Iditarod: The Last Great Race
Very cool!
Until now, my most memorable Thanksgiving was in Ramallah (the West Bank) where I cooked an American Thanksgiving dinner for the Episcopalian bishop of Jerusalem. But now I have a close contender.
Eight inches of fresh Alaskan snow and an afternoon spent with 15 sled dogs. That's a day after Thanksgiving to remember.
Called & Gifted alumni Eric Rogers and his wife Marti generously invited my sister (Becky), brother-in-law (Rod) and myself over to their house to meet their sled dogs, experience a sled dog ride (on a ATV as there wasn't quite enough snow for the sled), and hear all about the famous Iditarod: the Last Great Race. It is the ultimate dog sled race: 1,150 miles from Anchorage to Nome in March, when the snow pack is the heaviest. Temperatures of
-60 F are not uncommon. The winner will do it in about 10 days. The last finisher may take two weeks.
Eric is a member of a very select group. As he pointed out, more people have climbed Mt. Everest than have finished an Iditarod. About 670 so far. Eric has finished three times and hopes to go for number 4.
Among this rare breed of men and women, Eric is one of a kind. The only physicist-musher in the race. Eric's passion for the race is compelling, he obviously loves his dogs who are very loving and playful, he and Marti are great fun, and the ride and getting to help with the dogs was a blast.
Watch this very brief video of Eric at the 2009 Iditarod and check out his website for more information about what it takes to successfully finish such a epic journey...
posted by Sherry W @ 12:36 AM
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For the dogs, the Iditarod is a bottomless pit of suffering. Six dogs died in the 2009 Iditarod, including two dogs on Dr. Lou Packer's team who froze to death in the brutally cold winds. What happens to the dogs during the race includes death, paralysis, frostbite (where it hurts the most!), bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia,
ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons and sprains. At least 142 dogs have died in the race. No one knows how many dogs die after this tortuous ordeal or during training.
On average, 52 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do finish, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who complete the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Iditarod dog kennels are puppy mills. Mushers breed large numbers of dogs and routinely kill unwanted ones, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, including those who have outlived their usefulness, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged, drowned or clubbed to death. "Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don't pull are dragged to death in harnesses......" wrote former Iditarod dog handler Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska's Bush Blade Newspaper.
Dog beatings and whippings are common. During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, "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..."
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, "He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens.. Or dragging them to their death."
During the race, veterinarians do not give the dogs physical exams at every checkpoint. Mushers speed through many checkpoints, so the dogs get the briefest visual checks, if that. Instead of pulling sick dogs from the race, veterinarians frequently give them massive doses of antibiotics to keep them running.
Most Iditarod dogs are forced to live at the end of a chain when they aren't hauling people around. It has been reported that dogs who don't make the main team are never taken off-chain. Chained dogs have been attacked by wolves, bears and other animals. Old and arthritic dogs suffer terrible pain in the blistering cold.
The Iditarod, with all the evils associated with it, has become a synonym for exploitation. The race imposes torture no dog should be forced to endure.
Margery Glickman
Director
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org
The Iditarod is an arduous event for both musher and dog. How could a 1000 mile journey across the Alaskan wilderness in winter be anything else? Blizzards, wind, severe cold, deep snow or no snow, open water, mountain passes, unbroken trail, just you and your dog team day after day, mile after mile, conquering obstacle after obstacle in some of the most awesome country God has created.
At its very core Iditarod is about building a bond of mutual trust and respect between a musher and a team of dogs to accomplish something that neither could do on their own. A bond built in training by spending hundreds of hours covering thousands of miles year after year until you and your dogs are so close you can almost read each other’s mind. Without that bond you are not likely to make it to Nome.
The tales of the great deeds of that race are inspiring to all. Our current champion is a throat cancer survivor who was not expected to live. When he was so beat down by chemo and surgery that he could hardly move, he would park his truck in his dog lot and just be with his dogs. He credits his dogs with his survival of that deadly disease. His competitors credit the bond he built with those dogs during that difficult time as the “something special” that has allowed him to win not just three Iditarod championships, but twice to win the Yukon Quest 1000 mile race and two weeks later win the Iditarod 1000 mile race – a feat that until Lance Mackey did it was thought to be impossible. Lance did this with the same core group of dogs year after year.
I could refute Ms Glickman’s statistics and accusations, and quote Iditarod rules for dog care, but that is just “he said, she said”. Someone once told me that if you want expert opinions about dogs, ask the people that live and work with them, but if you want the facts, ask the dogs. The blond dog on the left in the video that Sherry posted is starting his 4th Iditarod in my team. After three trips, he knows as well as I do what the trail is likely to hold. Does he look unhappy? Come to Nome and watch the finish. Watch strong men who face moose, blizzards, and -60 without hesitation, break into tears as they thank their dogs for their race. Watch their dogs swell with pride as they think “We did the Iditarod Trail!” Don't take my word for it, ask the dogs.
Eric Rogers
Iditarod Veteran
I have to say that one of the most visible things that I noticed when watching Eric and his dogs (and read about in writings of other mushers) was the incredible love and reverence that Iditarod mushers have for their dogs. The words that were used were "friends", "family" "bond" - all very relational. On the trail, the dogs get food and water and rest first. The musher is always last.
Eric has several "retired" dogs who are now beloved pets.
About the issue of dog deaths, he wrote me:
"The poor man (who lost two dogs this year) was a rookie who went into a storm and got in over his head. One goal of the race is to allow anyone who is qualified and desires to run the opportunity to do so. It is part of what makes it so special. The question we've fought since the beginning is how do you know who is qualified and who isn't. The race marshal, chief vet, and board of directors are still chewing on what went wrong and what should be done differently.
That was the same storm I, and three traveling companions, were caught in on the Yukon River - we camped overnight in that blizzard. It wasn't much fun, but it was not life threatening. Two other rookies traveling together camped a couple of miles behind Lou and were ok. Kim Darst brought a cold dog into her sleeping bag to warm it - that dog is planning to lead her team to Nome this year (she scratched in the storm).
Of the 1000 to 1500 dogs that start in a given year, we normally lose between one and three. We used to lose dogs to exertional myopathy (Monday morning disease in horses), but after much effort we identified enough warning signs that now we catch that problem before it becomes serious and drop the dog. The leading cause of death now is ulcers (we still don't know why), but this year we tested a new protocol (Prilosec administered daily on an empty stomach as a preventative - quite a trick when you feed as often as we do) and none of the dogs that died had any stomach abnormalities (every dog that dies gets a complete necropsy to determine cause of death).
A problem we face is that dogs are so stoic and want to go so bad that they deny anything is wrong until it is serious. Even at home in the kennel you seldom see a sick dog - they just won't tell you they don't feel well. Each death is a tragedy.
People like Ms Glickman serve a purpose. If we are ever tempted to slack off they hold our feet to the fire and force us to do better."
I know that one of the standard protocols is that if a dog is tired or unwell, he or she rides the rest of the way to the next aid station in the sleigh where the dog is given over the care of vet-supervised volunteers, who care for the dog until the race ends and their owner can claim them.
Certainly the whole tenor and spirit of the relationship between musher and dogs is profoundly different from that depicted in the first comment above. In fact, love of the dogs is always one of the top reasons that someone takes up the sport.
Sherry W.
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