a ruckus when
Buser’s team came upon Newton Marshall outside of Rainy Pass. Marshall
had stopped at a tight spot on the trail, Buser said.
The dogs jumped on Celine. 'So to save her, I turned everybody loose.
Or a lot of them loose,' Buser said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 8, 2011
Sue Allen races with two dogs in heat:
"Throw
in one dog that started the race in-heat as well as another that reached
that stage a bit into the race, and the impediments grew increasingly
daunting."
- Sue Allen talking about the dogs she raced
- Kevin Stevens, Press & Sun Bulletin, March 26, 2008
Celeste Davis races with three dogs in heat:
"Thelma (there was no Louise in the string) was
one of [Celeste] Davis’ three females that came into heat during the race."
- Kim Briggeman, The Missoulian, April 24, 2010
Libby Riddles races with two dogs in heat:
"Two of the females were in heat and that didn't
help."
"Sure enough, the first time my dogs found a chance to bunch up a little,
one dog jumped on another, and I had a five-dog fight going."
- Riddles, Libby and Tim Jones. Race
Across Alaska, Harrisburg: Stackpole Books, 1988
Newton Marshall races two dogs in heat:
""He faced an unforeseen problem with his 16
animals. 'I had two female dogs who were on heat.'"
- James Bone, The Times, March 23, 2010
- Mr. Bone quoted Newton Marshall.
Lance Mackey races with dogs in heat:
"Some of his [Lance Mackey] dogs were coughing
and one is in heat."
- Associated Press, March 12, 2008
"I have three females in heat."
- Lance Mackey talking about the dogs he raced
- Kevin Klott and Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 16,
2009
Kyle Hopkins: "Which female is in heat?"
Lance Mackey: "Zena."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News - The Sled Blog, video interview
with Lance Mackey, March 14, 2010
Emil Churchin races a dog in heat:
"There was a female in eat in the team, and everyone
seemed to want in on the action. [Emil] Churchin stopped the team repeatedly...."
- Medred, Craig. Graveyard of Dreams: Dashed Hopes and Shattered Aspirations
Along Alaska's Iditarod Trail, Anchorage: Plaid Cabin Publishing,
2010
"The last straw, however, was a female in heat,
which left the rest of the dogs distracted and then confused."
- Thomas Feran, The Plain Dealer, March 20, 2010
- Mr. Feran is talking about Emil Churchin's dogs.
Heather Siirtola raced dog in heat:
"'I thought the female was out of heat, because
she’d been in heat for three weeks,' [Heather] Siirtola said. 'Well, she
surprised me. She snuck one in there, and so did he. With a lot of people
taking pictures.' From that union came Marlon, who is black with a white
bib, and Brando, who is brown and white."
- Beth Bragg, Anchorage Daily News, March 5, 2011
Ed Stielstra raced dog in heat:
"The males are distracted by a female in heat named
Ayn, as in Ayn Rand.
The dog was born is a truck about three years ago on a drive from Alaska
to Michigan, [Ed] Stielstra said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2011
C. Mark Chapoton raced dog in heat:
"The team was in a big ball back by the sled, and
my pups had bumped me awake tangling themselves on top of me. My young
leader, Tatters, was busy practicing making babies with little brown Christie
who I had put way back in wheel just because she was in heat."
Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008.
Mitch Seavey raced dog in heat:
"As the race progressed she and I just clicked.
Well, what clicked really was her biological clock. She came in heat about
half way through the race."
- Seavey, Mitch. Lead, Follow or Get Out of The Way!, Sterling:
Ididaride Publishing Company, 2008.
Karen Ramstead raced seven dogs in heat:
"Alberta musher Karen Ramstead said recently in Nikolai, where she
reported seven of her Siberian huskies were in heat."
- Kyle Hopkins, iditarodblog, Anchorage Daily News, March 14, 2012
Back to the top
Mushers
forced pregnant dogs to race
"In the past, dogs that were too thin
and dogs that were in the last trimester of pregnancy have made it to
the starting line."
- Stu Nelson, DVM, Iditarod website letter, June, 2007
Paul Gebhardt forced pregnant dogs to race:
"[Paul] Gebhardt’s scratch from the Iditarod last
season shocked many, particularly since it came following a victory in
the Kuskokwim 300 just a month earlier. He said his bad luck with his
dogs had to do with the birds and the bees.
'It was a combination of things stemming from having 17 females in the
kennel in heat right before the race. I bred some of them up, which I
normally wouldn’t do until after the race, and I think that really messed
with them. They didn’t eat or drink like usual and several cramped up
and had to be carried or dropped,' he said."
- Joseph Robertia, The Redoubt Reporter, February 29, 2012
Jeff
King forced two of his pregnant puppies to race with Dave DeCaro:
"Schilling (F) - Dollar X Solomon (J. Little) 1 Year; 46 lbs; Intact
& currently pregnant - bred by 'Coltrane' Dave's [DeCaro] "B" Team
Iditarod Finisher I just ran this beauty 40 miles this morning. Gorgeous
gait, beautiful coat, calm disposition. Awesome, fast trotter and according
to Dave [DeCaro] 'seemed completely at home on the race trail. Ate a ton
and was always looked like a playful pup. Never once did I see a slack
tug-line on Schilling.' Her pups are due in early May and are part
of the deal." [Emphasis added.]
"Opel (F) - Berkeley X Viper 2 Years; 43 lbs; Intact & currently
pregnant - by 'Suspect' Dave's [DeCaro] "B" Team Iditarod Dropped
in Shaktoolik [Iditarod checkpoint], Opel has been a stand-out from early
on. She finished the Kusko 300 in 2009 with Dave [DeCaro]and ran on my
team in the 2009 Stage Stop Race. According to Dave 'she ate great and
was a happy dog. She was coming out of heat and had been bred a few
days before the race, and it seemed to affect her performance.'
Her pups are due in early May and are part
of the deal." [Emphasis added.]
- Jeff King had had Dave DeCaro race Jeff King's
puppies in the 2010 Iditarod.
- HuskyHomestead. blogspot, March 28, 2010
Strenuous activity
is bad for ALL pregnant dogs
"Moderate exercise is good for a pregnant dog. But avoid strenuous activity
and excessively stressful situations, [Debbye] Turner advises."
- Debbye Turner is the Saturday Early Show's resident veterinarian.
- Rome Neal, CBSnews.com, April 3, 2004
A normal level of exercise, but not strenuous, is
recommended for pregnant dogs.
- Linda Mar Veterinary Hospital website, 2010
"Regular exercise and walks will help your pregnant
dog keep her muscle tone and general health. Working the working breeds,
intensive training or taking the dog on a show circuit is not a good idea."
- Dr. Ron Hines, veterinarian, 2ndchance.info, 2010
"Moderate exercise is recommended. Neither
forced rest nor strenuous exercise is a good idea."
- Dr. Debra Primovic, Phoenix Road Animal Hospital, South Haven, Michigan,
website article, 2012
"Gentle regular walking is the best activity
for pregnant dogs."
- Quarry Hill Park Animal Hospital, Rochester, MN, website article, 2012
"Moderate exercise is best for the pregnant
dog. Neither forced rest or strenuous exercise is a good idea. Short periods
of gentle play and short walks are good."
- Lakewood Veterinary, Rushford, NY, website article, 2012
"I don't usually advise strict rest during
a dog's pregnancy. I wouldn't recommend doing regular super strenuous
activity like long agility trials or marathon running, but jumping on
or off of the furniture is not going to cause any harm to developing babies."
- Dr. Marie, DVM, AskAVetQuestion.com, website article, 2012
"The bitch should continue to have regular,
but not strenuous, exercise to help her maintain her muscle tone and not
become overweight."
- Veterinary & Aquatic Services Department, Drs. Foster & Smith, website
article, 2012
"Your dog needs regular, though not strenuous,
exercise during her pregnancy to help maintain muscle tone."
- vetinfo.com, website article, 2012
"Strenuous exercise for a pregnant animal may
be harmful, but a moderate amount is recommended. Moderate exercise includes
short walks and short periods of gentle play."
- Durango Animal Hospital, Las Vegas, Nevada, website article, 2012
"Moderate exercise is the proper approach.
Neither forced rest or strenuous exercise is a good idea. Short periods
of gentle play and short walks are good."
- Peach Grove Animal Hospital, Cincinnati, OH, website article, 2012
Mushers
override vets and force sick and injured dogs to race
"...I've been able
to keep a couple of dogs in the team the vets thought I should drop."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
- Iditarod rules, Iditarod website
"The checkpoint's vet has recommended sending
Pig [Land's lead dog] back to Anchorage, too. 'He yanked on my dogs' joints
and poked hard at their muscles,' Land gripes. 'But he just doesn't have
the sensibility to tell me what I can do with Pig." "... Land
decides she will chance it [keeping Pig in the race].
Bill Donahue, "Sit. Stay. Fetch." Sports Illustrated Women,
December, 2002
"Peryll Kyzer is nursing her dogs along, including
one vets advised her to drop in Nikolai."
- Alaska Public Radio Network, 1997 Iditarod audio files
No no rest and
no vet care for the dogs
(Veterinarians are stationed at the checkpoints.)
Mushers spending little time at checkpoints is evidence dogs don't get
check-ups:
Andrea Flyod-Wilson: "And, that brings up the
question, and I've looked through the Iditarod rules pretty closely. There
is a whole bunch of stuff there about veterinarian checks before the race
and during the course of the race."
Dr. Paula Kislak: "My
understanding is that the Iditarod Trail Committee rules do not require
veterinarians to give the dogs physical examinations at the checkpoints
Many of the mushers spend less than five minutes at the checkpoints. This
would certainly be inadequate time and evidence of the fact that they're
not getting check-ups. The veterinary care that's being required by the
Iditarod Trail Committee is completely inadequate."
-
Andrea Floyd-Wilson is the host of the All About Animals Radio Show. On
February 23, 2003, she interviewed Paula Kislak, DVM, President of the
Association of Veterinarians for Animal Rights.
Aliy Zirkle admits she doesn't go to checkpoints a lot:
Tim
Bodony: "This is your first checkpoint since Takotna."
Aliy Zirkle: "Yeah."
Tim Bodony: "Have you missed checkpoints or this part of the fun
for you?"
Aliy Zirkle: "I'm standard not in checkpoints a lot. Actually I've
run Iditarod 12 times now and this year is the first time I went to Skwentna."
- Tim Bodony of Alaska Public Radio interviewed Aliy Zirkle on March 9,
2012, APRN.org website.
Musher's
prerogative to race through checkpoints:
"When
they come through real quickly we'd like to get our hands on each one
of them and examine them, but that is their prerogative to go ahead and
continue-- continue through if they feel their dogs are doing well."
-
Veterinarian Harvey Goho talking about mushers racing their dogs through
checkpoints
- Interview with Gabriel Spitzer, Alaska Public Radio Network, website,
March 8, 2006
Mushers
may spend even less time at checkpoints than is reported:
"Remember, Iditarod rules say mushers must sign
into every checkpoint, but are not required to sign out (except for timed
mandatory layovers). This allows mushers to sneak out without having
to notify any race official or fellow competitor."
- Zack Steer, Alaska Dispatch, March 4, 2012
- Zack Steer is a five-time Iditarod finisher.
Teams
skip a checkpoint:
"Most of the 87 dog teams in this year's race
apparently opted to skip the first checkpoint, Yentna."
- Jon Little, Cabelas website, March 8, 2004
- Little was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and was an
Iditarod musher
Musher speeds through checkpoint without getting physical examinations
for his dogs:
"Buser reached Nulato at 4:30 a.m. Saturday. He
paused for 2 minutes, just long enough to drop a dog at the checkpoint."
- Maureen Clark, Associated Press, March 9, 2002
"The Buser boys made things interesting
Wednesday morning in Takotna. Four-time champion Martin and son Rohn,
winner of January's Kusko 300, roared through the checkpoint, stopping
only long enough to check in and check out."
- Beth Bragg, Anchorage Daily News, March
7, 2012
"I
don't think anybody did more than set their hook in Golovin, sign the
check sheets, maybe throw the dogs some cold snacks and go."
-
Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008
"I
went into Anvik, signed in and signed out, and went on to Grayling, thinking
those guys were pulling away from me."
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics: Tales
of the Trail Told by the Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Kenmore:
Epicenter Press, 2004
"Rick [Mackey] was on a dead run. He signed into the checkpoint and was
gone."
-
Mackey, Dick. One Second to Glory, Alaska: Epicenter Press, 2001.
Musher
thinks about blowing through checkpoints:
"One
[rookie] cornered me recently and peppered me with questions like, 'What
happens if I want to blow through a checkpoint: Will the dogs just want
to lie down?' Answer: Not if they are trained to run through checkpoints."
- Jon Little, Cabelas website, March 7, 2004
- Little is a former reporter with the Anchorage Daily News and
was an Iditarod musher
Martin Buser and Jeff King spend three minutes at checkpoint:
"Buser,
48, running in his 24th Iditarod, spent just three minutes at the checkpoint
on the Kuskokwim River, about 770 miles from the finish line at Nome."
-
Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 7, 2007
"King was also the first musher to reach McGrath,
and stayed there just three minutes."
- Andrew Hinkelman, KTUU.com, March 9, 2010
Martin
Buser spends under a minute at checkpoint:
Four-time
Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race champion Martin Buser breezed through the
tiny town of Takotna, spending less than a minute Wednesday before jumping
on his sled runners and snatching the lead.
-
Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 11, 2009
Barely stopping, mushers force dogs to run 95 miles:
"Pushing
hard through the afternoon and into the cool of Monday night, barely stopping
to snack their teams and shift dogs, the three leaders in the Iditarod
Trail Sled Dog Race moved inot position to threaten the race record today.
They did it mainly by cutting rest.
For a distance of about 95 miles, from Koyuk to White Mountain, along
the coast of the Bering Sea through Monday night into the wee hours today,
their teams barely stopped."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 17, 1993
Mitch
Seavey makes dogs race nonstop for 11 and a half hours:
"He [Mitch Seavey] had run for 11 and a half hours, and the dogs needed
a break."
- Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 14, 2005
Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News and was
an Iditarod musher
Dogs tired from eight to nine hours of hard labor:
"The trail out of Kaltag should provide some
windbreaks for the weary mushers and dogs, tired of slogging along the
featureless plain of the Yukon River for eight to nine hours at a time."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod website, March 11, 2007
Jeff King forces his dogs to race for 12 hours:
"He ran for 12 hours from Takotna to Cripple...."
- Jon Little, discussing King racing his dogs to the Cripple checkpoint
- Jon Little, Cabelas website, March 12, 2004
- Little was a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and was
an Iditarod musher
Dogs go 14 hours nonstop on a soft trail:
“We
went 14 hours nonstop,” Sorlie said earlier at Eagle Island, 420 miles
from the Nome finish line."
- News Staff,
Anchorage Daily News, March 13, 2005
Robert Sorlie: "Fourteen hours nonstop."
Checker: "Long run."
Robert Sorlie: "Soft the whole way."
- Sorlie was referring to the trail being soft.
- Outdoor Life Network, (OLN), Iditarod, 2005
[The dogs have to work harder when the trail is
soft.]
Lance Mackey races dogs 16 hours and 34 minutes nonstop:
Mackey left Takotna checkpoint at 0:46:00 on 3/12/2009
Mackey arrived Ophir checkpoint at 07:24:00 on 3/12/2009
Mackey left Ophir checkpoint at 07:24:00 on 3/12/2009
Mackey arrived at Iditarod checkpoint at 17:20:00 on 3/12/2009
- Iditarod website, March, 2009
- Lance Mackey races dogs 115 miles nonstop:
Distance from Takotna to Ohir: 25 miles
Distance from Ohir to Iditarod: 90 miles
Total: 115 miles
- Iditarod website, March, 2009
Martin Buser to race dogs 24 hours without stopping:
"'I got that new awesome schedule,' said Buser.
'I go all the way to Rohn take my 24 (hour mandatory break) there and
just go nonstop like crazy. If they still look great maybe go to Nikolia
and take my 24 there. Hopefully, I will have about a 15-hour lead by then
and scare everybody off.'"
- Robert DeBerry, Frontiersman, March 6, 2011
(From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: According to the Iditarod's website,
it's 209 miles from the Iditarod start in Willow to Rohn and 284 miles
to Nikolai)
Dogs have 22-hour-a-day runs:
"I covered the Iditarod dog-sled race ten times.
Walking out onto the ice of the Bering Sea in February, the Northern Lights
dancing a spectacular show above, is a distinct memory. But watching those
huskies' paws bleed and crack during their 1100-mile, 22-hour-a-day run
across the Alaskan tundra, was heartache for a dog lover."
- Diana Nyad, The Score, KCRW Radio, November 2, 2006, website
transcript
Dogs are pushed to run nonstop:
[Some dogs may have been suffering from joint and muscle pains, injuries
or illnesses.]
