Sled Dog Watchdog: Yukon Quest John Firth book

This book, by local Whitehorse author, John Firth, gives an informative and relativley balanced
treatment of the Yukon Quest (the book even includes a section about Quest race rules, such as they
are), among the few books written about the event. Although Mr. Firth, like the authors of other books
reviewed in this section, is a strong proponent of the race, he does express some concern and
compassion for the dogs, and gives an airing to some of the Quest's 'dirty laundry.'

[About Alaska musher Gerry Riley]
Riley walks down the team, rubbing each dog on the head, talking quietly to the team, reminding them
who is boss. It's like watching a coach prepare a team for the big game, trying to calm them down
while keeping them pumped up. But there is more to the relationship between mushers and their
dogs; borders on something like a parent-child bond rather than just players and their mentor.
(Page 13)

[Alaska musher Jon Gleason on the intelligence of sled dogs]
"Dogs can be so stupid sometimes," sums up Gleason. "It's almost like it was written, 'you will get to
the top and you will stop and you will not go any further no matter how much they cuss and swear.' At
that particular point, all our dogs have got the same damn name: you dumb sonofabitch. I don't care
whose team it is, we've all got the same dumb dogs and they all have the same name."
(Pages 17/18)

[The effect of extreme cold on dogs]
It is harder on the dogs; they literally freeze-dry. The dry cold absorbs the moisture they breathe out
and sucks it out of their skin faster than the musher can replace it. Dehydration is a problem in any
long distance dog sled race, but its effect is magnified by extreme cold and wind.
(Page 37)

[French musher runs injured dogs]
Francois Varigas, transplanted from France, moved to a cabin on a small creek just outside of Dawson
City because he had fallen in love with the north reading Jack London novels as a child. He has injured
two wheel dogs before reaching Angel Creek, but decides to keep on running and evaluate them on
the mountain. [Ed. Note: Varigas dropped out shortly after]
(Page 41)

['True athletes']
The Alaskan breed bears little resemblance to the multitude of pedigrees that have combined to
produce this diminutive animal. Unlike many of those purebred animals or the dogs of Jack London
and Sergeant Preston, few of these dogs will ever see the inside of a human home and even fewer will
grow old lying at their owner's feet by the roaring fire. They are the heart and soul of the multi-million
dollar business of sled dog racing. When fitted into a harness and hooked to a tow line, they become
perfectly tuned competitive racing machines. A balanced team operates almost like the pistons in an
automobile engine. As tough and conditioned as the mushers may be, the mushers rank second to the
true athletes who pull the sleds…
(Pages 50/51)

[Alaska musher Joe Runyan's 'sled-puppy mill']
Runyan, winner of the 1985 Yukon Quest, the 1988 Alpirod (the European 1,000-mile race through
Italy, Austria, Germany and France) and the 1989 Iditarod, is a methodical breeder who has no
qualms about adapting new ideas from other breeding programs. His kennel has about 300 dogs, half
of them puppies. Most of the pups won't be kept past their age of maturity: about six to 14 months.
He will sell most to other mushers for breeding and give away the others. Only the ones who show
signs of what he is looking for will remain with him. The culling process for the pups is based on the
method used by breeders of homing pigeons: the bird makes it home or it doesn't. The dog meets his
standard or it doesn't.
[Ed. Note - read about Mr. Runyan's apparent use of electrical cattle prods to shock dogs
while training, in the 'cruel training methods' section of the Sled Dog Action Coalition
website]
(Pages 51/52)

[Breeding experiments]
Certain combinations of breeding worked better than others, and as the lines were inbred further, the
chances of a successful hybrid dog were further enhanced. Genetic or inherited problems can be
reduced as a breeding line gets older. But there were still too many unknown factors. Certain
cross-breeding that should have worked, didn't, for no apparent reason.
(Pages 53/54)

[Common afflictions of sled dogs]
Viruses, such as doggie flu, can stop a team in its tracks. They spread rapidly, causing vomiting,
lethargy, and diarrhea, Collisions with trees or stepping into cracks can sprain wrists, dislocate
shoulders or break legs. Fights can result in disabling cuts to paws, mouths, necks and legs. Heat
stress can cause dogs to lose their coordination, vomit and get diarrhea. This usually happens when a
dog's natural cooling system can't keep up to the heat generated by running under a warm sun, even if
the surrounding air is sub-zero…

