Yukon Quest 2012
Fair Warning: The race starts in Fairbanks, AK next Saturday with about two dozen teams in contention. Several teams had to drop out at the last minute because the Copper Basin 300 race, one of the qualifying events for the Quest, was cancelled due to poor trail conditions.
The temperatures are cold, but the interior hasn’t been overwhelmed with snow.
This is the faster of the two versions of the trail as the double climb up Rosebud and Eagle Summit occur early in the race when mushers and dogs are in good shape.
6 comments
People should boycott this cruel race and write the sponsors to stop their sponsorship of it, as well as the Iditarod. In this horribly cruel race the dogs will be subjected to injury, illness, exhaustion, or death. Two dogs died in last year’s Yukon Quest.
The distance is too long, and the conditions and rough terrain too grueling for them. They are among the best-conditioned dogs in the world due to their training year-round, yet only about half of the dogs make it to the finish line as in the Iditarod. There are laws in at least 38 US states against over-driving and over-working animals, which is exactly what these marathon races do.
When the dogs are not racing or training they are each kept on a short chain, attached to their small enclosure. This is considered inhumane and illegal in many communities.
Many organizations, including the Animal Legal Defense Fund, Friends for Animals, In Defense of Animals, Sled Dog Action Coalition, and Sled Dog Watchdog want this race and the Iditarod to end.
First off, it wasn’t ‘two dogs’, was Taco and Geronimo. Taco died from a heart defect that had gone undetected in dozens of vet examinations. Geronimo was out of the race when he died from a common problem with large dogs – eating too fast and regurgitating that resulted in aspiration asphyxia.
Dog deaths in these two races is well below the level of human deaths in the New York Marathon, and has been significantly reduced by new procedures, and better training for the mushers.
The large number of dogs who do not finish reflects the scrutiny of the vets at check points to ensure the dogs are in good shape. There are almost no medical doctors on the race routes, but there are a lot of vets.
This is called ‘sled dog’ racing because the sled dogs are the athletes, not the mushers.
I guess you are OK with the hundreds of dogs who will be euthanized if the races are banned, because long distance races are what they are bred to do, and they are very expensive to keep.
The races are run on the old mail and transportation routes. If the temperatures drop, dogs are the only way of moving about in a lot of the interior of Alaska and the Yukon. If you live out in a cabin you would be a fool not to have dogs and a sled for emergencies.
You are entitled to your opinion, but those of us who have lived in the Arctic, enjoy following these ultimate athletes competing in the ultimate races. We are saddened when dogs are injured or die. We also take the trouble to learn the names of the dogs, as they are individuals, not numbers.
Please note that my comments only support organic comments. Astroturf from advocacy organizations is deleted. I pay for this site and storage costs money. If you want to advocate for something, get your own place.
My son is currently—and has been—a veterinarian in the Yukon Quest. He has said so many times that he is in awe of the great athletes the dogs are and the superb care the mushers give them all! And the veterinarians along the trail make certain that none of the dogs run unless they are in good shape at every checkpoint. They get tired, yes, but have you seen how impatient each one is to get on the trail once they are hooked up and the musher prepares to again begin the run? Watch a video of this and any naysayer should be convinced how much the dogs love to get out there and fly in the wind! (Well, it’s actually snow but one gets the idea!)
Having raised large breed dogs, German Shepherds, and lived around sled dogs, the worst thing you can do is to pen them in. They need exercise. They need to be what they are. Shepherds will find something to herd. kids, chickens, whatever is available, because that is what they do.
Sled dogs pull sleds. They have been pulling sleds for thousands of years, and if you don’t make provisions for that need, you will get bad behavior.
The dogs bounce back a lot quicker than the mushers, but you have to watch them or they will do too much.
Michael Telpin has a team of Chukchi sled dogs, who are probably the ancestor breed for all of the modern variants, and they howl to go when they are harnessed. His people have been using the dogs to pull sleds for millennia.
My general opinion is that if you don’t want to do it. don’t, but leave other people alone unless you can prove a harm to society.
Just curious, in your critique of this sport an the people and animals who engage in it, how many dogs have you directly rescued? Have you donated to any agencies that save dogs from being euthanized? Have you spend time with any of the mushers? There is cruelty every where in the world, but there is also passion and loving people and animals. It just takes time to seem them out.