After its first dog death in four years, the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is making good on its promise to improve care for dogs dropped during the 1,000-mile race across Alaska.
{snip} The changes stem from last year's death of Dorado, a 5-year-old husky from the team of Fairbanks rookie Paige Drobny in Unalakleet. Drobny had dropped Dorado in the first checkpoint on Alaska's western coast after he appeared to be running a little stiff.
Loren Holmes photo |
Mushers begin the race with a maximum of 16 dogs and must have at least six in their team when they finish in Nome. Mushers drop dogs for a variety of reasons, including sickness, muscle injuries or for race strategy. Dorado was held in Unalakleet with 135 other dogs last March, waiting to be flown out of the community, which serves as a collection point for dogs dropped from other checkpoints, when a fierce coastal storm swept in.
Read the rest at the link.
While most dogs were relocated to an airplane hangar out of the storm, about 35 remained tethered outside in blowing snow and below-zero temperatures. Dorado was found the next morning buried in a snowdrift. The cause of death was asphyxiation.
Iditarod Executive Director Stan Hooley said in an email that the race spent months after the 2013 Iditarod formalizing and enhancing protocols for managing and caring for dropped dogs during the race. Thirteen new dog boxes capable of holding eight dogs apiece were built for Unalakleet and McGrath. Unalakleet already had six boxes, each able to hold five dogs.
This is a very good thing. Alaskans know the love and care which mushers provide for their dogs, which provide their livelihoods, after all. But Outside agencies, who only show up when it's convenient, have been alleging abuses for years.
Even though they've never been able to prove it happens.
But now the dogs will taken better care of, when the racers mush on.
10 comments:
Good news, and a sad ending for Dorado...
Yes, and yes, NFO. Sled dogs tend to sleep in the open all the time, but - as I recall - he was in a semi-sheltered spot, and the snow blew and drifted across him until it was too deep. He never woke up.
Outsiders indeed. Long on opinions, short on pertinent information. Still, they expect to be taken seriously.
WSF - yes, they always do. And then they're forced to leave, disappointed. Heh.
Shame to hear what happened to Dorado. Sounds like things are getting corrected.
Poor dog. Just wait until I get there with my little plastic sled.
Concur, Senior. Should be much better now.
I'm getting impatient, Stephen. Bring it! :)
Gotta love the do-gooders!
NOT.
gfa
Your new header! What a wonderful view. And it is good to see that the great race is getting better and better. Good for them.
gfa, I concur. The funniest bit was when PETA showed up here, a couple years back, to protest hunting - and then learned that 90% of the Native population literally lives off the land, and subsistence hunting is their lifestyle. PETA left quietly, no fanfare; they just weren't here, one day. :)
Thanks, threecollie. I like that header - and yes, the dogs deserve all that can be done for them.
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