Some dogs do die. Gastric torsion, or a twisted stomach, can kill them. Burst blood vessels in their
brains claim others. Dehydration is often the catalyst that precipitates a fatal health condition. But the
mortality rate of race dogs is no higher than it is for the dog who lives a sedentary lifestyle.
(Page 63)

['Enter the Sandman']
Ralph Tingey isn't in the habit of falling asleep on his sled, but there's one incident from the 1987 race
he won't forget - or remember. "I fell asleep on the sled and I must have been asleep for a while.
When I camped the next day with Dean Siebold he said, 'Boy, wasn't that stretch of the Yukon back
there horrible with that ice kind of sloping into that huge open hole?' I said, 'Dean, I fell asleep on the
sled yesterday. What hole?' He says, 'There was this great big hole, with the river boiling through it,
and there was all this side ice and it was really hard to negotiate.' I said, 'Oh.'"
(Page 91)

['Thirst for gold' in Dawson makes mushers overdrive dogs]
"I hope four ounces of gold doesn't end up costing me $20,000," says [Alaska musher Dave] Monson.
"That last push took something out of my dogs." The gold wasn't the reason for the finishing kick, he
explains. "Coming in first was a question of honour."
(Page 109)

[Isolation]
On this side of the mountain, just a few miles into the longest stretch between checkpoints (300 miles
from Dawson to Carmacks) drivers are truly isolated when it comes to helping their dog teams. There
are no veterinary facilities and no way to call for help when a dog team goes down. It is knowledge,
ingenuity, quick action and desperation that mean the difference between life and death for the dogs.
(Page 133)

['Burned-out' team]
Clifton Cadzow had burned up the trail from Eagle, and burned out his team. His leaders were getting
rebellious and balked at following his commands. "I pushed them too hard over American Summit in
the heat of the day and now they're not with me. If I go on, I could ruin them forever. At this point
they don't trust me any more." He scratches at Dawson City.
(Page 137)

[Some reasons mushers drop out of Quest]
In 1984, Bob English broke into tears and cried when scratching in Dawson City after contemplating
the toll the trail was taking on his dogs. In 1987, Jon Gleason endured frozen fingers, a frostbitten face
and exhaustion to the point of losing control, but when he discovered his dog, Dutch, had frozen his
foot, he withdrew immediately, just 100 miles from the finish line.
(Page 146)

[Disqualified musher]
Mike Maurer, a fisherman from Salcha, Alaska, will be disqualified in 1990 after one of his dogs dies
shortly after arriving in Carmacks. The injuries suffered by the dog will lead the vets to believe the
animal was not given proper care on the trail. Maurer will protest the ruling, insisting that the autopsy
gave the vets a false reading, but his disqualification will stand.
(Page 160)

[Quest vet 'saves the day']
Jim Reiter has good reason to appreciate the extra effort put forward by the vets. When one of his
dogs chewed off its foot after freezing it at Stepping Stone in 1987, Terry Quesnel, a vet from Vernon,
British Columbia, flew in, landing on the snow-covered ice to perform a quick bit of surgery that save
the dog's life. The dogs take all the pinching, poking of needles and peeing in jars in good humour.
"The sled dogs I've seen back home are vicious," smiles New Jersey vet Jean Buist. "Here, the greatest
danger I've had near a team is being licked to death."
(Page 160)

[The race is over/'Running is their life']
There is nobody to tell the dogs it's over. They've passed under banners, stopped in crowds and been
poked, prodded and needled by veterinarians a few times over the past two weeks...