A sample of the data from the 2012 Iditarod (Source:
Iditarod website)
| Name of musher | Checkpoint | Number of dogs arriving at checkpoint | Minutes at checkpoint |
| Anjanette Steer | McGrath | 14 | 0:01 |
| Martin Buser | Tokotna | 15 | 0:02 |
| Aliy Zirkle | Finger Lake | 16 | 0:01 |
| Scott Janssen | Finger Lake | 16 | 0:02 |
| Pete Kaiser | Skwentna | 16 | 0:04 |
| Ken Anderson | Finger Lake | 16 | 0:01 |
| Jeff King | McGrath | 15 | 0:02 |
| Sonny Lindner | Ophir | 15 | 0:02 |
| Brent Sass | Ophir | 15 | 0:04 |
| John Baker | Ophir | 12 | 0:03 |
| Paul Gebhart | McGrath | 14 | 0:02 |
A sample of the data from the 2011 Iditarod (Source:
Iditarod website)
| Name of musher | Checkpoint | Number of dog arriving at checkpoint | Time at checkpoint |
| Jessie Royer | Anvik | 12 | 00:01 |
| Sebastian Schnuelle | Finger Lake | 16 | 00:01 |
| Martin Buser | Shageluk | 14 | 00:03 |
| Mitch Seavey | McGrath | 13 | 00:01 |
| Ali Zirkle | McGrath | 14 | 00:02 |
| Hugh Neff | Ophir | 13 | 00:01 |
| Ray Redington Jr. | McGrath | 13 | 00:01 |
| DeeDee Jonrowe | Shageluk | 12 | 00:01 |
| Ken Anderson | Anvik | 13 | 00:02 |
| Dallas Seavey | Finger Lake | 16 | 00:01 |
| Cym Smyth | Skwentna | 16 | 00:00 |
A
sample of the data from the 2010 Iditarod (Source: Iditarod website)
| Name of musher | Checkpoint | Number of dogs arriving at checkpoint | Time at checkpoint |
| Martin Buser | Rainy Pass | 16 | 00:01 |
| Sonny Lindner | Ophir | 15 | 00:03 |
| Aliy Zirkle | Skwentna | 16 | 00:02 |
| Trent Herbst | Takotna | 14 | 00:04 |
| Mitch Seavey | Yentna | 16 | 00:03 |
| Tom Thurston | Rainy Pass | 16 | 00:02 |
| Dallas Seavey | Takotna | 14 | 00:03 |
| Dan Kaduce | McGrath | 16 | 00:02 |
| Sven Haltman | Rainy Pass | 16 | 00:01 |
| Jason Barron | McGrath | 15 | 00:02 |
| Cindy Gallea | Finger Lake | 16 | 00:02 |
A sample of data from the 2009 Iditarod (Source: Iditarod website)
| Name of musher | Checkpoint | Number of dogs arriving at checkpoint | Time at checkpoint |
| Martin Buser | Nikolai | 14 | 00:01 |
| Sonny Lindner | Shageluk | 14 | 00:00 |
| Rick Larson | Takotna | 13 | 00:00 |
| Judy Currier | Anvik | 13 | 00:00 |
| Ramy Smyth | Skwentna | 16 | 00:00 |
| Mitch Seavey | Rainy Pass | 16 | 00:02 |
| Aliy Zirkle | McGrath | 15 | 00:01 |
| Matt Hayashida | Finger Lake | 16 | 00:01 |
| Ed Stielstra | McGrath | 13 | 00:01 |
| Sebastian Schnuelle | Anvik | 15 | 00:01 |
| Jake Berkowitz | Nikolai | 16 | 00:01 |
A sample of data from the 2008 Iditarod (Source:
Iditarod website)
| Name of musher | Checkpoint | Number of dogs arriving at checkpoint | Minutes at checkpoint |
| Jeff King | Ophir | 16 | 0:02 |
| Aliy Zirkle | Finger Lake | 16 | 0:02 |
| Jason Mackey | Finger Lake | 16 | 0:03 |
|
Kjetil Backen |
McGrath | 15 | 0:02 |
| Jon Korta | Takotna | 16 | 0:02 |
| Benoit Gerard | Rainy Pass | 15 | 0:02 |
| Warren Palfrey | Galena | 12 | 0:03 |
| Jake Berkowitz | McGrath | 12 | 0:03 |
| Robert Nelson | Tokotna | 16 | 0:01 |
| DeeDee Jonrowe | McGrath | 15 | 0:02 |
| Rohn Buser | Rainy Pass | 16 | 0:03 |
A sample of the data from the 2007 Iditarod
(Source: Iditarod website)
| Name of musher | Checkpoint | Number of dogs arriving at checkpoint | Minutes at checkpoint |
| Tollef Monson | Elim | 10 | 0:02 |
| Jacques Philip | Finger Lake | 16 | 0:02 |
| Jason Barron | Finger Lake | 16 | 0:02 |
|
Ed Iten |
Shageluk | 15 | 0:03 |
| Ken Anderson | Rainy Pass | 16 | 0:02 |
| Karen Ramstead | Anvik | 14 | 0:01 |
| Mitch Seavey | Anvik | 12 | 0:03 |
| Hugh Neff | Finger Lake | 16 | 0:02 |
| Martin Buser | Tokotna | 15 | 0:03 |
| Paul Gebhardt | Shageluk | 14 | 0:02 |
| Lance Mackey | Ophir | 15 | 0:00 |
Read
how Iditarod officials encouraged injured musher to continue racing tired
and sick dogs.
Iditarod Board rejects making mushers stop for a minimum of 15 minute
at four checkpoints:
"This year, the Rules Committee recommended
three major changes:
1. A musher that experiences a dog death for any reason would be stopped
for 24 hours. 2. Each team must stop for a minimum of 15 minutes at each
of the four checkpoints after Unalakleet (Shaktoolik, Koyuk, Elim and
Golovin)."
" Recommendations 1 and 2 were rejected."
- John Proffitt, Alaska Public Radio Network, June 1, 2007
Cheating
"It is true that sports and cheating go hand in hand."
- Levitt, Steven D. and Dubner, Stephen. Freakonomics, New York,
William Morrow, 2005
- Steven Levitt did his undergraduate work at Harvard and has a PhD from
MIT. He teaches economics at the University of Chicago, and recently received
the John Bates Clark Medal, awarded every two years to the best American
economist under forty.
- Stephen Dubner writes for The New York Times and The New Yorker.
GPS could help mushers
cheat:
"During last year's Iditarod, 20 mushers were asked to carry GPS units
with them for a test run of the technology. It turned out to be a success,
and now all teams this year are required to carry one."
"But some have opposed the technology, saying teams could use it to cheat."
- Lori Tipton, KTUU-TV website KTUU.com, March 14, 2009
Back to the top
When mushers are sick or injured, who cares for the dogs?
Iditarod
rules do not require mushers to have pre-race physicals and drug tests.
- Iditarod website
No one is allowed to help sick and injured mushers take care of their
dogs:
"All care and feeding of the dogs will be done only by that teams' musher."
- Iditarod website, Race Rules
No medical doctors for the mushers:
Iditarod rules do not require medical doctors to
be on the trail to diagnose and care for musher injuries. Mushers must
rely upon veterinarians who may not be able to adequately diagnosis and
treat human injuries and illnesses.
When someone who is only licensed to practice veterinary
medicine practices on a human, he is practicing medicine without a license
in violation of Alaska law Sec.08.64.170.
When mushers are sick, injured or in pain what kind
of care do the dogs get?
- Sled Dog Action Coalition
Lance Mackey raced in Iditarod with feeding tube in his stomach:
"In 2001, as it was mentioned, Lance
Mackey was diagnosed with throat cancer. He continued to run in 2002 Iditarod
with a feeding tube in his stomach."
- Representative Don Young (R-Alaska), May 25,
2010, youtube.com, video
Aaron Burmeister has a severe head cold:
"The Nenana musher has been suffering
a severe head cold that robs him of sleep. He soaked his cold-weather
gear with cold chills as racers encountered 40-below temperatures overnight."
- The Nenana musher is Aaron Burmeister.
- Kyle Hopkins, Iditarodblog, Anchorage Daily News,
March 11, 2012
Jim Lanier
raced with gouged groin:
"He [Jim
Lanier] even gets hurt in the race’s ceremonial start, in Anchorage. One
year, his wife was riding in the second sled that follows mushers during
the 11-mile stretch from 4th Avenue to Campbell Airstrip. She was whipped
into a tree during a turn, launching Lanier over his own sled.
Lanier thought he was fine until he got home and found his boots and pants
filled with blood. He’d gouged his groin, he said.
Doctors dressed the wound and told him not to do anything strenuous, he
said. The bandages soon began to come undone, so Lanier duct-taped his
entire pelvis for the entire 1,000 mile trip to Nome."
Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily
News - The Sled Blog, March 10, 2010
Ramey Smyth gets sick and delirious, and his dogs run off:
"I kind of dropped the ball, going to Golovin I
got really sick and delirious and fell off my sled, and the dogs ran off
without me and I had an hour and a half run into Golovin,' [Ramey] Smyth
said."
- Kevin Wells, KTUU-TV, KTUU.COM, March 17, 2010
Jim Lanier's arthritic hands are hard
to use:
"[Jim] Lanier is in the checkpoint, eating a pastry and drinking coffee.
Temperatures over the last two days have been driving him into the ground,
he said, making it hard to use his arthritic hands.
'Came into the checkpoint -- can't even open the straw bag,' he said.
He'll have surgery at the Mayo Clinic on one of his hands after the race."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News - The Sled Blog, March 15,
2010
[The straw was to be used for the dogs
to lie on.]
Karen Ramstead
struggles with infected hand:
"She [Karen Ramstead] was struggling with a hand infected
by a black spruce tree that went through it like a spear; the trail was
rougher than usual; her dogs were unhappy...."
- Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch, March
15, 2010
Bruce Linton struggles with nagging chest cold:
"With temperatures dipping to nearly 50-below, Iditarod
musher Bruce Linton made the river run into Galena feeling exasperated
and down. Along the way, he'd lost his warm hoody, watched seven mushers
pass him, and was struggling Saturday to outrun a nagging chest cold."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 13, 2010
Celeste Davis broke her nose and probably had a concussion:
"[Celeste] Davis hit a tree head-on in the Dalzell
Gorge after rolling her sled early in the race. The tree broke her nose
and likely caused a concussion, though no one on the trail paid it much
attention.
Not until days later -- after the nurse from Deer Lodge, Mont., revealed
how she identified with Nurse Ratched in Ken Kesey's book and the movie
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - did those traveling with her on the
trail realize that the timid, withdrawn musher at Rohn was not the normal
Davis."
- Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch, March 20, 2010
"Anyone who thinks this is easy has never cared
for a pack of dogs. It's hard work when you're healthy. It's extra hard
work when you're struggling to recover from a concussion. And I doubt
anyone ever realized how concussed [Celeste] Davis was."
- Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch, March 21, 2010
"So [Celeste] Davis figures she was lucky to come
away with just a badly broken nose that bled so much she feared she would
“bleed out,” and a set of what she called 'raccoon eyes.'”
- Celeste Davis is a registered nurse.
- Kim Briggeman, The Missoulian, April 24, 2010
- Celeste Davis also had icicles on her eyes;
pain from cracked and split fingers:
"[Celeste] Davis’ fingers were painfully cracked
and splitting in the intense cold, which formed icicles on their eyes
and made even menial tasks monumental."
- Kim Briggeman, The Missoulian, April 24, 2010
Jerry Austin raced with broken arm:
"He [Jerry Austin] once finished the Iditarod with
a broken arm."
- Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch, June 10, 2010
Bjornar Andersen pees and vomits blood but keeps racing
his dogs:
"Bjornar Andersen suffered what appeared to be significant
internal injures in a crash in the so-called Buffalo Tunnels just out
of the Rohn checkpoint in the Alaska Range on Monday. He tried to keep
going, but was advised by a doctor here [Takotna checkpoint] to quit.
He was peeing blood and occasionally vomiting up the same.
Interviewed at the airport here on his way to the hospital, the two-time,
Top 10 Iditarod finisher said he took a pretty good beating after his
sled tipped near what mushers call "The Glacier," a series of frozen muskeg
ponds that cascade down a steep hillside.
One of the first rules of mushing is to never let go of the handlebar
in such a situation and Andersen hung on. Unfortunately, it took him a
ways to get his dogs to stop, and he was dragged over stumps and rock-hard,
frozen tussocks."
- Mike Campbell and Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 12,
2009
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Shouldn't Bjornar Andersen have returned
to the Rohn checkpoint after the accident? Why didn't he quit at the Nikolai
or the McGrath checkpoints, which are after Rohn and before Takotna? According
to the Iditarod's website, there's 147 miles between Rohn and Takotna.]
Hugh Neff races with pneumonia:
"I got pneumonia, too. I've been sick for quite
a long time and now it's really taking a toll on my body."
- Hugh Neff is talking to a KTUU-TV interviewer at the Unalakleet checkpoint.
- KTUU-TV, KTUU.com, March, 2009
Bryan Mills breaks tibia in his leg and keeps racing in Iditarod:
"Lower leg fractures include fractures of the tibia and fibula. Of these
two bones, the tibia is the only weightbearing bone."
- emedicine.com from WebMD
"Bryan Mills of Merengo, Wisc., did, however, decide
to play cowboy after he broke the tibia -- the small bone -- in his left
leg.
"'If I lived in Alaska, then I would scratch," Mills said. "(But) I didn't
come all the way from Wisconsin to scratch.'''
- Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 7, 2007
Mushers become disoriented and keep racing in Iditarod:
"And while she's [veterinarian Emi Berger] seen
and helped treat mushers with concussion, sprains, dislocated shoulders,
disorientation caused by dehydration and the occasional finger or hand
infection...."
- Randi Weiner, The Journal News, March 31, 2011
- Definition of disorientation:
"A temporary or permanent state of confusion regarding place, time, or
personal identity."
- The American Heritage, Stedman's Medical Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin
Company, 2002
Musher has stomach flu:
"Barron had the rotten luck of getting the stomach
flu himself, and was miserable after banging over the Alaska Range while
feverish, vomiting and unable to eat."
- Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 9, 2005
Little formerly reported for the Anchorage Daily News
Did this Bill Cotter have a mild concussion?
"He [Bill Cotter] mulled over the nasty bump on
his forehead. Cotter said he got the injury when he encountered a log
on the trail coming into the Rainy Pass checkpoint, 224 miles from Anchorage...."
"'I tipped over, landed in the snow and hit a tree.'"
- Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 9, 2004
- Mild concussions can have significant effects:
"Athletes with mild concussions demonstrated significant
declines in memory processes that were still evident at four and seven
days post-injury. Other self-reported symptoms – including headaches,
dizziness and nausea – resolved by day four."
- University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, website article, January 30,
2003
Mushers
cough all night:
"In
Tokotna, Ramy Brooks and I were both sick. Nobody else could sleep because
we coughed all night."
-
Paul Gebhardt, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
Jeff
King races with 104-degree fever and pneumonia:
"I had a 104-degree fever at the end, and they
put me in the infirmary with pneumonia. I don't remember much of the last
third of the race."
-
Jeff King, Iditarod musher
-
Freedman,
Lew. More Iditarod Classics, Kenmore: Epicenter Press, 2004
Many
mushers injured in sled crashes:
"Cotter was among the humans nursing injuries from a sled crashes."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2004
Doug Swingley freezes his corneas:
"The 50-year-old Lincoln, Mont., musher said he
injured his eyes when he took off his goggles because they were fogging
up going down Dalzell Gorge, he said. Subzero temperatures blurred his
vision.
'Then I took a stick in the eye because I couldn't see it coming,' said
Swingley.
The problem has worsened since.
'I came in here [Takotna checkpoint] blind in one eye,' Swingley said.
- Staff and wire reports, Anchorage Daily News, March 10, 2004
Martin Buser's finger partially amputated just before Iditarod starts:
"Four-time Iditarod winner Martin Buser underwent
a partial amputation of his middle finger after he injured it in a table
saw accident at his Big Lake home, Iditarod officials said Wednesday.
Buser was treated at Alaska Regional Hospital in Anchorage after injuring
himself Tuesday. Buser told race managers he intends to participate in
the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, which kicks off Saturday
with a ceremonial start in downtown Anchorage."
- Anchorage Daily News, March 2, 2005
"The doctor amputated it just on the palm side of
the middle knuckle, taking off more than 2 inches, he [Martin Buser] said."
"The injured finger had started to hurt by Wednesday afternoon, Buser
reported, though pain medication was keeping him comfortable. But the
missing finger will be sensitive throughout the race, which for Buser
would typically last nine or 10 days."
- Joel Gay, Anchorage Daily News, March 3,
2005
- Martin Buser starts Iditarod with mangled hand
and loaded up on painkillers:
"Fearless, foolhardy or just plain stubborn, four-time
champion Martin Buser cheerfully started the 1,100-mile Iditarod Trail
Sled Dog Race on Saturday, a few days after the middle finger of his right
hand was amputated above the second joint.
Buser loaded up on painkillers, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory pills,
wore bandages and a special splint on his mangled hand -- he also had
stitches up the inside length of his ring finger and two stitches on his
index finger from a table saw accident Tuesday -- and stuffed it inside
an oversized black mitten."
- Steve Wilstein, Associated Press, March 5, 2005
-
Martin Buser starts Iditarod using only one hand:
"Martin Buser was stoic leaving the starting line, but with his right
hand propped up on his chest like Napoleon, it sure didn't look comfortable."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod website, March 6, 2005
Little formerly reported for the Anchorage Daily News.
Don Bowers started race on painkillers from cracked rib and torn muscles:
"At the emergency room, the doctor looks at
the x-rays and says I've probably cracked a rib, and I almost certainly
have torn some muscles and other good stuff inside my rib cage. He gives
me some heavy-duty painkillers and advises me to get home somehow before
I start taking them" "Regardless, I'll still be at the starting
line on March 4th, even if I have to carry enough serious painkillers
to require an escort from the Drug Enforcement Agency. At least I can
take some comfort in knowing I won't be the first musher to try the race
with a busted something or other."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
Don Bowers has broken and swollen right hand:
"In the process Silvertip and Bear, who have run
happily together for several hundred miles, get into a snapping match.
I pull Silvertip away and Bear decides to get in his licks while he can.
Unfortunately he misses and chomps my left hand, with which I'm trying
to extract Silvertip."
"I react instinctively by flailing my right arm for support, but I hit
something very hard with unintended full-force karate chop. I don't know
if I've smashed a nearby six-inch birch trunk or the sled, but I instantly
know I've done something bad to my hand." "If it's not broken, it's a
good imitation."
