Right now, we have vaccines globally available to combat a worldwide pandemic, yet less than 100 years ago, in 1925, it was dogs pulling sleds along an Alaska mail route who delivered an emergency supply of serum to quell a diphtheria outbreak in Nome. We’ve come so far in such a short period of time—how did that same lifesaving route become the Iditarod trail of death over the last half-century?
For the dogs forced to race about 100 miles a day for 10 days, the Iditarod has always been a matter of life or death. No records were kept in the early days of the Iditarod, but before the start of the 1997 race, the Anchorage Daily News reported that “as many as 34 dogs died in the first two races.” What has been documented is that more than 150 dogs have died in the Iditarod. The leading cause of death for dogs on the trail is aspiration pneumonia—caused by inhaling their own vomit. Up to half of the dogs who start the race don’t finish it, and during last year’s race, nearly 200 dogs were pulled off the trail because of exhaustion, illness, injury or other causes, leaving the remaining ones to have to work even harder.
The dogs are subjected to biting winds, blinding snowstorms and sub-zero temperatures, and they risk falling through treacherous ice into the frigid water. Even though the race can take up to two weeks, the official rules require that the dogs be allowed only 40 hours of rest—in total. Most states have laws that prohibit overdriving or overworking animals, but Alaska does not.