For the first few days, the handler will take the dogs for a jog to loosen them up and take the ache out
of their legs. They will welcome the easy jaunt. It tells them that the hard stuff is over for a while.
They may get a week or two of easy exercise, then it's back to the racing circuit. The big-money races
are scheduled to be run during the next month. They will greet the reappearance of the sled and
harnesses with grins and wagging tails. This is what they were born to do. Running is their life.
(Pages 188/189)

[The physiology of sled dogs]
Veterinarian Ken Hinchcliff was back for his final year of studying the physiology of sled dogs. This
time he was trying to determine why some dogs finished the race and others didn't. "The obvious
reason for some is they are lame. But there may be a reason why some are more susceptible to
lameness than others." Dogs are dropped by mushers for various reasons - sore muscles, stiffness,
virus, injury, dehydration or pregnancy. Their mental state is important. Some will just stop pulling
because they're not happy anymore or just don't want to go any farther. Often, some young dogs are
dropped automatically by the musher who only wanted to run them for half the race anyway, just to
give them some experience. Last year's stress tests had surprised the vet. "The most surprising thing
we found is how minimally stressed they are by competing in a race like this. It was not outside the
normal range of a household pet." Hinchcliff didn't expect any surprise results from this year's testing.
"I don't expect we'll find any earth-shattering reason. But I won't be surprised to find that dropped
dogs, even if they are lame, have something in common in their blood."
(Page 204)

[More about the 'hallucinating musher']
The [Yukon musher] [Bill] Stewart incident brought to light the fact that, while veterinarians and race
officials are constantly monitoring the condition of the dogs on the trail, there is very little attention
paid to the condition of the musher. It is, according to [Yukon musher] Frank Turner, a health and
safety issue that needs to be addressed. "There are some real issues out there that might be
worthwhile discussing. The results of Bill's experience could have been far more serious." Stewart did
finish the race, in third place. He retired from long distance and competitive dog mushing. Several of
his dogs suffered damage as a result of the long period of time that they ran without any food or water
and they never raced again, something that Stewart regrets to this day.
(Page 221)

[A Quest race veterinarian reflects on the dark side of mushing]
"I love this race," she started suddenly, without taking her eyes off the window, "but I have to wonder
if we're going about doing this all wrong. It's times like this that I wonder whether or not we're
running some of these dogs to death." [Ed. Note - you think???] Just a couple of hours earlier,
[Quest vet Wendy Royle] had lifted a dead dog from the sled of Jay Cadzow - the second one she had
to deal with in the past two days. John Peep had lost a dog just after leaving McCabe Creek (Peep was
so upset he immediately withdrew from the race. Cadzow wrestled with the issue for most of his
36-hour mandatory stop in Dawson City, then decided to continue.) Cadzow's dog had died when it
stumbled, running down a hill, and the sled rode up on the animal before the musher could stop it.
Peep's dog hadn't shown any warning symptoms at all; it had simply collapsed and died in the
harness. (The death was eventually attributed to "sled dog myopathy," the sudden death of a sled dog
for no apparent reason). It is a little understood condition that many now believe is the result of a
genetic predisposition…

After setting new, higher standards in quality dog care programs and knowledge, Wendy
Royle finally called it quits following the 1997 Yukon Quest. She was emotionally
exhausted by her passionate pursuit of the perfect program and disheartened by the fact
that, after two years of working with veterinarians and organizations, it was still a
one-person crusade. [Ed. Note - italics mine]
(Pages 245/246)

['Lucky I didn't hurt any of those dogs']
Tom Randall, president of the Canadian (Yukon Quest) board for the 1998 race, stopped driving dogs
altogether several years ago. He was a veteran of two Yukon Quests. "I haven't told many people this
story. I've always told them that because I had snapped my Achilles tendon and couldn't walk without
pain, I stopped driving dogs. But that isn't the real reason for it." His last race had been in northern
Alberta. He was close enough to the lead to possibly mount a challenge. He had a scheduled two-hour
rest stop coming up, but if he didn't take it, he could have a shot at catching the leaders. So he kept on
running. A few miles down the trail, the team had dropped onto a river. After awhile, Randall noticed
his lead dogs were starting to wander a bit, weaving back and forth across the icy surface. He stopped
to take a look. The leaders had hit the wall. They couldn't go any further. He had pushed them too
hard for too long. Randall parked the team and waited on the river for five hours before the dogs
could continue. "What in hell am I doing?" he asked himself, and stopped racing dogs at that moment.
"I let speed and position get in the way of dog care. I was lucky I didn't hurt any of those dogs. I
decided there and then, it wasn't worth it. If I could make that mistake once, I could make it again."
These are the kinds of issues that plague the mushing world, the issues of conscience.
(Pages 246/247)