"Worse, it's my right hand, and I'm right-handed." "My acute lack of sleep,
aggravated by the increasing pain in my hands despite the naproxen, isn't
helping matters and I'm starting to hallucinate. At least once I stop
the team and try to pull them onto the shoulder to let an imaginary truck
by. Another time I find myself carrying on a conversation with someone
walking alongside the sled; the dogs slow and stop wondering what strange
commands I'm giving them."
"I finally give up trying to snatch fragments of sleep and decide to leave
at mid-morning. My right hand is even worse than last night; the swelling
is so bad I can't even make a fist."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000.
Charlie Boulding's two knees are painful from missing cartilage:
"[Charlie] Boulding said, "All of the cartilage
is out of my knees so its pretty painful...."
- KTVA-TV, Anchorage, March 7, 2005
Paul Ellering in excruciating pain from frozen eye:
"Out on the trail passing through the vast nothingness
from Ophir to Cripple, with the thermometer flirting with 50 degrees below,
Ellering dozed on his sled. When he awoke, his eye was frozen."
"'The aftereffects you feel,'' Ellering said. 'It just weeped and weeped
and weeped. At first, I didn't bandage it, and the pain was excruciating.
I had to keep my mitt up over one eye.'''
"With one good eye, holding a mitten over the bad eye for much of the
time, Ellering struggled into Ruby on the Yukon River."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, April 9, 2006
Iditarod officials want musher with broken rib to stay in race:
"Some of the dogs had been sick with diarrhea and
treated at a prior checkpoint. They showed little spark after that.
Battling the winds, Madsen could practically see their body fat melting
off. Not only that, the sled hit a stump on the trail, forcing Madsen's
upper body onto the handles. An X-ray at a later checkpoint revealed a
rib broken in several places.
Ruby was a convenient place to withdraw from the race because of regular
air transport going in and out.
'But,' Madsen said, 'a musher never makes a decision without first getting
some sleep.'
So after two or three hours of sleep, some food and a pep talk from race
officials, he felt he could go on."
- Kay Richardson, The Columbian, April 16, 2006
Jim Warren crashes, pulls a hamstring and gets a severe concussion:
Nikolai to McGrath:
"Then the trail turned sharply onto a river. I saw the crash coming and
kicked violently to try to miss a tree and stump. I felt the searing pain
of a hamstring pull. Apparently I didn't miss the tree."
Takotna:
"I was able to manage the leg pain with meds. But my injuries were greater
than I had first thought."
"My
leg was only of limited use." "Another disheartening surprise was I found
my left hand was numb, no feeling and I had blurred vision, obviously
the result of a severe concussion."
"I didn't say much, even to Chris, and tried to hide my condition, because
I feared the Iditarod officials might force me to scratch. I wasn't going
to scratch voluntarily."
Ophir to Cripple to Ruby:
"I was in agony but still trying to run the team and I had no more pain
meds."
"Alone in the dark sitting on my cooler, hurting too much to get up and
spread out the sleeping bag, I dug into my food bag for a dose of calories
to keep me warm while I slept on top of the sled. Daughter Whitney had
slipped little notes of encouragement into my food bags. I picked one
out of the bag really needing a lift. To my utter dismay I discovered
my blurred vision had worsened to the point I couldn't read the note.
I knew enough about closed heard injuries as a Fire Department Medical
Responder to know I been taking a big risk. Closed head injuries can and
do result in permanent brain damage and death."
- Chris is Jim Warren's son.
- Warren, James and Warren, Christopher. Following My Father's Dream,
James and Christopher Warren, 2005
Deedee Jonrowe had streptococcus infection:
"Sitting in the cramped cabin that served as
the Kaltag checkpoint, Jonrowe looked in worse shape than anything the
cat ever dragged in: hair spikey with grease and sweat; skin splotched
by frostbite; clothes stained with the excrement of dogs. And the 28-year-old
fisheries biologist croakingly admitted that she felt twice as bad as
she looked. Her throat was so swollen she could hardly speak. Streptococcus
had been the diagnosis of the bush doc back in Shageluk. He had pumped
her full of penicillin, but so far the tenacious germs had fought the
medicine to a standstill."
- Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, February 5, 1984
Deedee Jonrowe had pneumonia:
"Jonrowe contracted pneumonia on the trail. She spit up blood. She couldn't
catch her breath. She felt she was going to suffocate."
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Deedee Jonrowe had painful knee:
"She suffered from an injured knee, heavily taped, that both restricted
her knee and pained her, and provoked thoughts of dropping out more than
once."
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Silver, Fairbanks: Epicenter Press, 1997
Lolly Medley races with broken kneecap:
"In last year's race, Lolly Medley, a 33-year-old
mother of three, mushed her team for 35 miles after crashing her sled
into a tree stump and breaking her kneecap. She was picked up by a helicopter,
taken to Anchorage for treatment, then flown, cast and all, back to Nikolai,
site of the mishap, where she resumed the race with a borrowed sled, hers
having been totaled in the accident."
- Alex Ward, The New York Times, February 24, 1985
Dr. Peter Sapin races with severe infection from beaver meat:
"Dr. Peter Sapin, 36, Grand Marais, Minn., picked a "severe and very unusual"
infection from the beaver meat he is using to feed his dog team. Beaver
meat, considered gourmet trail food, nearly forced Sapin off the trail
and into the hospital.
Sapin has to inject himself with antibiotics twice a day and his 14-dog
team is down to 10 animals."
- UPI, Ellensburg Daily Record, March 8, 1986
Jessie Royer and Terry Adkins race with injured backs:
"Just a couple days before the race started, I pulled
my lower back muscles really bad. I had a hard time walking or bending
over much less doing all my normal daily chores."
- Jessie Royer, Jessie's Sled Dog Page, website, 2005
"He [Terry Adkins] even ran Iditarod through a period
when he was suffering from so much back pain he bobbled around like a
grimacing humpback."
- Medred, Craig. Graveyard
of Dreams: Dashed Hopes and Shattered Aspirations Along Alaska's Iditarod
Trail, Anchorage: Plaid Cabin Publishing, 2010
Bruce Linton races with diarrhea, fever and pains all over:
"I had diarrhea, a fever, and aches and pains all
day. The last time I snacked my dogs on the trail I could barely pull
the snow hook out of the snow and when I reached down to do it my entire
body was in pain."
Bruce Linton, Diary of my Iditarod Journey 2008, website article,
2008
Kelly Maixner races with broken finger:
"Thirteen teams in the original field of 66 withdrew
from the race and [Kelly] Maixner, who grew up in Golva, battled a broken
sled, a broken finger and finished the race with 11 out of 16 dogs he
started the race with in Anchorage on March 4."
- Brian Gehring, Bismarck Tribune, March 16, 2012
Harry Harris races with stomach flu; Richard Burmeister with a bad
throat:
"In the group bringing up the rear was Harry Harris,
so sick with stomach flu he spent half his time bent over the drive bow,
while Richard Burmeister, a little ahead of him, had such a bad throat
by the time he reach McGrath that he couldn't talk."
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Melissa Owens starts Iditarod with injured leg:
"The 21 year old musher (Melissa Owens) from
Nome Alaska injured her leg before the race began, and re-injured it during
her run from Willow to Rainy Pass."
- Iditarod website, March 8, 2011
Rick Swenson races with broken collar bone:
"Refusing to quit despite breaking a collarbone
Monday, the 60-year-old dog driver survived the steep, twisting Dalzell
Gorge and cruised into Rohn at 9:19 p.m. Monday."
"The gorge can be a perilous ride that requires mushers to keep both hands
on their sleds. That was a challenge for [Rick] Swenson, who broke his
collarbone earlier Monday when he crashed on the Happy River steps leading
into Rainy Pass."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 8, 2011
Liz Parrish races with injured leg:
"Liz Parrish drove the last team out of Unalakleet
at 2 a.m. today. She is holding down the red lantern position on Iditarod
36. She has had a tough race. Liz had a bad fall early in the race, injuring
her leg; she has been cared for by veterinarians...."
- John Schandelmeier, Herald and News, March 14, 2008
Norman Vaughn starts race with his leg in a cast:
"[Norman] Vaughan's leg was in a cast from a training
injury, and [Shelly] Gill felt sure he could make it to Nome if he could
get through the deep snow areas encountered early in the race."
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Fritz Kirsch starts race with the flu:
"'I think the most heartbreaking thing to me was
after I finished a training season up in the bush. I came down here and
got sick. And I had the flu….I got it right before the race. Things proceeded
to get worse. By the time I hit Rohn River I lost my voice completely.
I had an extremely high fever.'"
- Fritz Kirsch is talking about starting the 1983 Iditarod with the flu.
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Pam Flowers continues races with a smashed hand:
"There are many experiences that Flowers remembers.
One was during the first hour of the race when she smashed her hand. 'It
doesn't work correctly yet.'"
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Diana Dronenburg races with sun poisoning:
"In relating her own race experience Diana [Dronenburg]talks
about acquiring sun poisoning. 'One day my cheeks began to get these small
red bumps that were extremely itchy. My face then began to swell, and
pretty soon I looked like a chipmunk. While on the race I didn't know
what it was or how to treat it. So I did nothing and the swelling continued.
By the time I hit the finish line in Nome it looked like I had an extra
50 pounds on me.'"
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod:
Women on the Trail, Anchorage: Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Doug Swingley races with two fractured ribs:
"The 2000 race was hard because I fractured two
ribs. I was on massive amounts of Aleve. It happened in the first mile
between Wasilla and Knik, so I went a long ways with it."
- Doug Swingley, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics: Tales
of the Trail Told by the Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Kenmore:
Epicenter Press, 2004
Susan Butcher races with injured, painful hand:
"[Susan] Butcher still ended up banging her hand between a
tree and her sled, and she continued on in the race in spite of the pain,
even though she could only partially use her hand."
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Terry Adkins races with broken right hand:
"Once Adkins mushed most of the last thousand miles
with a broken right hand suffered in a crash."
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Silver, Fairbanks: Epicenter Press, 1997
Dogs forced
to race when trail conditions are horrid
Libby Riddles drives dogs into severe storm to keep her lead at all costs:
"[Libby] Riddles opened a new era in race history
that year and created one of the enduring legends of the race by driving
her dogs into a severe storm that packed gusts of sixty miles per hour
and whiteout conditions that obliterated the trail.
After another musher advised her that it would be impossible to go on,
she plunged ahead through the storm and left Shaktoolik to cross Norton
Sound. 'I allowed only one thought - to keep my lead at all costs, taking
it inch by inch if necessary,' she wrote later in her book, Race Across
Alaska."
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by the
Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Seattle: Epicenter Press, 1992
"For hours, Dugan, at the head of the team, struggled
his utmost to find the trail. Along with his companions he now tried in
vain to dig a hole in the ice where he could curl up with his back to
the wind. Libby [Riddles] had covered barely 10 miles (16 km), yet she
didn't have the least idea where she was."
- Cellura, Dominique. Travelers of the Cold: Sled Dogs of the Far North,
Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Books, 1990
Dogs ran over huge ruts made by snowmachines:
"The trail heads west from the village. It
is the same route that the Iron Dog Snowmachine Race followed only weeks
earlier. These 75 mph race machines jump from mogul to mogul spinning
their tracks underneath. This inevitably adds to the height and width
of those trail bumps. The more machines that pass by, the rougher the
trail becomes. The ruts were huge this year and my sled bounced from one
to the next. The dogs even got frustrated as the sled would slap up and
quickly down, pulling their harness lines with it."
- The SP Kennel Dog Log: Aliy Zirkle Iditarod Trail Notes 2011
Dog don't like heading into a strong wind:
"It was the wind, not the cold, that was raising
the most concern among the mushers. That's because dog teams do not like
heading straight into a strong wind, never mind winds of 40 mph that with
wind chill were driving temperatures to 40 below or more and creating
a ground blizzard on the sea ice.
Even John Baker, a musher from Kotzebue accustomed to Arctic cold, said
in conditions as brutal as these, no one has an advantage. Cold, strong
winds work the same way on dogs, draining them of energy, no matter who
is driving the sled, he said."
- Mary Pemberton, Associated Press, March 17, 2009
"'We probably even traveled in weather that's even
worse at times, but you never do it for such an extended period of time,
like last night,' [John] Baker said. 'The leaders are definitely having
a lot of trouble with it.'"
- Kevin Wells, KTUU-TV, KTUU.com, March 17, 2009
(From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: According to the Iditarod's website,
John Baker was in third place on March 17.)
"Time went away, and all that was left was the fight
crab-wise into the wind. The dogs were having a tough time with every
shred of exposed fur (coats on) thoroughly frosted and sculpted to windward."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008
Dogs made to race in hurricane-force winds:
"We had no major storms, but we had sixty- to seventy-knot
winds in and out of Unalakleet."
- Martin Buser, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by
the Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
- 60 knots = 69.05 miles per hour; 70 knots = 80.55 miles per hour
"'We hear there's 80 mph winds and the trail's blown
away,' [Scott] White said before leaving."
- Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 7, 2007
"To make matters worse, Rainy Pass which we had
to go over had winds clocked at 80 mph." "It was 'white on white' up there
and teams of dogs were being blown off the trail."
- Iditarod musher Bruce Linton, "Bruce's Journal - Part I, " Burlington
Free Press website, March 26, 2007
"Category One Hurricane: Winds 74-95 mph"
- The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, National Hurricane Center website
"'(The winds) literally picked your whole team up and threw them off the
trail.'"
- Musher Donald Smidt talking about the 2007 Iditarod
- Carlos Muñoz, Fond du Lac Reporter, December 30, 2007
Dogs spend hours and hours going through deep snow:
"Unseasonably warm weather made this year's race
a greater test than previous runs, race leaders said."
"Seavey said the course was awful.
'The trail was soft and punchy,' he said. 'We spent hours and hours and
hours wallowing in deep snow.' Sorlie finished the race with eight dogs,
having dropped eight sick, sore or tired dogs at checkpoints along the
route."
- Rachel D'Oro, Associated Press, March 16, 2005
[Sorlie started the race with 16 dogs.]
DeeDee Jonrowe: "The trail has been deep.
I mean deep, like to their chest deep and a little bit of wind. And like
that and they just plow literally like, you know, like their own little
snowplows, skidsters through the snow. You know, that makes it a tough
run no matter how short the distance might be."
- Interview with Laureli Kinneen of KNOM.org, March 7, 2012, KNOM.org's
website
Racing dogs fall into holes and trenches:
"This section of the trail is truly a steep rocky
gorge with a frozen river running down the middle, We had to cross the
river several times, going back and forth from one side of the gorge to
the other. The catch is that the rive ice is full of holes, and the whole
shebang seems to be slanted down-hill so that whenever the sled hits the
ice, it slides sideways. That made for some exciting crashing and booming
escapes from ice holes and one good whack right into one."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake:
CMC, 2008
"All the snowmachines and dog teams ahead of me had created deep holes
in the trail snow. Many times my team would ripple-fall into those holes."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake:
CMC, 2008
"The bottom was breaking out of the hardened trail
making big snow holes that sometimes were three feet deep and a hundred
feet long. The dogs would fall into the holes and struggle in the deep
snow to pull the load through to the far side."
"Most of the dogs had shoulder or other muscle injuries
caused by miles of snow holes."
- James Warren, Iditarod '06 Journal, published on the Internet
"About 10 miles past Skwentna we started to hit
the potholes – up to 3 or 4 feet deep and almost as wide as the trail.
Throw in a few trenches for variety and it was hard work."
- Eric O. Rogers, Ph.D. personal blog, March 30, 2009
"Iditarod veteran Jerry Austin of St. Michael was
just over the pass Tuesday morning when trailbreaker Barry Stanley of
Finger Lake stopped his snowmachine in a barren ravine to report that
the checkpoint stories about a big hole in the trail were wrong.
There were many big holes."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 10, 1993
"It was a warm day so the trail was very soft. In
fact after a few teams went over the trail it started to break up and
get big holes in it. It was hard for the dogs to keep from falling in
them."
- Jessie Royer, Jessie's Sled Dog Page, website, 2005
"The
dogs were traveling pretty slow in the heat but that was just fine because
the bumps from all the snowmachine traffic were horrendous! They were
so deep and big I thought I was going to get sea sick. Just kidding, but
some of them were about 4ft deep."
- Jessie Royer, Jessie's Sled Dog Page, website, 2004
"A big tide had come in, and it was starting to
freeze up. As I crossed Golovin Bay, there were maybe 2 ½ inches of ice
on top of maybe 1 ½ feet of water. Every third step, we'd fall through."
"I was making only three miles an hour…scaring the hell out of the dogs
as they fell through the top layer."
- Dean Osmar, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by
the Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
There's no concern for the dogs' welfare:
"Although trail conditions border on horrible
at the moment, Jack Niggemeyer, trail manager for the Iditarod Trail Sled
Dog Race, said the Iditarod will go north for Nome, no matter what.
Iditarod race rules, he noted, clearly say the Last Great Race starts
the first Saturday in March 'regardless of weather conditions.'"
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, January 16, 2003
Dogs
racing in winds up to 50 miles per hour:
"On
Sunday night, winds up to 45 mph were recorded in Unalakleet, and Jonrowe's
team caught the brunt of them 30 miles before reaching the checkpoint."
- Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 13, 2006
"Doug
Swingley's dog team was not eager to leave Unalakleet yesterday. One veteran
observer said it was painful to watch. The team stopped several times
and had to be urged onward. They kept nosing back toward town, reluctant
to follow the trail."
"You can hardly blame Swingley's team for hesitating to head up the windswept
coast. It was gusting to 35 and 45 miles per hour last night in Unalakleet."
