Saturday, March 21, 1998
Copyright 1998 Anchorage Daily News
Race veterinarians do dogs proud
By CRAIG MEDRED
and DOUG O'HARRA
Daily News reporters
After the death of her dog Trim, Linda Joy of Willow probably summarized the reality of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race as well as anyone.
"The Iditarod has a life of its own," she said, "and unless you're really involved in it, you don't realize. There's life here on the Iditarod; we have breedings, and there's death also."
David Lindquist from Moose Pass saw the life. A little love-machine of a female dog named Wes made it difficult for Lindquist to keep his team moving forward this year. The male dogs were often more interested in trying to breed Wes than in getting to Nome.
Joy saw the death. She was shaken when Trim, a dog she saved from execution at the animal shelter years ago, fell over and died on the way into Koyuk.
Trim was the first canine fatality of the 1998 Iditarod. With the race winding down, race veterinarians and officials hope he is the last.
Coming off a bad year in 1997, chief vet Stuart Nelson Jr. from Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, had been hopeful this would be the first Iditarod to proceed without a canine casuality.
There were five deaths last year, one in 1996, two in 1995, and one in 1994.
The 10-year average is 2.9 deaths per year. Vets say that is consistent with what they might expect to see if they kept 1,000 dogs kenneled in one area for a couple weeks.
Based on the rate at which humans drop dead while cross-country skiing, a University of Illinois professor has calculated that five dogs are likely to die in each Iditarod, but the vets have always believed a death-free race is possible.
They thought for a time that they might have it this year.
"I know Stu doesn't want to say anything because he's afraid he'll jinx it," former chief vet Bob Sept said the day before Joy's dog died. "He's really spooked about it."
"If we get through this thing (with no deaths), let's be very proud," race marshal Mark Nordman said the same day. "But by no means let's pat each other on the back. You never want to get lax on animal care."
By then, mushers and vets already had teamed up to save some dogs that likely would have died in earlier Iditarods. Dogs toppled by heat stress in unseasonably warm weather were put on life-saving intravenous fluids in a variety of checkpoints between Skwentna and the Yukon River.
"This is a real good vet crew," said musher and veterinarian Mark May of North Pole. "They are really aggressive. They are not shy at all. They pull the thin dogs. There's no doubt that they've saved a bunch of dogs."
"I thought the vet corps were exceptionally helpful," added five-time champ Rick Swenson of Two Rivers. "They're starting to develop the trust of the mushers. That makes it better for the dogs."
Some vets, he said, used to have the attitude ''that the vets were protecting the dogs from the mushers. Now, it is that the vets are trying to get the dogs to Nome as safely as possible."
At checkpoint after checkpoint along the trail, mushers consulted with vets, and vets consulted with mushers on dog care. Injured or ailing dogs were pulled from the teams and shipped home. Vets reported dogs showing the injuries come to all runners, human or canine: dehydration, sprained joints and sore muscles.
A dog in Mitch Seavey's team was dropped with a torn Achilles' tendon in White Mountain. That's the same injury that felled Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino a few years ago as he dropped back to pass.
"Part of it," said Swenson, "is the crap shoot of life."
It's hard to do much about that.
The day before Joy's dog died, vets were talking about how a better trail, better training, warm weather, more knowledgeable mushers and better medical protocols for treating sled dogs had made the race safer for the canine athletes.
"I think it's a lot of things," Nordman said. "It just seems like we're meshing into a good system."
The day after Joy's dog died, everyone was again pondering what it would take to stage a race without a fatality.
"I begin to wonder because we've come so close," Sept said.
"(A) factor that nobody likes to talk about is the quicker you get the race over, the smaller the opportunity for something to happen," Swenson said.
The data on dog deaths would seem to bear him out. In the five fastest races of the past 10 years, the number of dog deaths averaged 2.2; in the five slowest, the average was 3.6.
Weather and trail, however, might be the key factors in those races, Nelson has said.
Good trail and mild weather mean the dogs don't have to work as hard to get to Nome. This year, Sept noted, the unusually warm conditions were near ideal for dog care. Huskies could run on excellent trail during the cool of night, and then rest and recuperate the next day in warm sunshine.
It has not always been so. In 1991, there was bad trail and hard weather along the coast. Eight dogs died that year.
"I think it's kind of luck," famed Alaska sprint musher Roxy Wright Champaine said as she watched the Iditarod finish in Nome this year.
And there may be more to that observation than anyone cares to admit, though Nelson, his vet crew, and the mushers all say they remain committed to the idea that they can always improve dog care.