The Iditarod -Sled Dogs' worst nightmare

[Catherine]

Good thing you brought this up.  I knew about the race, but I haven't looked into it.

I can understand wanting to celebrate the history of the original run that brought life saving vaccine. They could do some kind of fund raising run and make it really meaningful.

The problem is that it Iditarod is a race with winners and losers and prizes. The moment there is money involved safety and common sense are abandoned. People will push their dogs until they are injured or killed because they want to win.
That would be the problem with the race itself.

Then there is the whole sled dog industry. Like any industry that uses animals there is a dark side. Animals are not treated well.
Like greyhound racing there will be a whole lot of dogs that don't measure up and are discarded. (usually by killing them) 
I doubt they have a retirement plan for old sled dogs either.

I know after the winter Olympics in Vancouver one sled dog operator had less demand for his dogs so he had 100 of them shot.
We only found out because a staff who did the killing applied for some kind of compensation because he was bothered by it.

Abuses like that are built into the system and there is little regulation.
Maybe it is time we stopped using dogs  like this. We have snowmobiles that can make the run safely and it is okay to park them in a garage for the summer.