-
Gabriel Spitzer, Alaska Public Radio Network, March 13, 2006, website
"But
he [Jon Korta] and the others who took off into violent head winds recounted
an ordeal trying to get balking leaders to push into the blasting wind
in temperatures near 20 below."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod race coverage, March 7, 2007
"Quite a few mushers have gone up the trail and
once you get out onto the flats in the middle of the valley, they can
hardly see their lead dogs. Dogs aren't wanting to go, because they are
going right into the wind. It's probably blowing, gusting up to 50 miles
an hour in the valley."
- Shain Perrins, Rainy Pass Lodge, Alaska Public Radio, March 6, 2007
Dogs
forced to race in temperatures as low as 130 degrees below zero:
''I remember a wind-chill factor of 130 degrees
below zero in the 1974 race and in another I saw it go from 40 above one
day to 40 below the next,'' [Joe] Redington said."
- Nelson Bryant, The New York Times, March 5, 1987
"We began with minus -100 chill factors heading
up to Rainy Pass and continued with open water and slick ice coming out
of Rohn, followed by 50-below temperatures."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
"The weather was atrocious, Hell a half-dozen of
us got trapped there going out of Puntilla Lake. The chill factor was
130 below."
- Dick Mackey, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by the
Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Seattle: Epicenter Press, 1992
"He [Peter Bartlett] braved temperatures pushing
50 below on the way to Cripple...."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod Coverage, website ariticle, March 11,
2006
- Jon Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News.
"Wind
chill temperatures were pushing down to 55 to 60 degrees below zero."
"Conditions were so grim dog teams hoping to continue down the Iditarod
Trail were having a hard time just getting out of this checkpoint [Rainy
Pass] Monday night and early this morning. They struggled in the dark
wind and cold."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 6, 2007
"There was a 130-below wind chill at Ptarmigan Pass."
- Rudy Demoski, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by the
Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Seattle: Epicenter Press, 1992
"It
was the 1994 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, and the temperature had plummeted
to -50 degrees F [Fahrenheit]. The dogs race across the moonlit trail
along Moses Point, a thousand miles into the race."
-
King, Jeff. Cold Hands Warm Heart, Husky Homestead Press, 2008
"He
[Lance Mackey] increased his lead along the wind-swept western coast of
Alaska. Fierce, biting winds blew in off the Bering Sea, forcing temperatures
to 50 below zero."
- Associated Press, March 18, 2009
"Deeply chilled by minus-35 temperatures that settled onto the
Yukon River overnight, the top mushers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog
race began pulling out of Nulato at sunrise Saturday, encouraged by a
few warming slants of sunshine."
- Mike Campbell, Anchorage Daily News, March 13, 2010
"With temperatures dipping to nearly 50-below,
Iditarod musher Bruce Linton made the river run into Galena feeling exasperated
and down. Along the way, he'd lost his warm hoody, watched seven mushers
pass him, and was struggling Saturday to outrun a nagging chest cold."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 13,
2010
[Below
zero temperatures expose the dogs to frostbite.]
Dogs forced to run in 50 to 70 mph winds and
in whiteout:
"Crossing
over the Range was very harsh. The 70-mph winds wouldn't let up. Whiteout
conditions prevailed."
- Jones, GB. Winning the Iditarod: The GB Jones Story, Wasilla:
Northern Publishing, 2005
"'It's epic,' Warren
Palfrey told the Iditarod Insider in Kaltag on Sunday. 'This is the kind
of stuff you can't practice in a non-racing situation. There's no trail.
I'm thinking it's gusting 50-60 mph at times and (is a) total whiteout.'
'At times I was going as fast as I can walk.'
DeeDee Jonrowe, the two-time runner-up from Willow, agreed.
'It was hard enough for Jessie (Royer, who was running near Jonrowe) and
I and it was better than this then,' she told the Iditarod Insider as
the wind howled in Kaltag. 'So I think it's bad. You can ask Rick (Swenson),
but I think it's almost impassable.'"
- Mike Campbell, Anchorage Daily News, March
16, 2009
"At Tommy Johnson's shelter cabin, 25 miles out
of Safety, they [Beth Baker and Mark Chapoton] ran into a couple of snowmachiners
- their faces wrapped with duct tape - who warned them of the storm ahead.
Lambert and Norm Messinger, who had been trailing the back-of-the-pack
mushers by snowmachine, suggested Chapoton follow Lambert's snowmachine
and Baker follow Messinger. They headed out in the whiteout about 7 p.m.,
Lambert said.
But Messinger's snowmachine iced up and died. Baker said her dogs were
going fine and she wanted to push on."
"She was only 40 miles from the finish line of the 1,100-mile sled dog
race to Nome. But in a blinding storm that whirled snow around her at
70 mph she couldn't see her lead dogs. The glare ice under her sled runner
told her that her team had made a wrong turn and she was headed out on
the sea ice, which was laced with deadly open water."
'I knew there were open leads out there,' Baker said on Wednesday during
a telephone interview from Nome. 'I tried to lead the team back, but I
was on ice. My boots didn't have nails in them. I couldn't stand up. I
got blown over five or six times.
The dogs were blowing over.'' "Her sled was tipped over on the ice. Her
dogs had curled up, their fur frozen to the ice. They couldn't move."
- Natalie Phillips, Anchorage Daily News,
March 24, 1994
Winds knock over four dogs:
"John Wood left Shaktoolik fourteen hours behind
Aldrich, driving into a storm that was now abating, but the winds slammed
into his team just as hard, hard enough to knock over four of the dogs."
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod,
Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 1988
Dogs race over miles of gravel, frozen tussocks, stumps, ice
and crusty snow:
"Teams will continue up the Bering Sea coastline
in the 1,100-mile Iditarod, sometimes traveling on the frozen ice in temperatures
that were more than 30 degrees below zero early Monday."
- Associated Press, March 15, 2010
"Between a U.S. Bureau of Land Management cabin
a mile or so off the trail at Bear Creek and a bridge across the open
water of Sullivan Creek, about 10 miles farther on, there was almost no
snow and many frozen tussocks. It was rough and a problem for the dogs.
There were an inordinate number of sprained ankles and shoulders along
this stretch of trail, but there were no injured mushers and few broken
sleds."
- Medred, Craig. Graveyard of Dreams: Dashed Hopes and Shattered Aspirations
Along Alaska's Iditarod Trail, Anchorage: Plaid Cabin Publishing,
2010
"Crusty snow made it hard for the dogs to pull,
as though they were trying to haul the sled over square marbles."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 13, 2011
"This
year, it [the Farewell Burn] was more like 80 miles of gravel, frozen
tussocks, stumps and slippery ice.
-
Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 8, 2007
"I left Unalakleet and immediately hit some of the
worse section of trail in the entire race. It was gravel and rocks for
miles."
- Bruce Linton, Iditarod Journals, 2007
"The trail was bad, perhaps the most physically
punishing Iditarod yet, with no snow in many stretches - glare ice, gravel,
grass, sand - and crusty paw-tearing corn snow for miles."
- Olesen, Dave. Cold Nights Fast Trails, Minocqua: NorthWord Press,
Inc., 1989
-- Running on dirt and gravel is very hard on
feet:
"Dirt and gravel can also be very hard on feet,
frozen or unfrozen. Stone bruises on pads are hard to detect but can make
a dog very sore."
- Dr. Dawn Brown, DVM, Mushing, January 1, 2010
Dogs
forced to race in warm weather:
"This is a long, hot, sticky, slow run, as all my
daylight runs seem to be. The snow is really wet and the dogs are miserable."
- Karin Hendrickson, Iditarod 2009, her website article
"Some of the dogs suffered from overheating and
found it tough going in what were warmish temperatures early on this year
for running the 1,100-mile race -- the longest sled dog race in the world."
- Associated Press, March 13, 2008
"There is some kennel cough developing on the
trail, but the main problem may be temperatures a little too warm for
many of the teams."
- Ellen Lockyer, Alaska Public Radio Network, March 9, 2011
Dogs
relentlessly break trail though bottomless snow:
"The storm had dumped over two feet of new snow. Rainy was swimming in
powder deeper than she was tall. Harley's head wasn't covered, but he
was swimming just the same. Repeatedly, he looked back at me, eyes crying
out for a rescue. Tough going. The team kept bunching up, tangling every
few feet, and breaking through the soft crust into concealed pools of
water."
- O'Donoghue, Brian Patrick. My Lead Dog was
a Lesbian, New York: Vintage Books, 1996
"Only a few miles out of the checkpoint, [Blake] Matray said, 'we
started running into drifted-over trail. We started breaking trail.'
Most of the time, the dogs wallowed belly deep. When the teams got lucky,
Matray said, they might find a stretch, maybe a quarter mile, of good
trail where the route went through a patch of trees.
Mainly, though, they broke trail hour after hour."
"As it was, any time either musher's lead dogs wandered off the narrow
trail they'd get stuck in almost bottomless snow. When the mushers went
to guide them back onto the firm surface hidden beneath the drifts, Matray
said, "you'd sink up to your waist."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March
28, 2009
"Swenson said the course took him over 12-foot deep
snow, past moose, which have been known to attack sledders, over the north
side of the Alaskan Range, over stretches of snowless tundra and into
snow again."
- Jim Benagh, The New York Times, April 6, 1981
Dogs made to race over soft and very punchy trail:
"'It was a really crummy trail,' he [Jeff King]
said. 'All the way to Tripod (a resting spot) was very punchy, soft trail.'"
- Kyle Hopkins and Mike Campbell, Anchorage Daily News, March 14,
2010
Dogs forced to race in storms:
'''When I started out across the Sound, it just really looked pathetic
because you couldn't even tell one marker from another,''she said. 'I
kept on telling myself how foolish I was being for doing this, because
the weather was just miserable. But I figured if it does pan out, it might
help me win the race. So I'm going to try it even if it's crazy.'''
-
Libby Riddles talking about racing her dogs
- UPI, The New York Times, March 21, 1985
"When the second storm hit toward the end of the
race, [Susan] Butcher, who managed to regain the lead, again mushed on
while her competitors laid back waiting for a break in the weather."
- Robert McG. Thomas Jr., The New York Times, March 28, 1988
"That was the year of the big blow that pulled a
curtain of snow across Rainy Pass in the Alaska Range. Some mushers decide
to try to beat their way through it. [Scott] White -- a sometimes musher
whose real job is with a general contractor in Woodinville, Wash. -- was
one of those who tried to give it a go.
'I went up there,' he said Friday, 'and I was lost up there for five hours.'
He wandered off the trail. His dog team got into deep snow and wallowed.
'Dogs were frustrated,' he said.'They were fighting and chewing (their
lines). Four got loose.'''
- Craig Medred, Alaska Dispatch, March 19, 2010
Dogs
forced to run in 100-mile-per-hour winds over bare rock:
"For the Iditarod mushers, the Burn was 36
miles of very tough sledding. Teams and rigs had to be laboriously maneuvered
around charred spruce trunks and over rock formations. In places, 100-mile-per-hour
winds had scoured the trail clean of snow; sled runners scraped over bare
rock with the screech of fingernails raking a blackboard."
-
Colin Nickerson, Boston Globe, February 5, 1984
Dogs
forced to go through water or overflow:
"On
the Tatina, the teams encountered another phenomenon of Alaska winter:
overflow. In late winter, as water begins to trickle into the creek and
river bottoms, thick river ice may still extend all the way to the bottom,
leaving nowhere for the water to flow except on top of the ice. The icy
overflow freezes to the dogs' feet, freezes to sled runners, soaks mushers'
feet and hide holes in the ice that can swallow a dog or even a sled.
"
"Gary
Hokkanen actually lost a dog under the ice when it fell through a hole
the musher didn't see."
-
Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg: Stackpole
Books, 1988
"There
was a lot of open water that year on the lakes. The dogs would punch through
the crust into two or three feet of water and go under."
- Nicki Nielsen is talkking about Connie Frerichs' dogs.
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
"We
still had to go through one stretch of overflow though."
- Jessie Royer, Jessie's Sled Dog Page, website, 2005
"Three
of us did that and we went over that overflow in a blizzard."
- Bruce Linton is talking about Jeremy Keller, another
musher and himself.
- Bruce Linton, Iditarod Journals, 2007
"We had a few bangs, and a few bumps, but made the
drop to level terrain without any major problems. The difficulty, however,
was the terrain at the bottom. It was river. Most years, like last year,
it is frozen over nicely. This year, there were eight inches of water
flowing over the ice. I guess it is a two or three mile stretch from the
base of the Dalzell Gorge to the bank where the Rohn checkpoint is, and
the trail was totally under flowing water."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008
"I left the Rohn River at one in the morning, a
full moon out and very cold. I started up the south fork of the Kuskokwim
River and stared to get into overflow without any trail. My lead dog started
to break through the ice, and when he got up another dog was breaking
through. Finally the whole team went under the ice and my sled went under.
The water was at least up to my knees."
"I tried to get my leader back onto the ice but
we fell down again in at least four feet of water. You never know how
deep the water is. You could drop into a ten-foot hole."
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by
the Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
Hurricane force winds blow rocks and sand into the dogs' faces:
"From Eagle River at the 20-mile mark to the
community of McGrath, 380 miles later, [Jeremy] Keller and his team of
dogs were met by constant headwinds, ranging from 20-mile-per-hour gusts
to Class 1 hurricane-force gales of 60-70 miles per hour over the treacherous
trail leading to Rainy Pass."
"
"'I
[Jeremy Keller] was getting rocks and sand in my face. That's how hard
it was blowing.'"
- Maureen Mullen, Boston Globe, April 1, 2007
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition:
You can be sure that rocks and sand hit the dogs in their faces, too.]
Dogs
swept downstream:
"I hollered, and the dogs plunged in. Immediately,
they were swept downstream."
-
Mackey, Dick. One Second to Glory, Alaska: Epicenter Press, 2001
Dogs
plummet thousands of feet into valley then have to climb back up:
"Martin
[Buser] explained that his team had veered off of the trail at the ridge
top and had plummeted down thousands of feet into the valley below. They
had been tangled in willows for 30 minutes and then they had to climb
back up the valley."
-
Aliy Zirlke, SP Kennel Dog Log, July 31, 2010
Fierce wind causes dogs to free-fall down a mountain:
"We
crested a knoll and the wind was so fierce that it shoved Salem to the
right, pushing the whole team off the trail's edge. They tumbled downhill
away from the path we'd been following."
"We were free-falling down the mountain."
-
Frederic, Lisa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
Dogs bouncing off of frozen trees:
"[Matt] Failor said nothing had prepared him for the treacherous stretch
where he and his team were bouncing off frozen, charred trees in an area
that had recently burned...."
- Matt Markey, Toledo Blade, March 18, 2012
Dogs forced to run over trail with deep holes:
"I had seen the moose tracks in the trail,
and it is not something mushers like to see. A moose had walked down the
groomed trail leaving deep post holes of footprints. Dogs can, and in
Pledge’s case did, step into them and strain an ankle or shoulder in the
process."
- Jodi Bailey, dewclawkennel.com, 2012
Fast
trail takes a toll on the dogs:
"The
trail is really fast and that can take a toll on the dogs, this type of
trail."
- Mark Wildermuth, talking to Loudon Wilson on KTNA-FM, Talkeetna, March
9, 2011
Mushers
give dogs unsafe drugs
Females dogs allowed to take hazardous drugs:
Andrea Floyd-Wilson: "I found it very interesting
that one type of drug that they [Iditarod Trail Administration] allow
is specific for the female dogs. They allow Cheque Drops or Ovaban, drugs
that are used to prevent the dogs from coming into season, and my understanding
is these are not real safe drugs."
Dr. Paula Kislak: "They're not safe drugs.
They have been implicated in causing cancer, but quite honestly these
people aren't looking toward the long term well-being and the long term
future of these dogs. And, for obvious reasons, it would be very disruptive
to have a female in heat because the males would get completely distracted.
And yet, they don't want to spay the females, because if a female does
perform well, she will be used as a breeding bitch. They are giving drugs
that are hormones, that are powerful hormones and do have consequences
in the long term, but, again, they're not looking at the long term best
interests of the animal."
- Andrea Floyd-Wilson is the host of the All About
Animals Radio Show. On February 23, 2003, she interviewed
Paula Kislak, DVM, President of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal
Rights.
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: The Iditarod race rules permit the
use of Ovaban and Cheque Drops.]
Mushers ignore that,
by
nature, dogs love to sleep
It's natural for dogs to spend most of their lives sleeping:
Margery Glickman: "Dogs
like to sleep a lot. And, maybe Dr. Kislak would like to speak about it.
My understanding is that the average dog likes to sleep anywhere from
14 to 18 hours a day."
Dr. Paula Kislak: "Yes, that's correct. If
we are going all the way back into the instinctual behavior of dogs, they
sleep all day and hunt for maybe two to four, maximum six hours in the
evening. The rest of the time is spent in the cave cleaning and sleeping.
I certainly have found in my practice and with my own animals that that's
probably an overestimation of the amount of time they'd really like to
be sleeping. They'd really like to be sleeping much more, obviously, since
they don't have to hunt. They'll typically sleep anywhere from 14 to 20
hours in a day. Which brings up the point that when the musher is sleeping
[while the dogs race], of course, the dogs are not able to sleep. Not
only does that create extreme stress and exertion on the dogs, but, also
leads to accidents where the dogs do get strangled by the towlines and
gouged by the sleds. It's completely irresponsible behavior."
- On February 23, 2003, Andrea Floyd-Wilson, the host of All About Animals
Radio Show, interviewed Margery Glickman, Director of the Sled Dog Action
Coalition, and Paula Kislak, DVM, President of the Association of Veterinarians
for Animal Rights.
Dog
fell asleep while racing:
"What [Kathie] Davis hadn't expected was seeing one of her dogs go to
sleep in the middle of the run.
