Friday, March 20, 1998
Copyright 1998 Anchorage Daily News
Dog's death mars race for three-time rookie
By DOUG O'HARRA
Daily News reporter
ELIM - Trim was the sled dog that always jumped up and down in excitement. He was always lunging forward, overcome with the passion to pull. He kept his tugline taut and loved the adventure of mushing the Iditarod Trail.
"This dog always wanted to see what was around the corner," said Willow musher Linda Joy, "and what was over the next hill. He had all the spirit that a sled dog should have."
A black husky with brown eyebrows, erect ears and white markings, Trim was doing what he loved on Wednesday night when he unexpectedly collapsed and died about an hour out of Koyuk on frozen Norton Bay.
His was the first … and so far only … dog death on the 26th Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
Joy, a popular musher trying to finish her first race in three attempts, said she stopped her team and rushed forward.
"I ran up to him immediately and started performing CPR," she said.
Trim's eyes were fixed.
"I worked on him for five to 10 minutes," Joy said.
She finally accepted that Trim wasn't going to make it, and loaded his body in the sled. She was "just devastated" when she arrived in Koyuk at 11:50 p.m., said Iditarod race marshal Mark Nordman.
"She was very upset - very upset," Nordman said Thursday morning. "She said, 'They were doing so well. They were doing so well.' "
Trained as a health-care worker, Joy said she sat in the Koyuk checkpoint and reflected on the things beyond human control while her dogs rested Wednesday night, and then headed on for Nome Thursday morning.
She spent much of the day riding behind her dogs on the trail, thinking about the same thing, finally concluding death is a sad but inevitable companion, whether on the Iditarod or in life.
Four years ago, she said, she rescued Trim, an unwanted, 11/2-year-old bound for the animal shelter and a quick end. Under Joy's care, he evolved into an enthusiastic animal who seemed to love life as a sled dog.
"You know, it would have been cruel and inhumane if I had not taken him on this race," she said Thursday afternoon here, her windburned face brimming with emotion, tears forming in her eyes.
"It could have happened here, or it could have happened at home. We don't have control over everything. ... When you pass on, ask what you would like to be doing. And then ask a sled dog what they would like to be doing when they pass on.
"This is what the dog wanted," she said.
Veterinarians in Koyuk said they could find no explanation for the dog's death. There was no sign of poor treatment, said race chief vet Stuart Nelson in Nome.
"The vet at the checkpoint did not see anything that was obviously wrong with the dog," he added.
Trim had not been having any problems when examined by veterinarians in Shaktoolik Wednesday, and he rested 61/2 hours with his teammates in that checkpoint. Veterinarians there, as in other checkpoints, gave Joy high marks for her dog care.
"She had a beautiful dog team," Nordman said. "She was having a wonderful trip to Nome. It's just tragic."
Before the race, Joy said she did everything possible to ensure the health of her dogs on the trail: They were examined for ulcers. Their cardiovascular systems were checked with EKGs and blood work. They were given Vitamin E supplements some vets believe will help diminish muscular breakdown during ultramarathons.
"There's nothing more we could have done to make sure these dogs were healthy," Joy said.
On the trail, she added, she dropped dogs at the first hint of a problem - even when vets told her the dogs were fine. She left a dog in Unalakleet, she said, simply "because he wasn't having fun any more."
Trim, however, seemed to be enjoying himself right up until the end.
Nelson said a pathologist hopes to perform a necropsy on Trim's body as soon as possible to see if there are any signs of what might have felled the dog. Race officials, meanwhile, urged Joy to continue on to Nome.
"I told her to do justice to the other dogs and let them accomplish this," Nordman said. "I told her 'You have a lot of support."'
Still, Iditarod officials were shaken by the death. Up until Wednesday night, they thought they were on the verge of what appears near impossible - an Iditarod race without a dog death.
Statistically, the Seattle Times reported on March 15, Peter Constable of the University of Illinois figures more than five dogs should die in each Iditarod. His calculations are based on a human death rate of one person for every 13,000 hours of cross-country skiing.
The approximately 1,000 dogs that run the Iditarod each year spend about 100,000 hours trotting along the trail to Nome, with an equal or greater time devoted to rest in each checkpoint.
Historically, said former chief vet Bob Sept, it has been some of the best-rested dogs that have died. In recent years, dogs have tended to die in the first couple of days of the race, when they are the freshest, or in the teams of slow-moving mushers in the last half of the race.
In some ways, the death of Joy's dog this year resembled the final dog death of the 1997 race when a husky in Martin Buser's puppy team collapsed on the same stretch of trail. That team, driven by Nicolas Pattaroni, had been resting long and running easy.
Like Trim, the dog that died had been examined by vets and pronounced sound in Shaktoolik. Then, running on good trail across flat, sea ice in good weather, it fell over dead.
At a loss to understand such deaths, Joy planned to give her team another long rest Thursday night.
"The team doesn't need it," she added. "I need emotional recovery time."