PALMER - A post-Iditarod flap has Houston musher Lynda Plettner defending herself against anonymous accusations that she and her husband tried to have dogs from her team euthanized at a local animal shelter. Plettner, who has run the Iditarod eight times, and husband Dan Govoni operate a kennel near Houston where they train dogs and offer dog sled rides to tourists. Rookies Trisha Kolegar and Fedor Konyukhov, the last-place finisher, used teams with dogs from Plettner's kennel in this year's Iditarod. Competitive dog mushing in general, and in the Iditarod in particular, have drawn fire from animal rights activists for several years. Some critics, including the Humane Society of the United States, complained in the early 1990s that many unwanted sled dogs and pups are killed by mushers. Alaska mushers have disputed that the practice is widespread. Govoni said the couple are victims of a smear campaign, though he doesn't know why anyone would target them. "Someone is out to slander us big time," Govoni said. Several media outlets, including local television stations and the Daily News, received anonymous calls Friday that Plettner had taken several dogs from her Iditarod team to the Mat-Su Borough Animal Control Shelter to be euthanized. The caller alleged Plettner then took the dogs back at the behest of Iditarod officials concerned about bad publicity. The couple did take the dogs back but did so of their own volition, Govoni said. Plettner took 10 dogs to the shelter Thursday, Govoni said, as a last resort because the couple could not find other homes for them, he said. Three were "fighters" and the rest were at least 10 years old, he said. Only one, a 7-year-old female, had raced in the Iditarod, Govoni said. That dog was in Plettner's team this year, he said. The dogs came from people who couldn't care for or didn't want them, he said. The couple tried to see if the animals could become sled dogs. They also tried to find homes. In some cases, they tried several times to place the animals, only to have them returned, he said. "It's the only option we had," he said of taking the dogs to the pound. "We had exhausted our resources to place them." Dealing with older or problem sled dogs is part of running a professional kennel, he said. And he believes the couple do more than most mushers to try to find homes for the dogs. The couple keep about 100 dogs on their property, he said, including about 30 problem dogs they take from others in an effort to give them a second chance. These are dogs other people might put down, he said. "We take a number of unwanted sled dogs from people," he said. "We try to rejuvenate and recuperate them." But they can't keep them forever and at some point they have to make choices if they can't find suitable homes and the dogs don't work out for racing, he said. Typically, the couple take dogs to the pound twice a year, he said. "If we had a million dollars and all the free dog food, we could feed and keep them all," he said. The couple took the most recent 10 dogs back only because they didn't want to deal with the publicity, he said. He plans to call the original owners and ask them to take the dogs back. Plettner talked with head Iditarod veterinarian Stu Nelson and Iditarod musher Vern Halter, Govoni said. Both said the couple were following approved guidelines for humane care, according to Govoni. Nelson could not immediately be reached for comment, but Halter said the couple did everything they should for the dogs as set out under the guidelines of Mush with Pride, a dog-safety organization that Iditarod mushers are required to join. According to those guidelines, dogs should be euthanized only as a last resort when suitable homes cannot be found and the use of animal shelters or local veterinarian clinics is encouraged. "Those tough decisions are really tough," Halter said. "I think they probably did everything that Pride wants mushers to do. It seems like they just got blindsided by someone. My heart goes out to them." q Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at skomarnitsky@adn.com.
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