15 March 2013

A Sad Report


From KTUU, Channel 2 in Anchorage:





Dropped Iditarod XLI Dog Dies in Unalakleet 
 
An Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race dog died in Unalakleet early Friday morning in what its race marshal called “an incident caused by high winds and drifting snow,” four days after it was dropped from a musher’s team.

In an email to Iditarod staff, Race Marshal Mark Nordman says Dorado was dropped from Fairbanks musher Paige Drobny’s team. Drobny reached Nome at 9:15 a.m. Thursday, finishing in 34th place with 10 dogs on her team.

“An otherwise healthy dog, (Dorado) was dropped in Unalakleet on Monday, March 11, and was waiting to be transported back to Anchorage,” Nordman wrote in an email to Iditarod staff. “Unfortunately, sustained high winds in the area have made it difficult for us to move dropped dogs as quickly as usual.”

Iditarod spokesperson Erin McLarnon says Dorado was being kept in an outdoor dropped-dog area in Unalakleet, but officials don’t yet know exactly what happened.

“The dog was found in a snowdrift this morning,” McLarnon said. “We don’t believe that he was loose.”

McLarnon routed further questions on the incident to Nordman, who wasn’t immediately available by phone Friday.

Iditarod officials say a necropsy will be conducted to determine Dorado’s cause of death. The incident is the first dog death reported in this year’s race.

4 comments:

Old NFO said...

THat is truly sad... Doing the right things, and still lose an animal hurts...

ProudHillbilly said...

Sad sad. Sad that he had to be dropped because those dogs just want to run and sad that it all went to heck and he died.

Keads said...

Sad. It proves that you can do everything right and still come up short.

Anonymous said...

Very sad...

gfa