posted under: Anne Capistrant, Iditarod, Jon Korta, Zoya DeNure
Badgers Racing Sled Dogs
Up in Alaska they’re getting ready today to start the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, an endurance test pitting man and beast against the elements and 1,100 miles of Alaskan wilderness. Surprisingly, there are more than a couple people with Wisconsin ties taking part in the world’s last great race.
Badger state native Jon Korta went to school in Minnesota before moving to Alaska to open a bed and breakfast with his wife; this is his second year racing the Iditarod. Anne Capistrant, originally from Madison, started training dogs in the Midwest before moving to Alaska in 2003. This is her first year in the Iditarod.
The most interesting story, though, is that of Iditarod rookie Zoya DeNure. Also a native of Madison, she was a fashion model working the runways of Italy before giving up that career to move to Alaska. She’s been raising and racing dogs there for a couple years.
Good luck to all and keep warm!
RSS
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
The Iditarod is terribly cruel to dogs. For the facts, visit the Sled Dog Action Coalition website, http://www.helpsleddogs.org.
Here’s a short list of what happens to the dogs during the Iditarod: death, paralysis, penile frostbite, bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons, vomiting, hypothermia, sprains, fur loss, broken teeth, torn footpads and anemia.
At least 133 dogs have died in the Iditarod. There is no official count of dog deaths available for the race’s early years. In “WinterDance: the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod,” a nonfiction book, Gary Paulsen describes witnessing an Iditarod musher brutally kicking a dog to death during the race. He wrote, “All the time he was kicking the dog. Not with the imprecision of anger, the kicks, not kicks to match his rage but aimed, clinical vicious kicks. Kicks meant to hurt deeply, to cause serious injury. Kicks meant to kill.”
Causes of death have also included strangulation in towlines, internal hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and pneumonia. “Sudden death” and “external myopathy,” a fatal condition in which a dog’s muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also occurred. The 1976 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was accused of striking his dog with a snow hook (a large, sharp and heavy metal claw). In 1996, one of Rick Swenson’s dogs died while he mushed his team through waist-deep water and ice. The Iditarod Trail Committee banned both mushers from the race but later reinstated them. In many states these incidents would be considered animal cruelty. Swenson is now on the Iditarod Board of Directors.
In the 2001 Iditarod, a sick dog was sent to a prison to be cared for by inmates and received no veterinary care. He was chained up in the cold and died. Another dog died by suffocating on his own vomit.
No one knows how many dogs die in training or after the race each year.
On average, 53 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do cross, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:
“They’ve had the hell beaten out of them.” “You don’t just whisper into their ears, ‘OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.’ They understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? They are all lying.” -USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno’s column
Beatings and whippings are common. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, “I heard one highly respected [sled dog] driver once state that “‘Alaskans like the kind of dog they can beat on.’” “Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective…A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective.” “It is a common training device in use among dog mushers…A whip is a very humane training tool.”
During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Brooks admitted to hitting his dogs with a wooden trail marker when they refused to run. The Iditarod Trail Committee suspended Brooks for two years, but only for the actions he admitted. By ignoring eyewitness accounts, the Iditarod encouraged animal abuse. When mushers know that eyewitness accounts will be disregarded, they are more likely to hurt their dogs and lie about it later.
Mushers believe in “culling” or killing unwanted dogs, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged or clubbed to death. “On-going cruelty is the law of many dog lots. Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don’t pull are dragged to death in harnesses…..” wrote Alaskan Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska’s Bush Blade Newspaper (March, 2000).
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, “He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens. Or dragging them to their death.”
The Iditarod, with its history of abuse, could not be legally held in many states, because doing so would violate animal cruelty laws.
Iditarod administrators promote the race as a commemoration of sled dogs saving the children of Nome by bringing diphtheria serum from Anchorage in 1925. However, the co-founder of the Iditarod, Dorothy Page, said the race was not established to honor the sled drivers and dogs who carried the serum. In fact, 600 miles of this serum delivery was done by train and the other half was done by dogs running in relays, with no dog running over 100 miles. This isn’t anything like the Iditarod.
The race has led to the proliferation of horrific dog kennels in which the dogs are treated very cruelly. Many kennels have over 100 dogs and some have as many as 200. It is standard for the dogs to spend their entire lives outside tethered to metal chains that can be as short as four feet long. In 1997 the United States Department of Agriculture determined that the tethering of dogs was inhumane and not in the animals’ best interests. The chaining of dogs as a primary means of enclosure is prohibited in all cases where federal law applies. A dog who is permanently tethered is forced to urinate and defecate where he sleeps, which conflicts with his natural instinct to eliminate away from his living area.
Iditarod dogs are prisoners of abuse.
Sincerely,
Margery Glickman
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Mighty quick on the trigger. Thank goodness for Google alerts, eh?
While I disagree with your position, I’m letting the comment stand because people should get all sides of an issue. I would encourage anyone with an interest to read up on the sport of dogsledding and check out various resources before coming to a conclusion. People who raise these animals are not cruel nor sadistic and they do not abuse their dogs.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:04 pm
The death rate in the iditarod is comparable to the general population of dogs. The dogs that are dropped out of the race are well-cared for. Last year 23 mushers withdrew from the race because they had sustained injuries caused by the dogs dragging them into trees and rocks along the trail. I have sustained a torn rotator cuff, a broken leg and a punctured lung from mushing dogs. So who’s abusing whom?
I have a dog with the same attitude as Ms. Glickman. He eats his own food and promptly urinates in the next dog’s food bowl.
Tethering dogs is the preferred housing arrangement because it breaks up pack behaviour and reduces fighting. Anyone who has housed dogs in kennel runs knows that it encourages “fence fighting”. Mushers can’t afford to house dogs in an environment that fosters hatred and then have them tear each other apart when you harness them. The typical vet bill for a dog fight is $300. So what’s more humane, putting a dog on a chain or having them tear each other’s guts out?
http://www.mushwithpride.org/
I could rebut each of her arguments but these folks aren’t interested in the truth. They would rather euthanize dogs than let them drag a man on a sled to Nome.