'He just fell flat on his side, got up, looked around and went on,' she
said."
- Paul Strelow, Spartanburg Herald-Journal, April 6, 2006
Would the dog rather be sleeping or racing? Did
the dog continue to run only because he was attached to the sled?
Dogs
starts to fall asleep while racing:
"'She started leaning up on the gang line -- she
was starting to fall asleep while she was running,'" he [Zack Steer] said.
"Then she'd sort of stumble and wake up."
- Zack Steer is talking about his dog named Envy.
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News- The Sled Blog, March 17,
2010
Dog
vanishes from gangline and goes to sleep:
"It
[Buser's dog Quebec] had vanished from his gangline while he was on the
move – and Buser had failed to notice."
"But he had to turn the team around for an hour before they tracked down
Quebec, who had curled up in the snow to nap, probably right where he’d
come loose."
-
Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 12, 2005
Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
Exhausted
dogs may rather sleep than eat:
"Iditarod dogs have to consume enormous amounts
of food during the course of the race. Recent studies have shown that
a 50-pound sled dog can burn more than 10,000 calories a day while distance
racing.
Yet, after running for six-hour stretches, if a dog’s dinner isn’t extremely
enticing, they may decide to curl up and sleep rather than eat, and once
that happens it’s the beginning of the end for that mushers chances of
making it all the way."
- Joseph Robertia, Kenai Peninsula, March 5, 2006
Exhausted dogs sleep through ear-piercing noise:
"He [Bryan Bearss] borrowed a drill from the checkpoint and put new holes
in his brush bow. Despite the ear-piercing noise, his dogs lay sound asleep."
-
Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2006
(Remember, dogs hear better than humans.)
Rather than running, Paul Ellering's dogs went to sleep:
"I got into a routine: drive five hours, stop, 'drop'
the dogs--take them out of their boxes--give them water, then put them
back in their box. Drive five hours and do it all over again."
"Five hours after leaving Edmonton [Canada], I pulled into a truck stop
for a dog drop and snooze. I awoke two hours later and was crawling from
the back of the truck into the front seat to put in my contact lenses
when my peripheral vision noticed something wrong. In my side mirror,
I saw that a dogbox door was open. I had flashes of a lost dog...but which
dog? Then I remembered that that box had two dogs in it.
I hastily put in the left contact lens, then the right one."
"Opening the truck door, I stepped onto the squeaking snow and walked
to the open dog box, hoping (please God) the dogs would be in there. The
box was empty, as I knew it would be."
"There was nothing I could do but drive around and look for them. I started
the Excursion and glanced in the side mirror as I pulled away from the
spot where we had slept. I noticed something under the trailer. No!...I
didn't run other something, did I? I looked under the Excursion and the
trailer, didn't I? I kept going with the truck spinning the tires till
I'd made a full circle. There they were sleeping together like man and
wife."
- Paul Ellering describing his trip from Minnesota to Anchorage for the
start of the 2000 Iditarod.
- Ellering, Paul. Wrestling the Iditarod, Bend: Maverick Publications,
2005
Matt Rossi's dogs want to sleep:
"A search team of local snowmachiners scrambled
late Thursday night and helped Wisconsin musher Matt Rossi find his missing
dog team.
The 49-year-old rookie lost his 15-dog team just after sunset. But with
the help of speedy snowmachines, he found the team sleeping four miles
off course on the Big River."
- Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2007
Dan Seavey's dogs want to sleep:
"Musket” groaned as Iditarod musher Dan Seavey,
74, hiked the husky to its feet. 'C’mon,' Seavey said. 'It won’t be so
bad once we get going.'
The dog blinked. Straw, spread on the snow as bedding, clung to its fur.
'They’re in their nice warm bed. How would you like to be jerked out of
bed, and your slippers put on your feet and your hands at the same time?'
Seavey said as he slipped booties on the dog’s paws.
Even as his son and grandson rocket ahead, each in search of a championship,
Seavey is trailing more than 60 racers at back of the Iditarod pack. But
it wasn’t the old musher who was sleepy in Skwentna Monday. It was his
dogs."
- Kyle Hopkins, Iditablog, Anchorage Daily News, March 5, 2012
- The Skwentna checkpoint is 72 miles from Willow where the race officially
started.
Dogs
are forced to race in the Iditarod
Andrea Floyd-Wilson: "I've
had people say, humans participate in these same kinds of sports. There
is the Eco-Challenge that is a very long and grueling race across a lot
of different terrains for humans. I'd love to see the statistics on how
many humans die in that event. The difference to me is the humans can
sit there and reason out well I'm going to take this risk and the dog
doesn't understand the risks at the beginning of the race."
Dr. Paula Kislak: "Well,
that's correct. The human is making his own choice to participate in athletic
events. They do their risk versus benefit assessment. If the benefits
in terms of self-esteem or product promotion or financial gain warrant
it, they can choose to participate. They also can know their own limits
and drop out before it becomes life-threatening. We don't know when it
becomes life-threatening to these dogs. Of course, they do not get their
own free will and their own choice to participate, nor do they get rewards
of participating. We can't tell when dehydration or excessive exertion
or cardiomyopathy, problems with the heart muscle, are occurring. They
can't tell us. We don't know, and that's a big reason why there is such
a high death rate. And, in the half that does finish there is a great
deal of internal injury even though we don't perceive it on the outside."
- Andrea Floyd-Wilson is the
host of the All About Animals Radio Show. On February 23, 2003, she interviewed
Paula Kislak, DVM, President of the Association of Veterinarians for Animal
Rights.
Mushers
throw dogs into freezing water:
"I
had this little, bitty thing of a leader named Dolly. I told her to go
and she looked at me as if to say, 'No.' I picked her up and tossed her
in the water, and on we went."
-
Diana Dronenburg Moroney, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
"When
I got to a creek crossing, mushers Tom Daily and Barry Lee were trying
to figure out what to do because it was rushing open water. There were
jagged sticks sticking out." "One person threw the lead dogs
in the water...."
-
Brian O'Donaghue, Iditarod musher and former Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
reporter
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
Tom
Daily drags dogs:
"He
[Tom Daily] grabbed Bogus by the collar and dragged the team forward.
It was a struggle, but he got the dogs moving."
-
O'Donoghue, Brian. My lead dog was a lesbian, New York: Random
House, 1996
-
Brian O'Donaghue, Iditarod musher and former Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
reporter
Jerry Riley drags dogs:
"Those who saw him [Jerry Riley] leave said the
dogs hadn't wanted to go; they had tried to run into the armory, and when
he dragged them off the step and turned out of town, they ran under a
house."
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod,
Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 1988
Harmony
Baron drags dogs:
"Harmony's team must have balked at the climb, veering downstream in the
river. It was horrifying seeing them straining to continue down into the
abyss. She had flipped her sled to add resistance, and she looked tiny
trying to crawl with the leaders. Every inch seemed to be painstakingly
gained as she tried to grip small brush with one hand, dragging her lead
dog with the other."
- Lisa Frederic. Running with Champions,
Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Books, 2006
Don Bowers drags dogs:
"He [Bear] actually won't get up when the team starts. I have to
stop even before we get moving and haul him upright by his harness. Then
he will go maybe 50 yards and fall down, allowing himself to be dragged
like a sack of rice until I stop the team again."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
Dog
vanishes, goes to sleep, but is back racing:
"It
[Buser's dog Quebec] had vanished from his gangline while he was on the
move – and Buser had failed to notice."
"But he had to turn the team around for an hour before they tracked down
Quebec, who had curled up in the snow to nap, probably right where he’d
come loose."
"He [Buser] looked at Quebec, now running in wheel [position on the sled]...."
-
Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 12, 2005
Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News.
Dogs
would rather rest than run:
"There are reports he [Robert Sorlie] had a hard time leaving Shaktoolik,
and I believe them. But that happens sometimes. Lance Mackey and Aliy
Zirkle were slow to leave Grayling, back on the Yukon River, but their
teams obviously have perked up considerably since then."
- Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 14, 2005
Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News and was an Iditarod
musher
Phil
Morgan pulls unwilling dogs:
"The
44-year-old pilot for Alaska Airlines felt happy but more relieved that
the race from Anchorage to Nome was finally done. He spent the final day
trudging his dilatory lead dogs through a blizzard that began near White
Mountain."
"[Phil] Morgan was the only musher around, and he'd been pulling his lead
dog on a leash for about five miles. He said driving his dogs from Unalakleet
to Nome was a struggle the entire way."
-
Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 22, 2005
James Warren drags lead dog:
"He (Swen) ran with no problems for 3 or 4 miles.
Suddenly he did a U-turn and brought the whole team back to me on the
sled. He laid down on the snow and turned over on his back like a puppy,
scared." "Scared or not, tired or rested, bewildered or not, I expected
him to 'lead' and take this team over the mountains." "I scolded
Swen and grabbed him by the collar and ran, dragging him 80 feet back
to the front of the string of dogs. He knew he'd better not do that again."
- James Warren, Iditarod '06 Journal, published on the Internet
Jerry Riley pushes sled into his dog:
"[Jerry] Riley, crossing with only six dogs, pushed
had to keep up. When [Sonny] Lindner saw him he thought maybe the team
was done. 'Saw him out on the ice pushing his sled into one of his dogs.'
he said."
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Dogs
are forced to race:
"Not
one single human is forced to run the Boston Marathon. Those same humans
choose how often they train, how hard they train, where they live, what
they eat, and what they do with their time when they're not racing or
training. Of course they do, they're humans. Iditarod dogs, well, they're
just dogs.
What would [Craig] Medred, a pretty fair runner, think about this scenario:
Stuff Medred into a small, wooden box, with 15 teammates not of his choosing,
on the back of a pickup for a long drive to a race he doesn't even know
he is going to run. Forcibly hook him up in a harness to run with his
teammates.
Don't tell him how far the race is, don't tell him about
the terrain, don't tell him what the weather will be, put his shoes on
only when you think he needs them, feed him and rest him only when you
think he needs it...and run him for at least 1,000 miles. If he backpeddles
at crossing some freezing water, grab his harness and drag him through
it anyway. If he wants to curl up in a snowbank to get out of the brutal
weather, grab his harness and drag him back on the race course.
When the race is over, put him on a short chain, next to his runner's
mansion, out in the yard with a hundred other runners, where he will spend
most of his time when he's not training or racing. Is he having fun yet?"
- Craig Medred is an Anchorage Daily News columnist and Iditarod
supporter
- Jim Thorson, resident of Anchorage, letter to the editor, Anchorage
Daily News, March 21, 1999
"Libby is one of my originals. … This is her last
go at it, whether she wants to go again or not."
- Lance Mackey is talking about his dog Libby.
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 3, 2011
Doug
Swingley's dogs don't want to run:
"Robert
[Sorlie] does also report that Doug Swingley had to make several stops
before he managed to get out of Takotna. He managed to do so, but, as
one may understand, the team was not straight forward crazy about leaving
now."
- Robert Sorlie's report, Team Norway website, March 8, 2006
- Robert Sorlie won the 2005 Iditarod.
- Takotna was a checkpoint in the 2006 race.
"Swingley has mentioned for the last couple of days
that his leaders don't like ice. At least at this point of the race some
900 miles along, they're scared of it or fed up with it. Either way, they
stop and the team balls up when they hit a patch."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod Coverage, Cabela's website, March 13,
2006
- Jon Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News.
Without
pre-paid phone card, Judy Currier won't scratch:
"Right off the bat, Currier found out that her leader corps wasn't
as strong as she'd hoped going into the race. She only had one reliable
dog running up front. Also, her team wasn't accustomed to camping out,
especially in the 40-below cold that pressed in on mushers leaving Takotna.
She skipped Ophir and Cripple checkpoints on her way to Ruby, which obviously
took the starch out of her dogs."
''It [The wind] just knocked us right off the trail,' Currier said. There,
she started losing time on other mushers because she was often stopping
and putting in new leaders, trying to find the magic combination that
would spark the team forward. But there were no takers. 'My dogs aren't
used to that kind of wind, even if it is from behind."
"Her main leader, a dog named Dale, spent the next couple of days
breaking trail through soft snow, to Kaltag and up the hilly portage over
to Unalakleet. There, she had more bad news. Dale had broken a toenail
on one of his back feet, which isn't critical but it was annoying the
dog. There were still 200 miles of wind-swept coast yet to go. It looked
so bleak that Currier would have scratched, but she couldn't find her
pre-paid phone card to call her husband. 'At that point, I figured we'd
go checkpoint to checkpoint.'"
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod Coverage, Cabela's
website, March 21, 2006
-
Jon Litte formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News.
-
Iditarod transports scratched mushers and their dogs:
"Rule
9 -- Scratched Mushers: ITC [Iditarod Trail Committee] will provide transportation
to either Anchorage or Nome for any musher who scratches from the race,
including his or her dogs and accompanying gear."
-
Iditarod rule, Iditarod website, 2006
Dog
fell asleep while racing but must continue racing:
"What [Kathie] Davis hadn't expected was seeing one of her dogs go to
sleep in the middle of the run. 'He just fell flat on his side, got up,
looked around and went on,' she said."
- Paul Strelow, Spartanburg Herald-Journal, April 6, 2006
Would the dog rather be sleeping or racing? Did
the dog continue to run only because he was attached to the sled?
Dog starts to fall asleep while running but is forced to continue:
"'She
started leaning up on the gang line -- she was starting to fall asleep
while she was running,'" he [Zack Steer] said.
"Then she'd sort of stumble and wake up."
- Zack Steer is talking about his dog named Envy.
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News- The Sled
Blog, March 17, 2010
Harmony
Baron forces dogs to cross bridge:
"A
bit later I had passed Harmony as well. Her team had balked crossing a
small bridge outside Farewell Lake, forcing her to take the dogs across
one at a time."
- Frederic, Lisa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
Jon
Korta forces dogs to race in violent head winds:
"But
he [Jon Korta] and the others who took off into violent head winds recounted
an ordeal trying to get balking leaders to push into the blasting wind
in temperatures near 20 below."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod race coverage, March 7, 2007
- Jon Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
Heather
Siirtola pushes her dogs to race:
"Siirtola thought about pulling out of the race
after the intestinal virus forced her to use only eight dogs for the second
half.
'There were a lot of injuries and illness this year. Things I just couldn't
do anything about except take them off the team,' she said.
'I was down to eight dogs by the halfway mark and I really did give a
lot of thought about dropping out," Siirtola said. "But I'm really glad
I kept at it. I didn't know if I should push them any farther.'"
- Associated Press, March 17, 2008
John
Baker pushes his dogs to run in warm weather:
"[John]
Baker confessed the run was tough due to warmer weather. Ideally, he would
have liked temperatures of 5 below.
He indicated that his dogs labored, but he kept pushing them on."
- Tamar Ben-Yosef, The Cordova Times, March 20, 2008
Rachael
Scdoris picks up dog to throw across open water:
"But Jovi, one of my leaders, was afraid of open
water and refused to jump across the span. I ventured out onto the ice
bridge and picked up Jovie to toss him across."
-
Scdoris, Rachael and Steber, Rick. No End in Sight: My Life as a Blind
Iditarod Racer, New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2007
Puppies are forced
to race
Racing in Iditarod will likely damage puppies:
"Young dogs of large-breed species are often not
fully mature until 3-4 years of age. And, just like children, they are
unable to safely sustain rigorous activities like long-distance endurance
events. The resulting damage to the developing bone cells can be painful
and will hasten the onset of degenerative joint disease. Some veterinary
oncologists even believe that bony microtrauma may increase the incidence
of osteosarcoma (bone cancer). Additionally, the neuromuscular connections
are not fully formed thereby rendering the pup's coordination less than
optimal. As a result, injuries are more likely to occur. The cardiovascular
and pulmonary systems of puppies are also of greater risk, although the
damaging effects of overexertion may or may not be immediately apparent.
Young athletes must be protected on amounts of stress that endurance events
place on them and should only gradually be conditioned into adulthood."
- Paula Kislak, DVM, President of the Association of Veterinarians for
Animal Rights in an email sent to the Sled Dog Action Coalition on March 10,
2004
Janice Blue: "Dr. Kislak in one interview you did
with Andrea Floyd-Wilson who is the host of All About Animals, the radio
show, a couple of years ago, you mentioned that a lot of these dogs are
very young, and just like children, where their bones are still growing,
they're not fully developed and that creates all kinds of problems."
Dr. Paula Kislak: "Yes, the growth plates, which
are the cartilage plates that are important in bone formation are not
mature in large breed dogs for at least up to two years and usually later.
And these animals are started training much younger than that, and so
it puts unbearable stress on the bones and the tendons and the ligaments
and the cartilage and that's why so many of them wash out early. And the
ones that don't wash out early, that actually make it to the race, then
develop crippling arthritis within a year or two after that. And if they're
good breeding stock, then they're kept alive even despite the crippling
arthritis and their kept in these horrible freezing cold outdoor conditions."
- Janice Blue is the host of the radio program Go Vegan Texas,
KPFT
- Dr. Paula Kislak, DVM, is president of the Association of Veterinarians
for Animal Rights
- The interview was done on February 27, 2006
Puppies injured in Iditarod more likely to be crippled for life:
"Mushers have told me that when a puppy is injured
from racing in the Iditarod, he or she is more likely to be crippled for
life."
- Ashley Keith, former musher and Iditarod kennel employee who now rescues
and rehabilitates abused sled dogs
- Email to the Sled Dog Action Coalition, April 28, 2007
Jeff King forces his two pregnant puppies to race on Dave DeCaro's
team:
"Schilling (F) - Dollar X Solomon (J. Little) 1 Year; 46 lbs; Intact
& currently pregnant - bred by 'Coltrane' Dave's [DeCaro] "B" Team
Iditarod Finisher I just ran this beauty 40 miles this morning. Gorgeous
gait, beautiful coat, calm disposition. Awesome, fast trotter and according
to Dave [DeCaro] 'seemed completely at home on the race trail. Ate a ton
and was always looked like a playful pup. Never once did I see a slack
tug-line on Schilling.' Her pups are due in early May and are part
of the deal." [Emphasis added.]
