The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and
Animal Cruelty
Why do Animal Activists Object to the Iditarod?
By, Doris Lin, About.com Guide
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is a sled dog race from Anchorage, Alaska to Nome, Alaska, a
route that is over 1,100 miles long. Aside from basic animal rights arguments against using
dogs for entertainment or to pull sleds, many people object to the Iditarod because of the
animal cruelty and deaths involved.
“[J]agged mountain ranges, frozen river, dense forest, desolate tundra and miles of windswept
coast . . . temperatures far below zero, winds that can cause a complete loss of visibility, the
hazards of overflow, long hours of darkness and treacherous climbs and side hills . . .” Is this
a description of the Iditarod from PETA’s point of view? No, it’s from the official Iditarod
website.
History of the Iditarod
The Iditarod Trail is a National Historic Trail, and was established as a route for dog sleds to
access remote, snowbound areas during the 1909 Alaskan gold rush. In 1967, the Iditarod
Trail Sled Dog Race began as a much shorter sled dog race, over a portion of the Iditarod
Trail. In 1973, race organizers turned the Iditarod Race into the grueling 9-12 day race that it
is today, ending in Nome, AK. As the official Iditarod website puts it, “There were many who
believed it was crazy to send a bunch of mushers out into the vast uninhabited Alaskan
wilderness.”
The Iditarod Today
The rules for the 2009 Iditarod require teams of one musher with 12 to 16 dogs, with at least
six dogs crossing the finish line. The musher is the human driver of the sled. Anyone who has
been convicted of animal cruelty or animal neglect in Alaska is disqualified from being a
musher in the Iditarod. The race requires the teams to take three mandatory breaks.
Compared to previous years, the entry fee is up and the purse is down for 2009. The entry fee
for the 2009 Iditarod is $4,000. The entire purse is $610,000, with $69,000 and a new pickup
truck going to the winner. Every musher who finishes in the top 30 receives a cash prize, and
those finishing out of the top 30 will receive $1,049 each. Sixty-nine teams are competing in
2009.
Intentional Abuse and Cruelty
Concerns about intentional abuse and cruelty beyond the rigors of the race are also valid.
According to an ESPN article following the 2007 Iditarod:
Two-time runner-up Ramy Brooks was disqualified from the Iditarod Trail Sled
Dog Race for abusing his dogs. The 38-year-old Brooks hit each of his 10 dogs
with a trail marking lathe, similar to a surveyor's stake, after two refused to
get up and continue running on an ice field . . . Jerry Riley, winner of the
1976 Iditarod, was banned for life from the race in 1990 after he dropped a dog
in White Mountain without informing veterinarians the animal was injured. Nine
years later, he was allowed back in the race.
One of Brooks’ dogs later died during the 2007 Iditarod, but the death was believed to be
unrelated to the beating.
Although Brooks was disqualified for beating his dogs, nothing in the Iditarod rules prohibits
mushers from whipping the dogs. This quote from The Speed Mushing Manual, by Jim Welch,
appears on the Sled Dog Action Coalition:
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 . . . Never say 'whoa' if you intend to stop to whip a dog
. . . So without saying 'whoa' you plant the hook, run up the side 'Fido' is
on, grab the back of his harness, pull back enough so that there is slack in
the tug line, say 'Fido, get up' immediately rapping his hind end with a whip.
As if dog deaths were not enough, the rules allow mushers to kill moose, caribou, buffalo and
other large animals “in defense of life or property” along the race. If the mushers were not
racing in the Iditarod, they wouldn’t encounter wild animals defending their territory.