Iditarod Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, usually called "the Iditarod", is an annual dog sled race in Alaska. It started in 1967 as a 25 mile race near Anchorage to celebrate the history and importance of dog sleds in Alaska. In 1973 the course was extended to Nome with part of it following the old Iditarod trail. The course from Anchorage to Nome is reminiscent of the famous diphtheria run of 1925. This was a relay to transport diphtheria antitoxin from Anchorage to Nome to combat an outbreak of the disease. The antitoxin went by train from Anchorage to Nenana then a series of dog mushers took it overland a total of 260 miles in 127-1/2 hours. Although the Iditarod was not originally started to commemorate the diphtheria run the race is now inseparably connected with it.The trail for the race does not follow the route the vaccine took in 1925 but, instead, a trail through largely unpopulated tundra that was chosen to test the mettle of the sled dogs and their drivers. It is named for the ghost town of Iditarod, Alaska, it passes through, which was an Athabascan Indian village before gold was discovered nearby in 1908; a town was built there which became the center of the Iditarod Mining District in 1910, but it did not outlast the local gold-rush.
In 1982 Rick Swenson became the first musher to win four races. On March 20, 1985 Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the race. In 1986 Susan Butcher became the second woman to win the race. She subsequently won three of the next four races becoming the second musher to win four races. The Iditarod became famous largely because of media attention directed at Susan Butcher. In 1991 Rick Swenson won a fifth time, the only musher to do so.
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The Sled Dog Action Coalition (SDAC) was founded in 1999 to educate America about the exploitation of sled dogs in Alaska's annual Iditarod dog sled race. Please visit the SDAC website http://www.helpsleddogs.org to see pictures, and for more information. Be sure to read the quotes on http://www.helpsleddogs.org/remarks.htm and on all the quote pages that link to it. Links can be found in the drop box at the top and at the bottom of the page. All of the material on the site is true and verifiable.
At least 122 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.
On average, 53% 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% have lung damage. According to a report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine, 48.5% of the dogs who participate in the Iditarod have ulceration, tissue erosion, gastric hemorrhage, or a combination of these findings.
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."
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 administration wants you to think of 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 run 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.
This is an Article on Iditarod. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Iditarod Controversy
The event is criticized by animal rights activists, as dogs dying because of exhaustion during the trail are rather common. In the Iditarod, dogs are forced to run 1,150 miles, which is the approximate distance between Winnipeg and Montreal, Canada or between New York City and Miami, FL, USA, over a grueling terrain in 8 to 15 days. Dog deaths and injuries are common in the race. USA Today sports columnist Jon Saraceno called the Iditarod "a travesty of grueling proportions" and "Ihurtadog." Fox sportscaster Jim Rome called it "I-killed-a-dog." Orlando Sentinel sports columnist George Diaz said the race is "a barbaric ritual" and "an illegal sweatshop for dogs." USA Today business columnist Bruce Horovitz said the race is a "public-relations minefield."Iditarod winners
Past winners: ( Musher & Lead dog(s) - Duration day-h-min-s)
1925 route through Nenana in gray
Race trail through Iditarod in red
See also
External links