"Opel (F) - Berkeley X Viper 2 Years; 43 lbs; Intact & currently
pregnant - by 'Suspect' Dave's [DeCaro] "B" Team Iditarod Dropped
in Shaktoolik [Iditarod checkpoint], Opel has been a stand-out from early
on. She finished the Kusko 300 in 2009 with Dave [DeCaro]and ran on my
team in the 2009 Stage Stop Race. According to Dave 'she ate great and
was a happy dog. She was coming out of heat and had been bred a few
days before the race, and it seemed to affect her performance.'
Her pups are due in early May and are part
of the deal." [Emphasis added.]
- Dave DeCaro raced Jeff King's puppies in the 2010 Iditarod.
- HuskyHomestead. blogspot, March 28, 2010
- Dave DeCaro runs Jeff King's puppies:
"He [Dave DeCaro] is not expecting to win the race;
rather, it will be a learning experience for this 'puppy team' for future
races."
"'My dogs are mostly 18 to 36 months old – it's the minor league team.'"
- Dave DeCaro works for Iditarod musher Jeff King's Husky Homestead Tours.
- Fran Mannino, Webster-Kirkwood Times, February 26, 2010
"Meanwhile, Dave DeCaro and our full team of 16,
crazy puppies arrive into Nikolai early this morning."
- Iditarod musher Jeff King, Husky Homestead blog, March 10, 2010
Kelly Maixner and Trent Herbst raced 1 and 2-year old puppies:
"[Kelly] Maixner purchased his pups from Buser and
while the bloodlines are good, he said, he may have one of the youngest
teams in the 62-team field. His kennel, Mad Stork Kennels, has 49 dogs,
all 1- and 2-year-olds."
- Brian Gehring, Bismarck Tribune, February 27, 2011
Name: Jody
Age: 1
Weight: 38 pounds
Musher: Kelly Maixner
-
Klye Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 6, 2011
"In every race until now, [Trent] Herbst has run
one- and 2-year-old dogs borrowed from someone else's kennels."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 11, 2011
Ed Stielstra forces 1-year-old to race:
Name: Lynn "Swanny"
Swann
Gender: Female
Age: 1
Weight: 52 pounds
Position: Team dog, may lead later in the race.
Musher: Ed Stielstra
"It’s the first race she’s ever run in her
life. She’s only a year old,' Stielstra said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March
10, 2011
17-month-old puppy forced to race:
"[Jeff] Wells' team for this race is a puppy team
from [Jeff] King's Goose Lake Kennel in Denali. Of the 16 dogs on his
team, there are 10 yearlings. Only 12 dogs can start. His favorite dog
is one of those yearlings, his leaddog Klarney, a small black female.
His youngest is just 17 months old."
- Kortnie Westfall, Sun Star online edition, March 6, 2007
19-month-old puppies forced to race:
"Beginning Sunday, she [Sue Allen] will embark on
a trail over treacherous mountain ranges, across frozen rivers, through
dense forests and the like on a sled charged by inexperienced, 19-month-old
dogs “green as green can be,” as she described them.
Those dogs are not even her own. They belong to Iditarod legend Martin
Buser, four-time champion and race record-holder...."
- Kevin Stevens, The Ithaca Journal, February 27, 2008
"There were times when things were getting pretty
serious, but the dogs just wanted to play; they wanted to play with their
neighbor instead of pull."
- Sue Allen talking about the yearling's she raced
- Kevin Stevens, Press & Sun Bulletin, March 26, 2008
(From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Sue Allen started
the Iditarod with 16 puppies. According to the Iditarod's website, only
eight of them made it across the finish line.)
Two-year-old puppies, common on some teams, lack stamina:
"Mushers sometimes bring dogs as young as 2 on a
big race like this, but the youngsters usually don't have the speed, stamina
and experience to contend. For Weik and others building teams, however,
2-year-olds are common."
- Joel Gay, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2004
"In his rookie run in 2001, [Clint] Warnke guided a team of Swingley
puppies."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 18, 2003
"A small young 2 year old female she pulled hard
all the way and made it so far, but she just wasn’t eating enough and
she was getting thin."
- - Bruce Linton, Iditarod Journals, website article, 2007
Ken Anderson races five two-year old puppies:
"[Ken] Anderson had an incredibly young, and inexperienced
group of dogs this year. Five were two years old...."
- Jon Little, Cabela's website, March 19, 2005
- Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News
Katie Davis, Sue Firmin and C. Mark Chapoton race 18-month-old puppies:
"Her task is guiding a team of 16 "puppies" -- about 18-month-old dogs,
young for top-flight racing -- to the finish line to prepare them for
future Iditarods."
- The author is talking about the puppies Katie Davis will race in 2006
- Paul Strelow, Spartanburg Herald-Journal, March 3, 2006
"Basically my team in '81 was all young dogs. Half
the team was year-and-a-half-old dogs."
- Sue Firmin is talking about her dogs.
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
"The team went like this: Emitt, a ten-year-old
leader, and Tatters…my eighteen month old wonder in the lead."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods,
Big Lake: CMC, 2008
Katie Davis wants to push 18-month-old puppies to race:
"Once they figure out there's an end [to the race],
they can be pushed to do it."
-
Katie Davis is talking.
- Paul Strelow, Spartanburg Herald-Journal, March 3, 2006
Sonny Lindner, Ed Iten, Billy Snodgrass, Kris Hoffman and Tom Thurston
raced two-year old puppies:
"'I've got a team of mostly two-year-olds...,' [Sonny] Lindner said."
- Bob Eley, Fairbanks Daily News Miner, March 6, 2006
"In the past, we've always run a lot of two year-olds with our team...."
- Musher Ed Iten talking about his dogs
- Steve Heimel interviewer, Alaska Public Radio Network, February 28,
2006
"All those two-year old goof-balls are in the
truck. They'll go tomorrow."
- Musher Billy Snodgrass talking about his dogs at the ceremonial start
- The actual race started on March 6, 2011
- Video by Joshua Tucker Alaska Public Radio, March 5, 2011
"[Kris] Hoffman and [Tom] Thurston will be racing
with the majority of their dogs being puppies, about 2 years old.
- Dagny McKinley, Steamboat Today, March 6, 2011
Matt Failor says he's not racing adults; his dogs are less than two
years and three months old:
"Every dog in my team is under the age of two years
and three months, so I don't have any adults."
- Matt Failor, video on Anchorage Daily News website, March 5,
2012
- Matt Failor is an Iditarod musher
Lisa Frederic raced Jeff
King's puppies:
"I knew I just had puppies."
- Lisa Frederic talking about the puppies she was racing in the 2002 Iditarod.
The pups belonged to Iditarod musher Jeff King.
- Frederic, Lisa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
Lance Mackey runs 18-month-old dogs in the lead:
"He [Lance Mackey] singled out the performance of
an honest yearling, a dog that is 18 months old, named Rev, who has been
running in lead for him. Most mushers don't contemplate racing a yearling
hard; some refuse even to allow yearlings to participate at all."
- Jon Little, Cabela's Iditarod coverage, March 9, 2007
- Jon Little formerly wrote for the Anchorage Daily News.
"I was down to eight dogs. My only remaining leader
was an inexperienced, eighteen-month-old female, and two more dogs were
sore and starting to limp."
- Lance Mackey is talking about his dogs in the 2002 Iditarod.
- Mackey, Lance. The Lance Mackey Story, Fairbanks: Zorro Books,
LLC, 2010
Lance Macky races another puppy:
"One of them I didn't even expect to make it just
because she's not even two-years-old, but she will be this summer."
- Lance Mackey is talking - Kevin Wells, KTUU-TV, KTUU.com, March 18,
2009
George Attla races puppy about 18 months old:
"Another dog I had was James, about 1 ½ years old,
45 pounds."
- Attla, George, and Bella Levorsen, editor. Everything I Know About
Training and Racing Sled Dogs, Rome: Arner Publications, 1974
Matt Anderson raced many puppies:
"[Matt] Anderson's team was full of puppies."
- Eric Mandel, The Daily Iowan, March 29, 2007
Kristy Berington races puppies:
"Meet Houston, the lynchpin in Kasilof rookie Kristy
Berington's team. On a squad of puppies, 10-year-old Houston is the role
model."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News - The Sled Blog, March 11,
2010
Small
dog teams pull mushers and heavy sleds huge distances
8
dogs to pull musher and heavy sled 677
miles:
"Jerry
Riley of Nenana left Ophir in sixth place at 10:15 a.m. after dropping
three dogs, leaving with just eight."
[From
the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Ophir is 677 miles from Nome, where the
race ends.
This figure comes from Sports Ticker, March 8, 2000. According an article
by Miami Herald sports columnist Greg Cote, the sleds weigh more
than 400 lbs. Gerald Riley was once banned from the Iditarod but was later
reinstated.]
- Mark Downey, Great Falls Tribune, March
7, 2002
6 dogs to pull musher and heavy sled 453 miles:
On March 9, 2002, Jerry Riley left the Galena checkpoint
with only 6 dogs to pull him and his heavy sled the 453 miles to Nome
where the race ends. Sleds can weigh more than 400 lbs.
- Information on the number of dogs Riley left Galena
with and the mileage comes from Joe Runyan, Cabela's Iditarod webite,
2002
- Information on sled weight: Greg Cote, Miami
Herald, March 5, 2002
8 dogs to pull musher and packed sled 401 miles. They get 9 minute rest:
On
March 9, 2002, DeeDee Jonrowe left the the Nutalo checkpoint with just
8 dogs to do the back breaking job of pulling her and her packed sled
401 miles to Nome. Jonrowe only rested these dogs for 9 minutes at Nutalo.
- Information on the number of dogs Jonrowe left
Nutalo with, the time she rested her dogs and the mileage comes from Joe
Runyan, Cabela's Iditarod webite, 2002
8 dogs to pull musher and heavy sled sled 617
miles:
On March 9, 2002, Keith Aili left the Cripple checkpoint
with only 8 dogs to do the arduous job of pulling him and his heavy sled
617 miles to Nome. Sleds can weigh more than 400 lbs.
- Information on the number of dogs Aili left Cripple
with and the mileage come from Joe Runyan on Cabela's Iditarod website,
March 9, 2002
- Sled weight comes from Greg Cote, Miami Herald, March 5, 2002
Sled
with musher on-board weighs 500 pounds:
"My
sled weighed at least 300 pounds. The total load had to be closer to 500
pounds with me added."
- O'Donoghue, Brian Patrick. My Lead Dog was
a Lesbian, New York: Vintage Books, 1996
-
O'Donoghue was a reporter with the Fairbanks News-Miner
Sled weighs more than 600 pounds:
The dogs were "...pulling their 600-pound-plus
load...."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
Sick and injured dogs pull sled weighing 300 lbs:
"Among them was 38 lb Utah who was still sick and
hardly pulling. There was 35 lb Spelaman who even when pulling hard she
isn't much capability. So ignore Utah and Spelaman, I have seven dogs
pulling a sled weighing 300 lbs."
"I decided to return to Takotna and assess
the situation there."
"At Takotna the vets checked the dogs. Falcon, Duke and Soap Here
had to be dropped."
"Carter too had to be dropped because of a foot problem. Utah was
feverish and marginal at best." Raven's shoulder was sore...."
"They advised me that Spelaman was too skinny and would likely to
be dropped for his safety down the trail."
- James Warren, Iditarod '06 Journal, published on the Internet
Dogs mashed up against 300 to 400 pound sled:
"His dogsled missed a curve at the top
of the hill and went off a snow-covered cliff.
The only thing that kept it from rolling 75 feet to the bottom was the
cottonwood tree. [Spenser] Thew ended up with his team partially on the
trail, and his sled hanging from its gangline around the tree with his
wheel dogs mashed up against it and yelping."
"'The problem is, I've got an awful lot of stuff in the sled,' Thew
said.
That was a bit of an understatement. The sled must have weighed 300 to
400 pounds."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 1993
Every musher's sled is too heavy:
"Every musher's sled is too heavy from the restart
to at least Nikolai. You need a truck to haul the necessities of life
on the trail...."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 7, 2004
Sled weighed 400 pounds:
"My sled didn't break. Nothing broke. My 400-pound
operation must have hit that tree at 20 mph."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008
Sled weighed 500 pounds:
"With five-hundred-pound loads in the sled-the same
kind of loads we'd haul between some of the distant Yukon Quest checkpoints-I
want to go about the same speed as traveling light with an empty sled."
- Mackey, Lance. The Lance Mackey Story, Fairbanks: Zorro Books,
LLC, 2010
Sled felt like it weighed 1,000 pounds:
"On top of everything else, the wet, warm snow on
the trail was sticking to the runners like glue, adding to the drag and
making the dogs' burden worse. My sled felt like it weighed a thousand
pounds."
- Riddles, Libby and Tim Jones. Race Across Alaska, Harrisburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Mushers dance on their sleds and focus on scenery,
music and audio books
(Shouldn't mushers pay attention to their dogs?)
Kyple Hopkins: Are you listening to music
on the dog sled this year?
John Baker: I did listen to music the other day coming into Nikolai.
Kyle Hopkins: What do you like?
John Baker: I enjoy rock. Some country. Older country. But I enjoy
rock and roll from the '80s and late '70s. I love dancing and I dance
a lot on the sled when listening to music. And I probably use up a lot
of energy.
Kyle Hopkins: How much can you dance on a dog sled?
John Baker: Oh, you’d be surprised.
- Kyle Hopkins, iditarodblog, Anchorage Daily News, March 7, 2012
"Rookie Dennis Kananowicz obviously planned to spend
as little time as possible at the Takotna checkpoint last week, during
what some mushers call a 'hit and run.'"
"Just when he looked ready to call out for his team to leave, Kananowics
did what may mushers do: pondered his next musical selection."
"Many [mushers] find solace inspiration and rejuvenation easing out of
their disc players, iPods and Walkmans."
"'I've always got a Walkman or something,' said Martin Buser."
"Rookie Ellie Claus said she's listening to audio books."
"She [Karen Ramstead] has five audio books not to mention every CD in
her home collection installed on her iPod."
- Joel Gray, Anchorage Daily News, March 16, 2004
"Martin Buser leaves Anvik with a headset that will
hopefully fill his head with a melody of diversions."
- Outdoor Life Network (OLN), Iditarod, 2005
"'I'm always looking around (while mushing),' Mackey
explained. 'I know what the trail looks like and I know what the butt
of a dog looks like, so I'm always looking at the scenery.'"
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 17, 2010
"[Martin] Buser wore an iTouch tucked into his fleece headband. He finished
a book on tape -- Adam Carolla's In Fifty Years We'll All be Chicks
-- just as he arrived in Takotna.
The MP3 player is stuffed with country and classic rock, among other tunes,
Buser said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2011
"I remember listening to a Star Trek novel on tape
during that run."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake:
CMC, 2008
"She [Libby Riddles] pushed a button on her radio to block out the racket
of the wind."
- Cellura, Dominique. Travelers of the Cold: Sled Dogs of the Far North,
Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Books, 1990
"Just before she left, Colleen Robertia of Kasilof
handed [Kelley] Griffin an emergency stash of batteries. Griffin's iPod
had died and she coudn't get Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” out of her
head."
- Alaska Dispatch, March 13, 2012
Old, small, blind,
deaf and skinny dogs forced to race
Suffering of old, and small, skinny dogs when endurance raced:
"Like humans, members of the canine species start
experiencing deterioration of the musculoskeletal, GI (gastrointestinal),
kidney, liver, immune and other organ systems by middle age. After 4-5
years of age, desiccation (drying) of bones and soft tissues cause them
to become more brittle, putting older dogs at increased risk for fractures
and painful, persistent tendon, ligament, and muscular injuries. Degradation
with age of other protective biological mechanisms and systems, like immune
function, result in an inability to withstand the rigors and stresses
of endurance training and racing, and are likely one of the factors in
the prevalence of bleeding ulcers."
"When dogs under 40-50 lbs. are endurance trained and raced, their health
and welfare are compromised by subjecting them to forces and loads greater
than their musculoskeletal frames should carry."
- Dr. Paula Kislak, DVM, Director, Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association,
email to the Sled Dog Action Coalition, June 18, 2011
In general, dogs are considered "senior" around age seven:
"As a general rule of thumb, dogs and
cats are considered 'senior' around age seven."
- Dr. Janet Tobiassen Crosby, DVM, about.com, 2011
Martin
Buser says his 6 or 7-year-old dog is old:
Kyle Hopkins: "Which dog is it that you're
concerned about?
Martin Buser: "An old dog named Roy."
Kyle Hopkins: "How old is he now?"
Martin Buser: "He's 6 or 7 now."
- Iditarodblog, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2011
- Klye Hopkins is a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News.
Martin Buser raced 9, 10 and 11-year-old dogs:
"[Martin] Buser, who has had dogs as old as 9, 10
and 11 on his teams, said some of [Matt] Failor's dogs will be added to
either his team or his son Rohn's team next year."
- Jon Spencer, Mansfield News Journal, March 25, 2012
Dick Mackey and George Attla raced 13-year-old dogs:
"Penny's mother Betsy was the first dog I ever bred
and raced. Betsy was thirteen years old when I retired her from the Iditarod."
- Mackey, Dick. One Second to Glory, Alaska: Epicenter Press, 2001
"The six dogs I had left were Blue, you know my
old leader, the one I talked about earlier in the book. She was 13 years
old and about 40 pounds. I had her in single lead the last part of the
race...."
