The 2010 death was to a 7-year-old veteran dog that had a rare heart condition that was only discovered by necropsy. There was no way of determining the problem until after it occurred.

The worry is, that as certain teams predominate, there may be more inbreeding taking place, rather than the current status of sled dogs as mixed breeds. The more “purebred” the dogs become, the smaller the gene pool, the greater the chance for rare problems to become common, as has happened with Thoroughbreds.

There are two purebred teams in the race, Siberian huskies on the Mike Ellis and Hank DeBruin teams, but everyone else acquired dogs from different kennels over the course of years. Brent Sass got Taco in payment for working as a handler for Jessie Royer. That is not an uncommon practice.

The most common reason a sled dog dies is from aspiration pneumonia, they eat too fast and breathe in food particles which causes the fluid build up in the lungs.

Jessie Royer’s Kuling ran her last race as the lead dog when she was 9. She was in 7 Iditarods. Larry, Lance Mackey’s legendary lead, retired at 9 having been in 8 Iditarods and 4 Yukon Quests, and is the only lead dog to win the Quest and Iditarod Golden Harnesses in the same year, so 6-year-olds are not “over-the-hill”.

Dog deaths are way too common on the Iditarod, although there has been a real push to tighten things up considerably.