Give children truth about dog race

Regarding the Sunday article, "Students learn from sled dogs":

Cypress Adventist School shouldn't pat itself on the back for having Iditarod musher Laura Daugereau speak to children. Daugereau doesn't tell these impressionable children the whole Iditarod story because it would scare them to death. How these dogs are treated and forced to run in the Iditarod does not paint a pretty picture.

What happens to the dogs during the race includes death, paralysis, frostbite of the penis and scrotum, bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons, viral diseases and sprains.

According to a study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those dogs who finish the Iditarod, 81 percent have lung damage. The Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine reported that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the race have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.

Veterinary care during the Iditarod is poor. Working to help the mushers, veterinarians give the dogs massive doses of antibiotics to keep them running. In 2007, the veterinary staff gave its Humanitarian Award to a musher who raced his dogs for four days even though all of them had diarrhea.

Dog beatings and whippings are common. During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that one musher kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain.

The Iditarod, with its dismal report card, belongs in history's garbage can.

Margery Glickman
Director, Sled Dog Action Coalition
Miami, Fla.