- Attla, George, and Bella Levorsen, editor. Everything I Know
About Training and Racing Sled Dogs, Rome: Arner Publications, 1974
Sebastian
Schneulle forces 12-year old dog and 10-year-old dogs to race:
Kyle
Hopkins: "Do you have kind of an elderly team?"
Sebastian Schnuelle: "I have definitely an elderly team."
Kyle Hopkins: "12 years old?"
Sebastian Schneulle: "12 years old is the oldest and a couple
of 10 year olds."
- iditablog, Anchorage Daily News, March
9, 2011, Takotna checkpoint
- Kyle Hopkins is a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News.
- According to the Iditarod's website, Takotna is 419 miles
from Anchorage.
Frank Sihler forces 10-year-old blind dog to race:
"'He
[Wiley] is completely blind in one eye and can only see shadows with the
other.'" [Frank] Sihler said."
"Sihler is lagging near the back of the field, but he won't lay the
entire blame on Wiley, who is 10 years old."
- Frank Sihler is an Iditarod musher and Wiley is his 10-year-old dog
- Rachel, D'Oro, Associated Press, March 10, 2003
9-year-old dogs
forced to race:
"Two of the musher's [Dallas Seavey] favored dogs,
lead dog Diesel and 9-year-old Guinness, joined him on the winner's podium."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March
13, 2012
"Iditarod sophomore Scott Janssen was making
his way down a steep section of the Dalzell Gorge when the dog collapsed.One
moment, 9-year-old Marshal was pulling hard at the sled, the tug line
taut as a guitar string. The next, the husky was on the ground.'Boom!
Laid right down. It was like a guy my age having a heart attack,' said
Janssen, who owns an Anchorage funeral home and calls himself 'The Mushing
Mortician.'"
- Kyle Hopkins, Iditarodblog, Anchorage Daily News, March 7, 2012
"At a time when most dogs dream of greener pastures, 9 year old sled
dog, Silver and his owner, Brent Sass, are gearing up to run the grueling
1000 mile Iditarod on March 3."
- Teresa Mahler, Spring to Mind, press release,
February 27, 2012, prweb.com
"Meet
the Team"
"Thornton: Leader 9-year-old female"
"Stovepipe: Leader 9-year-old male"
- Jan Steves, Meet the Team, jansteves.com, March, 2012
"In 1996, Kitty was nine years old when Jeff [King]
got to Safety, the last checkpoint of the Iditarod Trail."
-
Frederic, Lisa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
11-year-old dogs forced to race:
Doug
Swingley speaking about his dog Pepe: "He's
just eleven years old. He just can't or he won't go through this deep
trail as fast as they do."
- Outdoor Life Network (OLN), Rohn Checkpoint, Iditarod, 2005
"[Ramey Smyth] He got emotional,
talking about his geriatric dogs who don't act their age. Babe and Dude
will turn 11 this spring." "'It was a long hard trudge,' Smyth said.
'They just needed to keep their noses to the wheel and they did...."
- Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 13, 2008
"This season [Jessie] Royer has put in 3,600 miles
of training — double her average — and will again be led by Kuling, an
11-year-old...."
- Matias Saari, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, March 4, 2011
10-year-old
dogs made to race:
"Sorlie
was reported to have two 10-year-old huskies in harness."
-
Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, April 17, 2005
"He is almost 10 years old so he will probably not
go on Iditarod again."
- Bruce Linton is talking about his dog Vitus.
- Bruce Linton, Diary of my Iditarod Journey 2008, website article,
2008
"Meet Houston, the lynchpin in Kasilof
rookie Kristy Berington's team. On a squad of puppies, 10-year-old Houston
is the role model."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News - The Sled Blog, March
11, 2010
Laureli Kinneen: "Are there any dogs that are stepping
up?"
Gerry Willomitzer: "Well, I'm relying on a ten-year-old
whose been with me for a long time."
- Laureli Kinneen of KNOM radio interviewed Gerry Willomitzwer on March
16, 2010
"His fate, he [Kirk Barnum] said, belonged
to a 10-year-old lead dog...."
- Craig Medred. Graveyard of Dreams: Dashed Hopes and Shattered Aspirations
Along Alaska's Iditarod Trail, Anchorage: Plaid Cabin Publishing,
2010
"Meet the Team"
"Tok: Leader 10-year-old male"
- Jan Steves, Meet the Team, jansteves.com, March
2012
"In the headlamp's beam, the markers are visible
for a mile ahead, making it almost impossible to get lost in the dark.
I know Slipper is getting on in years (she's 10) and her night vision
is failing."
- Bowers, Don. Back of the Pack, Anchorage: Publication Consultants,
2000
"The team went like this: Emitt, a ten-year-old
leader, and Tatters…my eighteen month old wonder in the lead."
- Chapoton, C. Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big Lake: CMC, 2008
"Five dogs were 10 years old!"
- Nicki Nielsen is talking about Libby Riddles' dogs.
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Zoya DeNure to race dog who'll be 10 years old in spring 2012:
"Sadie will be 10 years old this spring and still
travels with a bounce. Iditarod 2012 will again see her on the trail with
Zoya [DeNure], with Sadie leading the way with her bright brown eyes and
her funny, wobbling gait."
- Zoya DeNure is married to John Schandelmeier
- John Schandelmeier, Anchorage Daily News, February 27, 2012
- Spring starts on March 20, 2012
Karen Ramstead to race 10-and-a-half-year-old dog:
"Crunchie is ten and a half years old."
- Iditarod musher Karen Ramstead talking about her dog who will race in
the 2012 Iditarod.
- Kyle Hopkins, iditablog, Anchorage Daily News, February 25, 2012
Deaf
dog made to race:
"[Heather High] She says
the last eight dogs should be able to finish the race. One of them is
Fast Eddy and he is the deaf dog."
- Heather High is Heather Siirtola's dog handler.
- KX- TV, March 14, 2008, website article
Colleen Robertia forces Penny, a small 29-pound dog to race in 2010:
"Penny, a lean 29-pound Alaskan Husky with
some German shorthair pointer blood, will pace rookie Kasilof musher Colleen
Robertia's 15 other starters to Nome."
- Mike Campbell, Anchorage Daily News, March 8, 2010
Colleen Robertia forces Penny, a 25 to 30-pound dog to race in 2012:
"Here’s [Colleen] Robertia describing her mousy
leader, Penny, in her own words:
What’s so impressive is that she’s so little and I don’t think most kennels
would give her the chance to be on a dog team really, she’s tiny."
"I’m sure today she only weighs about 25 pounds. It’s been a long, cold
couple of days. She’ll probably be up to 30 by next weekend though. "
"I have to say, I think she held her weight pretty well, for what she
just went through. Because it wasn’t just a 1,000 miles. Which in itself
is significant and a significant calorie burn. We had some hellacious
wind. Wind that could blow her over and then some extreme cold. And the
cold is really tough on these little guys."
- Kyle Hopkins, Iditarodblog, March 15, 2012
[From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Hellacious
winds and extreme cold are common in the Iditarod. Colleen Robertia forced
Penny to race in the Iditarod in 2010 when the dog weighed 29-pounds.
Robertia knew that the horrible winds and severe cold were really tough
on the 25 to 30-pound dog, but she made Penny race again in 2012.]
35-pound dogs forced to race:
"Name: Sebe
Age: Almost 7
Gender: Female
Weight: 35 pounds
Position: Lead
Musher: Zoya DeNure"
- Kyle Hopkins,
Anchorage Daily News,
March 4, 2011
"Some
of her dogs weighed as little as 35 pounds."
- Nicki Nielsen is talking about Ginger Burcham's
dogs.
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
34-pound, 2-year-old dog forced to race:
Name: Boondocks
Age: 2
Gender: Female
Weight: 34 pounds
Musher: Aliy Zirkle
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 4, 2011
33-pound dog forced to race:
"Boondocks, a white-muzzled 3-year-old that ran with [Aliy] Zirkle's husband,
Allen Moore, in the recent Yukon Quest, is as light as 33 pounds, Moore
said -- half the size of many Iditarod dogs."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2012
40-pound dogs forced to race:
Name: Guinness
Age: 7
Gender: Female
Weight: 40 pounds
Position: Lead
Musher: Dallas Seavey
"'She’s not much of a dog. Only about 40 pounds. And the reason my dad
sold her is because she was small,' Dallas [Seavey] said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 7, 2011
Name: Muggles
Gender: Male
Age: 3
Weight: Roughly 40 pounds
Position: Wheel
Musher: Judy Currier
"A small dog, Muggles has a Napoleon complex and doesn’t always get
along with the rest of the team. That’s why he runs as the wheel dog in
the back of the roster, Currier said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 12, 2011
"She [Utah] was the sweetest kisser in the whole
kennel and a steady puller, though she only weighed forty pounds."
- Lisa Frederic raced Utah in the 2002 Iditarod.
- Frederic, Lisa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
Dropped
dog cover-up?
"[Melanie] Gould, who is competing in
her fifth Iditarod this year, dropped Olive in Rohn, about 270 miles into
the 1,100-mile race across Alaska, but officials would not say why the
dog was cut from the team and flown to Anchorage. Olive was en route to
her home in Talkeetna, about a three-hour drive from Anchorage, when she
escaped."
"[Chas] St. George said he couldn't disclose why the dog was dropped from
the race because such information isn't part of the public record."
- Tataboline Brant, Anchorage Daily News,
March 10, 2005
- Chas St. George is the Iditarod's public relations director
[Whenever a musher drops out of the race or "scratches,"
the Iditarod sends out a press release. These documents often report that
the musher scratched because his or her dogs were sick or exhausted. Why
wasn't the information about Olive made public?]
High risk for dogs racing in both
Yukon Quest and Iditarod
High risk of damaging dogs who race in Yukon Quest and Iditarod back to back:
"Muscle
and joint inflammation and hemorrhage resulting from endurance events
like the Yukon Quest (1000 miles) can take many weeks or months to resolve,
if at all. Additionally, a medical sports journal last month reported
a study that documented that 81 percent of participating dogs sustained
lung damage and airway dysfunction which persisted even after four months
of rest. And yet, dogs from the Quest are being subjected to the rigors
of the Iditarod less than 10 days later.
Furthermore, research published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal
Medicine (Feb., 2005) documented a 61 percent incidence of stomach ulcers
occurring as a direct result of the stresses associated with endurance
racing.
For dogs to be forced to race again after only 9 to 10 days subjects them
to an unacceptably high risk of gastric perforation which is very painful
and potentially fatal."
- Dr. Paula Kislak, DVM, President, Association of Veterinarians
for Animal Rights, letter to Sled Dog Action Coalition, March 17, 2005
Dogs get kennel cough on the Quest and are then forced to race in Iditarod:
Kyle Hopkins: "Do you think they got
it [kennel cough] on the Quest?"
Sebastian Schnuelle: "Oh, yeah, for sure, Ken [Anderson] had
it, Hans [Gatt] had it. So I guess we three kind of stuck together there.
So I guess we all got it."
- iditablog, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2011, Takotna
checkpoint
- Kyle Hopkins is a reporter for the Anchorage Daily News.
Strenuous
exercise can cause permanent lung damage and breathing problems in dogs
with kennel cough:
"Treatment consists mainly of rest, especially
in working dogs, sheepdogs, hunting dogs and shooting dogs, because permanent
lung damage can result if the dog is made to take exhaustive exercise
before it has fully recovered."
- Dr. Jill Bowen, veterinarian, The Roanoke Times, April
11, 2010
Dogs
do all the work in the Iditarod
Iditarod
is not a human athletic event:
"'It's
grueling but it's not athletic,' he says to our group. 'The dogs are the
athletes.'"
-
Shawn Sidlinger, who participated in the Iditarod four times and now works
for Iditarod race winner Jeff King
- Deborah Reinhardt, AAA Southern Traveler Magazine, Jan/Feb 2004
Hank DeBruin said he was "just there for
the ride":
“'I was just there for the ride,' he
[Hank DeBruin] said.
What a ride it was. There were numerous sheets of ice to cross, dangerous
mountain passes, breathtaking Northern Lights that defied science as they
crackled, blinding blizzards and arctic temperatures. Much of which wouldn’t
have been navigated without the aid of other back markers in the race."
"[Hank] DeBruin started with 16 dogs, but finished the race with 10 dogs
and completed the race in 12 days 22 hours 13 minutes 50 seconds."
- Darren Lum, The Echo, April 3, 2012
Mushers hang on while dogs do the work:
"'They (the dogs) just pour it on, and you're like a rag doll hanging
on to the sled."
- Jeff King is a three-time Iditarod race winner
- Associated Press, March 6, 2001
"This has been kind of a hang on, enjoy the ride,
kind of a ride."
- Lance Mackey talking to Alaska Public Radio Network's interviewer Steve
Himmel
- Alaska Public Radio Network website, March 18, 2009
Swingley and Swenson admit that mushers
do not do the work:
"'Luckily, he said, "'we don't do the work.'" "The
dogs do nearly all that...."
-
Doug Swingley, the year 2000 Iditarod race winner
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March 14, 2000
"Because I don't care what anybody else says, the
DOG is the number one athlete."
- Swenson, Rick. The Secrets of Long Distance Training and Racing,
1987
Iditarod is a gruesome ordeal for dogs:
"The Iditarod amounts to an illegal sweatshop for dogs."
- George Diaz, Orlando Sentinel, March 5,
2000
The Iditarod is a "chain gang" for
dogs:
"The dogs moved stiffly. I'd never seen them
looking so disouraged. Even Raven hung her her head.... Life in a chain
gang obviously wasn't something she cared to bark about."
- O'Donoghue, Brian Patrick. My Lead Dog was a Lesbian,
New York: Vintage Books, 1996
- O'Donoghue was a reporter for the Fairbanks News-Miner
and participated in the Iditarod.
What is required of Iditarod
dogs:
"Imagine carrying a twenty-pound pack while running
two or three marathons daily for two weeks or three marathons daily for
two weeks. No flat-lander marathons, mind you, but endless cross country
races over hill and dale, river and bog. Cover it all with foot-galling
ice, snow and wet dangerous overflow, and for good measure run in your
socks."
- Special Advertising Supplement, The Official 1991
Iditarod Race Program,
Alaska Magazine, March, 1991
No water for the dogs
"[Mitch]
Seavey said the section of trail leading into Iditarod was the worst he's
seen in his 14 races. There were many stretches of windblown tundra where
he couldn't even find enough snow to melt for drinking water for his dogs."
- Associated Press, March 9, 2007
Dog food shortages
No food for the dogs:
"His dogs were out of food."
- Craig Medred, Anchorage Daily News, March
5, 1991
- Medred is talking about Joe Carpenter's dogs.
"Over the next twelve hours, I ran out of food.
The dogs were really hungry."
- Brian O'Donaghue, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. More Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by
the Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Kenmore: Epicenter Press,
2004
"Freezing the race at Rainy Pass due to lack of
dog food at Rohn River and Nikolai went against the philosophy of the
Iditarod race. 'It went against everything the Iditarod stood for.' It
was a direct intervention in the race. It took away all the musher's choices.
In the end she made the decision in terms of safety - safety for both
mushers and their dogs due to the lack of food."
"At the time of the second race halt there were a couple of teams heading
to Ophir, with no communications to Ophir, before she became aware there
was no dog food at Iditarod."
- In 1985, race marshall Donna Gentry stopped the race twice because there
was no dog food.
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
"Next he [Jeff Dixon] found the Englishman [Alan
Garth] with the starving dogs."
- O'Donoghue, Brian Patrick. My Lead Dog was a Lesbian, New York:
Vintage Books, 1996
"When she [Deedee Jonrowe] and Sue [Firmin] came
upon Harold Ahmasuk and Frank Sampson whose teams were sick and out of
food, she turned around."
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
"Really, we had nothing for us to eat and nothing for the dogs to eat."
- George Attla was with Johnny Coffin, Bobby Vent, Dan Seavey and Dick
Wilmarth.
- Attla, George, and Bella Levorsen, editor. Everything I Know About
Training and Racing Sled Dogs, Rome: Arner Publications, 1974
Not enough food for the dogs:
"A former Iditarod musher, Anderson hadn't
been quite so jolly earlier in the day when he had to chase off a flock
of ravens that tore into some drop bags. The all-volunteer Iditarod Air
Force leaves the bags of food and extra gear at most of the 22 checkpoints
along the 1,000-mile trail days before the race.
These were covered with blue tarps to keep wild animals out, but the ravens
saw through the ploy.
'(The tarp) was like a bull's-eye for them,' Anderson said. 'Those ravens
are pretty smart.'
The big, black crows on steroids were gathered along the lakeshore singing
and dancing in celebration of what they'd found Monday morning, Anderson
said. Between them and the foxes, about a dozen bags had been scavenged.
Four-time Iditarod champ Martin Buser of Big Lake pulled in and immediately
knew he'd been hit.
'Hello, hello!' Buser said. 'So my food was torn into, huh? Any word on
Gatt's stuff?'
Buser was referring to Hans Gatt, a three-time Yukon Quest champion who
had only one drop bag waiting because the plane with his other bags was
stuck in Willow due to poor visibility. When Gatt arrived, he discovered
20 percent of the supplies in his one bag had been stolen by either the
rogue ravens or feisty foxes."
- Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March
9, 2009
"He [John Schandelmeier] realized he was
running short of dog food."
- Lew Freedman, Anchorage Daily News, March 20, 1993
"The checker and dog handlers were preparing
to park his team alongside the others, but Schnuelle insisted on pulling
up right next to the drop bags. He did, and found only one drop bag waiting
here for him. [Sebastian] Schnuelle cut it open, and found only about
two gallons of dry kibble inside. 'I can’t stay,' he said. 'Not enough
food.' Apparently one or more of his drop bags for Anvik didn’t make it
here, or are lost somewhere."
