The Dark Side of Dogsled Racing

Mar 05, 2020

"Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

Let's Get Fictional

In elementary school, I distinctly remember learning about the Iditarod. Of course, being an animal lover, I was absolutely fascinated by it. The picture painted for us was one of symbiosis, the musher and the sled dogs working in harmony to traverse great, beautiful expanses of snow-covered terrain; they all worked together as a team to reach their goal. I loved watching videos of the dogs running together, and I remember a brief desire to gather my own team of dogs to join the race. But in school, because we're children, we're taught to view the world through rose-colored glasses, making it seem more like a Disney movie than real life. And because we learn that so young, we don't even realize that we're still wearing those glasses into adulthood, and so we continue to teach generation after generation beautiful lies about horrific practices.

But in truth, the sled dog industry is really no different than traditional horse or dog racing. All these animals are specially bred for the sole purpose of running fast. Unlike humans, animals have no choice to become professional athletes and are forced to train, eat, live, and compete according to what their human trainers demand of them.

Off the Beaten Path

When dogs aren't racing, their lives are like that of dogs in puppy mills. They're tied to posts with a six-foot chain, forced to run in circles endlessly for exercise and stimulation, not even allowed to form relationships with the dogs beside them. Many dogs lose all the fur beneath their collars from wearing them constantly and pulling on them continuously. Out of boredom, dogs often gnaw on their shelters, water and food pails, and the dirt or gravel under their feet.[1] As these operations occur in snowy places, temperatures drop below freezing in the wintertime and the dogs are left outside with only access to a small doghouse (at best -- many dogs' "shelter" is just a barrel or box). Many dogs have been found to freeze to death or have been buried under snow.[2]

If a dog is too slow or does not perform well in training, the dog can legally be culled; there are few regulations on these killings, and kennel operators are not required to report the deaths.[2] Some dogs are even skinned for their fur; there have been many accounts over the years of both dog and cat fur being passed off as more expensive or even faux fur.[3] When dogs get too old to race, they can also be killed, generally with a gunshot to the head.[1]

It seems absurd that in such a dog-loving society we could allow dogs to be treated so poorly, but this is a common practice everywhere dogsled racing occurs and everywhere in which animals are used in virtually any capacity. In fact, sled dogs are exempt from the Alaska Animal Cruelty Law and have the same rights as farm animals, which means that they are considered property, not sentient creatures.[4]

In the Race

There have been 154 confirmed dog deaths in the Iditarod alone, though none of the human mushers have suffered the same fate while racing. When a dog passes away, they are immediately removed from the race (if possible) to avoid the bad publicity of bringing in a dead dog to a checkpoint, meaning that the number of deaths may actually be significantly larger than 154. Another loophole keeping this number so low is that many dogs also die after completing the race, suffering from injuries, illnesses, or overexertion.[2] Aside from actual fatalities, approximately one-third of dogs drop out of the race, meaning they are too sick or injured to continue.[1]

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

In the 2016 documentary Sled Dogs, which I watched in preparation for this (and I highly recommend), many of the people featured from the industry used phrases like "respect," "they're with their buddies," "I do this for them," "they're like professional athletes," "it's what they love to do," "racing is in their genes," etc. And there are two of these people I want to briefly discuss here:

First, a rookie musher named Patrick, as he trains with and races his dogs in his first Iditarod. He said at one point, "I want them to be happy and successful." But how does a dog define success? Surely, it's not racing 1,049 miles across a frozen tundra hauling a sled and a human in less than 12 days. A dog doesn't care about success in that way; that's all on the human. Later on, he said he and his dogs are "like a wolf pack." This exemplifies one of the greatest problems with dogsled racing: dogs are not wolves. These are domesticated animals that have no understanding of what it means to be in the wild like a wolf. (Not to mention that these dogs all wear coats and booties, receive medical attention, and eat kibble out of a bowl.) Dogsledding is seen as a sport for outdoorsy people, as a way for them to connect with nature, when in fact there is nothing natural about it.

*Also, for reference, at a total of 1,049 miles between Anchorage and Nome, and with Patrick taking about 12 days to complete the race, that equates to 87.4 miles per day. A marathon is 26.2 miles. That means the dogs ran the equivalent of 3.33 marathons every single day. Not even the most skilled human athletes would, could, or should ever do that.

More than anything, seeing Patrick train and hearing the absolute adoration in his voice for the dogs and the sport, makes me want to reach out and help him. To show him that he can still love these dogs without causing them harm, especially since three of his dogs had to drop out of the race (and he still intended to run again with them at the next Iditarod). These dogs are more than just machines to pull a sled; they are unique individuals.

Second, a kennel operator named Gena takes us on a journey of what she does to train dogs for racing. Her segments of the film were probably the most difficult to watch because I could easily see past her smiling façade. There came a time when she had to move a six-month-old puppy named Lydia from a kennel to her permanent station (tethered to a pole with a crate for shelter); and this poor pup cowered as soon as Gena got near her, tried to run away, and yelped and cried as the collar was looped around her neck. Gena just said that Lydia had always been a shy, timid dog. I could hear the fake baby talk as she attempted to walk Lydia from the kennel to the tether, which ultimately resulted in her tugging Lydia by the collar the entire way. So while she was speaking kind words of encouragement, I could hear the frustration beneath it, the "How could you embarrass me like this when the film crew came today?!" behind the sweet façade.

There were several other instances like this with Gena, to which she, confusingly, explained that she respects the dogs and the dogs respect her. That's why, ultimately, they all agree to train. It's most certainly not because she attaches them to a sled with other experienced racers and tells them to start running. When you're forcing someone to do something for your own benefit, that's not respect; that's subjugation.

In one of Gena's final moments in the film, the interview is abruptly interrupted as a woman behind the camera tells her that something's wrong with one of the dogs. Gena immediately gets up and starts running, shouting "Not today!" as she goes to see what happened. When they arrive, the dog has already frozen, a small pile of brilliantly white snow covering his black coat. He had died the night before. But how could she not know that a dog had died well before the interview started? Who feeds them? Who checks up on them regularly to see if they need medical attention? By her reaction to hearing the news, and through the way we've seen the dogs react to her, we can tell she's working hard to put up a good front, to make things seem far better than they actually are.

Spread Awareness

The vast majority of the population is unaware of the horrors of dogsled racing, and I also knew very little about the specifics until I started researching for this. But with the "Last Great Race," as they call it, beginning in just a couple days, I wanted to raise awareness of these issues. While most people don't actively support the Iditarod and other dogsledding operations and races, we should still strive to speak up for the dogs that continue to suffer in honor of this sadistic "sport."