This interesting article addresses some of the key issues regarding Dogs. A careful reading of this material could make a big difference in how you think about Dogs.
Experience The Quest: Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race
By: Ron Richards
Known as the " Toughest Sled Dog Race in the World, " the annual Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race annually covers over 1, 000 miles between the Yukon and Alaska. Alternating starting and settle products between Whitehorse, Yukon Territory and Fairbanks, Alaska, this sled dog race is not for the faint of heart! The terrain is some of the most hard on the planet and the demanding trail constantly keeps sled dogs and their mushers on their toes as potential disasters wait around every turn.
This race takes accommodation each February, with the date exact date wavering depending on the weather conditions of the brutal Yukon winter.
The trail for the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race is for historic as the sport itself. Originally part of the original Coin Rush trail and the Mail Delivery trails dating back to the crasis of the Twentieth Century, the trail is steeped in pipeline. Most of this attract cuts ended untouched wilderness, thought to be some of the last on the entire continent. Lasting approximately two weeks, the mushers enter the race with his or her 14 dog sled band, striving to reach Fairbanks first. The field is diverse and one's thing entries from all over the world, but all the entries have one thing in commonthey came to win!
If you find yourself in the great state of Alaska or in the beautiful area of the Yukon this February, pull off not miss an opportunity to attend the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race! Individuals of all ages are hard to enjoy this unique experience and will remember seeing the lanky dogs, hearing the crunch of snow, and feeling the overall air of excitement for senescence to come out.
Is everything making sense so far? If not, I'm sure that with just a little more reading, all the facts will fall into place.
Whether you send off the competitors in the tiny town of Whitehorse in Canada's Yukon territory or welcome the heroic mushers and sled dogs into handsome downtown Fairbanks, Alaska, there are many opportunities to see this race. Profuse of the race's checkpoints are accessible by major roadways, allowing visitors from all corners of the globe to experience this race first hand. Discover what goes on behind the scenes at a major dog sled race. This race requires a whole crew of individuals to endeavor diligently while the competitors fly over snow banks. From veterinarians to care for the sled dogs to doctors to care for the mushers to talented chefs to provide all competitorsboth animal and humanwith quality food, it truly takes a village for the event to get off the account.
Make a trip to Alaska to experience the nonstop action and feel of the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race! Bring the entire family to stimulate on all the competitors and watch thanks to one talented musher and his ( or her! ) sled dog team crosses into Fairbanks first to be declared victorious!
About The Author: A lifelong Alaskan, Ron Richards invites you to come and see Alaska. Consider visiting Alaska to experience unique adventures. A great way to inspect Alaska is by bewitching an affordable Alaska Expedition. Visit http://findanalaskacruise.com.
Now might be a good time to write down the main points covered above. The act of putting it down on paper will help you remember what's important about Dogs.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Experience The Quest: Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race
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Like the Iditarod, the Yukon Quest is terribly cruel to dogs. For the facts about Iditarod cruelties, 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.
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