- Tim Bodony, Alaska Public Radio Network, March 11, 2011
“'There had been a mixup with my food bags in White
Mountain so I didn’t have most of my food (there),' Jonrowe said, adding
that she stretched the grub as much as possible but her team was still
running hungry at the end."
- Matias Saari, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, March 16, 2011
"Soon we [Dave Olesen and Martin Buser] had fed
our dogs what little we each had left to offer."
- Olesen, Dave. Cold Nights Fast Trails, Minocqua: NorthWord Press,
Inc., 1989
Missing dog food bags:
"I set about unpacking my drop bag and arranging
everything into piles around my sled. I could only find two of the three
bags I had sent out to the checkpoint, which meant I was missing some
important ingredients for the dogs' diet. From my years of volunteering,
I knew this was just a reality on such a complicated long race…."
- Frederic, Lisa. Running with Champions, Anchorage: Alaska Northwest
Books, 2006
"[Emmitt] Peters searched through the pile of gunny
sacks on the river for his bag of dog food and supplies." "His bag just
never made it to the checkpoint."
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Meat gets spoiled when its thawed and refrozen:
"Mackey also reports that he's having
issues with his dog food. Meat that Mackey and some other mushers included
in their drop bags had apparently been thawed and refrozen, spoiling the
meat."
- Tim
Bodony, Alaska Public Radio, March 12, 2010, APRN.org website
All mushers have had problems with meat spoiling:
Laureli Kinneen: "We heard some issues with dog
food that kept thawing out. Have you had an issues with drop bags?"
Hugh Neff: "We pay a lot of money for this food.
We spend a lot of time cutting it all up and getting it all organized.
And, why aren't people in Anchorage making sure that it's properly stored?
I mean, come on now, it's the twentieth century, twenty-first now, let's
get with it. It's happened to everybody. And, I barely had enough food
in Cripple to feed the dogs. It's just not right."
- Laureli Kinneen of KNOM radio interviewed Hugh Neff at the Ruby checkpoint
on March 12, 2010.
- Running on minimal meat, eating kibble gives
Mackey's dogs loose stools:
Laureli Kinneen:
"Earlier in the race Mackey commented that he some diarrhea problems with
some dogs. Those problems still seem to be occurring along with others."
Lance Mackey: "Yeah, another thing, most
of the food drop bags have been thawed out at one point and refroze so
I've been using minimal meat. And running just on kibble gives them a
little bit of a loose stool as well."
-
Laureli Kinneen of KNOM radio interviewed Lance Mackey at the Ruby checkpoint
on March 12, 2010.
Did these dogs get enough to eat?
"It took Hugh a bit longer to find
his food drop bags. They were too obvious within sight, right in the front
row.
Unfortunately some animals had gotten into the food and his bags were
both ripped open."
- Anchorage Daily News, March 5, 2012
Dog food deprivation
"On a race, I normally wouldn't snack at all on a 50-mile run…."
- Seavey, Mitch. Lead, Follow or Get Out of The Way!,
Sterling: Ididaride Publishing Company, 2008
Feeding management related to exercise:
"Endurance Athletes: Feed snacks during and after exercise"
- Virginia-Maryland College Regional College of Veterinary
Medicine, website
Mushers don't know dogs they lease, rent or
borrow
"In the beginning of the race she [Betsy McGuire] didn't not even know
some of the dogs who weren't her own."
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail,
Anchorage: Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Iditarod dogs lost in unforgiving winter wilderness
Nancy Yoshida:
"Nancy
Yoshida, 58, who is from Thompson, just a few miles south of Grand Forks,
was forced to drop out in her first Iditarod around midday Tuesday, and
one of her dogs got loose and is lost in the unforgiving winter wilderness."
- Paul Walsh, Star Tribune, March 11, 2009
Ramey Smyth:
He [Ramey Smyth] fell asleep early in
the race, causing him to fall off his sled and lose his team.
- Alaska Dispatch, March 13, 2012
G.B. Jones:
"In addition to taking
the long way to Rohn, G.B. Jones lost a dog on the trail as the dog slipped
out of its harness."
- John Proffit, Alaska Public Radio Network, March
9, 2007
Kim Franklin:
"Kim Franklin (Bib #79), the rookie musher
from the United Kingdom, was withdrawn from the 2008 Iditarod Thursday.
One of the dogs, Franklin said, chewed through its gagline and two others
left the team during Franklin's nighttime run from Rainy Pass to Rohn.
Unable to locate the missing dogs, she moved on to Rohn. Under Iditarod
rules, in order to continue the race, mushers must arrive at a checkpoint
with the same number of dogs they left the previous checkpoint with."
- ABC-TV, Alaska Superstation website, March 7, 2008
Matt Rossi:
"The mishap occurred 21 miles into
[Matt] Rossi's run from Nikolai to McGrath. Rossi left Nikolai at 2:26
p.m. Thursday, and along the way had to stop the team.
'He was taking care of a tangle and they just took off,' Barve said.
Barve’s account was that Rossi stepped off the runners on the frozen Kuskokwim
River to untangle his team. But something may have spooked the dogs, causing
them to flee."
-
Kevin Klott, Anchorage Daily News, March 9, 2007
Patty Friend:
"As her [Patty Friend] grip relaxed she fell off,
and before she was startled awake by the cold snow, the team had gone
on down the trail."
- Jones, Tim. The Last Great Race: The Iditarod, Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
"Iditarod officials say that Montana musher Cindy Gallea left the checkpoint
this morning but lost two of her dogs in route to Rohn. She is looking
for them now."
- Lori Townsend, Alaska Public Radio, March 6, 2007
Martin Buser:
"He hooked up a burly dog named Quebec
in the lead to help Luna, a smaller female, power through an overnight
storm.
But
Buser kept dozing off. So when he shone his headlamp on his team to make
his regular check on them, he thought, 'Ah, Luna is doing a really good
job in single lead.'
That's when his tired brain jolted awake with, as he says, a 'doy-oy-oying.'
Where was Quebec?
He didn't know when Quebec got loose from the line, but knew the dog had
to be either ahead or behind."
- Nicole Tsong, Anchorage Daily News, March
19, 2005
Libby Riddles:
"I hung on for all I was worthwhile they dragged
me through the deep snow on the trail. My grip on the rope was weakening
all the time, then I lost it. I stopped, face in the snow, my fifteen
mighty huskies lopping off into the night without me."
- Riddles, Libby and Tim Jones. Race Across Alaska, Harrisburg:
Stackpole Books, 1988
Lavon Barve:
"I tried to put my snow hook in. As hard as the
ground was, I couldn't get it in. The dogs are over this embankment, I
can't go get them, and they won't come back on their own.
So I thought to myself, 'Well, I'll walk to the bottom.' At the time I
thought I was doing the right thing, until I went over that sucker and
just kept going and going and going, a quarter-mile, maybe a half-mile.
And it was steep, almost steeper than you could walk up.
It was blowing sixty miles per hour right in my race. I made it up the
embankment and the dogs were whining all the way, and there was a point
where they all started crying and wouldn't go farther. Now I wonder was
that because I had come to the trail? I don't know. Then I lost them.
After pulling the dogs up the embankment, I felt secure that I could leave
the dogs and go twenty or thirty feet ahead and come back. Well, that
snow blew in before I got back. How long does it take to walk up, turn
around, and walk back? I couldn't find the dogs."
- Lavon Barve, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Classics: Tales
of the Trail Told by the Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Seattle:
Epicenter Press, 1992
Bill Cotter:
"One alder - sticking from the trail like a spear
- severed the gangline linking Bill Cotter's team together. The musher
watched in horror as 17 of his 18 dogs sprinted off into the dark, leaving
one wheel dog, Condor, frantically trying to pull the sled himself."
- Doug O'Harra, Anchorage Daily News, March
5, 1991
Bill Peele:
"[Bill] Peele's problems began March
7 when one of his dogs slipped from his grasp and bolted off the trail
in the Farewell Burn."
- Tim Murray, Anchorage Daily News, March 21, 1991
Bruce Linton:
"We were told that there was 56 miles of boulders
with little or no snow and I struggled all night to keep my sled upright.
I hit several trees and my sled bag ripped open completely on one side.
I ended up losing my dog scooper and my axe."
- Bruce Linton, Iditarod Journals, website
article, 2007
Justin Savidis:
"The 3-year-old male from the team of Willow rookie
musher Justin Savidis somehow escaped between the Nikolai and McGrath
checkpoints, and Iditarod officials are on alert for the missing dog."
- Mike Campbell, Anchorage Daily News, March 11, 2010
Blake Freking:
"But on his way toward Rainy Pass, his gang line
broke and sent 4 of his dogs running loose. 'It’s one of the worse things
that can happen anytime, both training and racing; it's always a big concern,'
said [Blake] Freking."
- Melissa Ganje, FOX 21 News, website fox21online.com, March 31, 2010
Gerry Willomitzer:
"A veteran of both the Yukon Quest and the
Iditarod, [Gerry] Willomitzer knows to keep a security line in hand, and
he said he usually does, but as fate would have it, at the very moment
it would have come in handy, it wasn't within his grasp. He woke up as
he was tumbling off the seat of the sled, with his team fading at a good
clip into the distance. He tried to run after them, but the heavy clothing
mushers bundle into against the harsh cold turned his effort to sprint
into futile fumble."
- Jill Burke, Alaska Dispatch, March 19, 2010
Joe Garnie:
"Losing my team was a screwup. I had about fifteen
different lies dreamed up by the time I got to Elim, but I had to tell
the truth. I just didn't put my snow hook in, going down to that shelter
cabin between Koyuk and Elim."
"I wanted to be on the hard, mail trail, the one with markers, and I ran
down there to take a look and I kept going a little farther and a little
farther. And I hadn't put my snowhook in. When I came back, my team was
barreling down the other trail."
- Joe Garnie, Iditarod musher
- Freedman, Lew. Iditarod Classics: Tales of the Trail Told by the
Men & Women Who Race Across Alaska, Seattle: Epicenter Press, 1992
Monique Bene:
"After ascertaining the moose's departure, she walked along the trail
hoping to find her dogs who had taken off with her sled."
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Dinah Knight:
"Her sled hit a tree. The dogs ran away with her
sled."
- Nielsen, Nicki J. The Iditarod: Women on the Trail, Anchorage:
Wolfdog Publications, 1986
Bill Cowart:
"12:10 a.m. I just met Bill Cowart walking back
along the trail. He is shaken and angry. His team is somewhere around
here, with their noses filled by the scent of a moose. Bill is walking
toward Rohn - he has given up on finding his team tonight…."
- Olesen, Dave. Cold Nights Fast Trails, Minocqua: NorthWord Press,
Inc., 1989
Garry Whittmore:
"Garry Whittemore fell from his sled; the handle
pierced the upper part of his leg, and his dogs kept going."
- Cellura, Dominique. Travelers of the Cold: Sled Dogs of the Far North,
Anchorage: Alaska Northwest Books, 1990
Iditarod volunteer:
"She explained that when she was bringing Merri
(one of the dogs that I dropped that was in heat) to the airplane to be
flown to Anchorage that the dog got nervous and slipped out of her collar.
She wouldn’t listen to any of the strangers and she was now running around
the wilderness."
- Bruce Linton, Diary of my Iditarod Journey
2008, website article, 2008
Fact or
fiction: Mushers care for their dogs first?
Mushers want us to believe that the very first thing they do when arriving
at a checkpoint is to take care of their dogs. They want us to believe
that the dogs come before taking care of themselves. But how often does
that really happen?
Lance Mackey was inside a building at the Unalakleet
checkpoint and had just removed his outer pants when he said to Kyle Hopkins:
"I am going to feed my dogs. You know it doesn't
look like it, but I am."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News - The Sled Blog, video interview
with Lance Mackey, March 14, 2010
Alaska
SPCA, AK Humane Legislation Council condemned Iditarod
"The
Alaska Humane Legislation Council called the race 'a Bataan Death March
of the North.' "The Alaska Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
also objected: 'We do not condone this race, do not sponsor it and intend
to express our negative feelings on another running of this pointless,
senseless, grueling contest,' its president wrote in a letter to the editor
in 1974."
- Doug O'Harra and Natalie Phillips, Anchorage Daily News, February
5, 2006
Mushers
abandon dogs during the Iditarod
John Baker abandons his dogs:
"About an hour or so later, I saw a headlamp coming toward me on the trail. It was [John] Baker, sans [without] dogs or sled.
I asked if he was OK and he said he was.
I asked where his dogs were and why he left them.
He said they were anchored up the trail and that he had thought he was on the Iditarod Trail, but now he was pretty sure he wasn't.
I
wondered if he was delirious or just wasn't thinking."
- Tim Hewitt, a competitor in the Iditarod Invitational human-powered
race to Nome, is talking about meeting Iditarod musher John Baker on the
trail during the 2010 Iditarod dog sled race.
- Mike Campbell, Anchorage Daily News, March 1, 2011
Lavon
Barve leaves his dogs:
"Visibility was limited to about ten feet when Lavon
[Barve] halted his team to search for markers on foot. His frightened
dogs yanked the snow hook. When the musher returned, they were gone."
- O'Donoghue, Brian
Patrick. My Lead Dog was a Lesbian, New York: Vintage Books, 1996
Alan Garth abandons his dogs:
"From the moment the Englishman [Alan Garth] had
accepted a ride on the snowmachine, leaving his dog team behind, he had
become subject to disqualification."
- O'Donoghue, Brian Patrick. My Lead Dog was a Lesbian, New York:
Vintage Books, 1996
Will
mushers using GPS pay attention to their dogs?
"For
the first time this year, mushers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
are allowed to bring personal GPS units on the trail."
"'Maybe they'll be paying attention to
their GPS and how fast they're going and where they're at (rather than)
their dog team,' [Lance] Mackey said of his challengers."
"Like Mackey, [Cain] Carter is not using a GPS, he said. He follows trail
markers to know where he's going and would be tempted too look at the
unit too often if he had one in the sled."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March
7, 2010
"I don't use either ipod, GPS. I got
dogs to listen to."
- Musher Nikolas Petit was talking to Joshua Tucker, Alaska Public Radio,
March 5, 2011
Musher turns dogs loose on the trail
"'I pulled over just
to let him [Martin Buser] pass, and I guess he had a dog in heat or something,
and so they went on to my team,' [Newton] Marshall said.
Buser told [Rick] Swenson that the dogs tangled and he was forced to turn
some of the team loose to unwrap the teams.
Some male dogs in Buser's team chased the female in heat down the trail,
Marshall said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March
7, 2011
"Celine is in heat and
created a ruckus when Buser’s team came upon Newton Marshall outside of
Rainy Pass. Marshall had stopped at a tight spot on the trail, Buser said.
The dogs jumped on Celine.
'So to save her, I turned everybody loose. Or a lot of them loose,' Buser
said."
- Kyle Hopkins, Anchorage Daily News, March 8, 2011
Mushers don't clean up their team's turds, spilt food
or trash at checkpoints
"The checkpoint routine, which I did
several times getting back up to speed in Finger Lake, goes like this.
Stop the team in the right place, with or despite the well meaning actions
of the checkers and various people hanging around. Hopefully grab a bale
of straw on the way by, or unsnap all the tug lines, hook the front of
the team down, and go get a bale. Then flake out a nice bed of clean straw
for each dog, kicking the last team's turds, spilt food, and trash out
of the way."
- Chapoton, Charles Mark. A Tale of Two Iditarods, Big
Lake: CMC, 2008
From the Sled Dog Action Coalition: Diseases
spread more easily at checkpoints because mushers don't clean up after
their dogs. Trash
left behind can injure dogs.
Iditarod compared to recreational mushing
Recreational mushers driven by fun, not competition:
"Unlike more competitive counterparts
in the Iditarod and Yukon Quest races, recreational mushers like [Zak]
Richter are driven by a different purpose than reaching the finish line
as fast as they can. They simply enjoy traveling through the country with
dogs at their own pace."
"'It’s having a mindset of doing what the family can do, not running
at the maximum potential of your youngest dog,' Richter said."
- Tim Mowry, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner,
March 20, 2008
How does a roaming wolf compare to a dog running in
the Iditarod?
(In
the Iditarod, dogs are forced to run over 100 miles a day pulling a heavy
sled. The Iditarod is about 1,000 miles depending upon which route is
used. The race lasts between 8 to 16 days.)
Wolves set their own pace, agenda, covering
4 to 28 miles a day:
"Wolves can cover lots
of ground when they're hunting or roaming — Treves co-authored a 2009
study on wolf dispersal patterns around the Great Lakes, which included
several accounts of wolves roaming hundreds of miles in relatively short
periods. One young male traipsed 428 miles during a five-month span in
2003.
'Canids (the dog family) in general are adapted to coursing pursuit of
prey (long-distance running),' Treves writes in an email to MNN [Mother
Nature Network], explaining that this distinguishes them from cats, 'who
stalk and sprint short distances to take prey.' L. David Mech, an internationally
renowned wolf expert from Minnesota, adds that wild wolves average about
four to 28 miles daily, and can travel up to 46 miles in a day if needed.
Still, Treves says races like the Iditarod are different. 'The Iditarod
and other races are relentless long-distance races with few breaks for
the dogs, compared to long-distance dispersal,' he writes. '[Dispersal]
is meandering and includes frequent breaks, because it is not goal-directed
but a process of searching, we believe.'"
- Russell McLendon, Mother Nature Network, website, March 2, 2012
Back to top
Articles
about the Iditarod
Dog deaths
Poor veterinary
care
Dog injuries,
sicknesses and extreme stress
Problems
with Iditarod rules
Greed
fuels the Iditarod
Abuse
in kennels
Cruel
dog training
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