Photo by Tom Gerace : ann gerace,tom gerace...

Comments: 13

Frank Malafronte Sep 19, 2009, 5:45pm EDT

another awesome photo but what happened to the husky as the dog of choice for this job? that dog there in the lower left looks like it needs to eat !!

Tom Gerace Sep 19, 2009, 7:39pm EDT

Ha! We were surprised by the sled dogs too. The huskies that we see commonly in films are Siberian huskies. They are working dogs and typically lack the endurance for distance running. They pull heavier loads through the snow.

The racing dogs are usually Alaskan Huskies, much smaller/leaner than we expected. The Iditarod, runs 1150 miles from Anchorage to Nome and typically takes 10-17 days. The dogs often run 100 miles/day and, as a result, are built more like marathoners than construction workers.

Mushers follow teams of up to 16 dogs, which stretch over 100 feet in front of the sled. This means that navigating streams, obstacles, and gaps in the ice. They use lead dogs (in the front of the pack, as you might imagine) to keep the pack on a safe path and wheel dogs (which trail the pack, much closer to the sled) to keep the sled from whipping into obstacles or over a crevasse as the pack turns around it.

The is a real passion for the Iditarod in Alaska. You hear about it everywhere. As I read more about it, I have seen an ongoing debate between mushers and animal rights supporters about whether the race is fair to dogs. I don't know enough to comment on that front.