AR-News: (CA) ALERT: School district promotes Iditarod dog torture

[Glickman37 at aol.com]

PLEASE CROSSPOST

>From the Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org 

According to the Los Angeles Times, Claremont Unified District board member 
Joan Presecan promotes the Iditarod to children by visiting schools and helping 
teachers develop lessons about the Iditarod dog sled race. Because the race 
has a long, documented history of dog deaths, illnesses and injuries, it is a 
violation of the letter and the spirit of California's Humane Education Law for 
teachers to promote the Iditarod.

Please tell the district's superintendent to follow the law by instructing 
her teachers not to promote this barbaric race.

EMAIL: drsmith at chs.cusd.claremont.edu 

Sample letter to personalize:

Dear Dr. Smith:

According to the Los Angeles Times, Claremont Unified School District board 
member Joan Presecan is promoting the Iditarod dog sled race. The Iditarod has 
a long, documented history of dog deaths, illnesses and injuries. By allowing 
the Iditarod to be promoted in your schools, you are violating the letter and 
spirit of the Humane Education Law of California: "233.5. (a) Each teacher 
shall endeavor to impress upon the minds of the pupils the principles of 
morality, truth, justice, patriotism...and the meaning of equality and human dignity, 
including the promotion of harmonious relations, kindness toward domestic pets 
and the humane treatment of living creatures...." Please follow the law by 
instructing your teachers not to promote this barbaric race and all the evils 
associated with it.

In the Iditarod, dogs are forced to run 1,150 miles, which is the approximate 
distance between Los Angeles and Vancouver, Canada, over a grueling terrain 
in 8 to 15 days. Dog deaths and injuries are common in the race. USA Today 
sports columnist Jon Saraceno called the Iditarod "a travesty of grueling 
proportions" and "Ihurtadog." Fox sportscaster Jim Rome called it "I-killed-a-dog." 
Orlando Sentinel sports columnist George Diaz said the race is "a barbaric 
ritual" and "an illegal sweatshop for dogs." USA Today business columnist Bruce 
Horovitz said the race is a "public-relations minefield."

The Sled Dog Action Coalition (SDAC) was founded in 1999 to educate America 
about the exploitation of sled dogs in Alaska's annual Iditarod dog sled race. 
The SDAC and its efforts to educate people about the brutalities associated 
with the Iditarod was profiled in USA Today and in the Miami Herald. I am 
emailing copies of these and other articles.

Please visit the SDAC website http://www.helpsleddogs.org to see pictures, 
and for more information. Be sure to read the quotes on 
http://www.helpsleddogs.org/remarks.htm . All of the material on the site is true and verifiable.

At least 122 dogs have died in the Iditarod. There is no official count of 
dog deaths available for the race's early years. In "WinterDance: the Fine 
Madness of Running the Iditarod," Gary Paulsen describes witnessing an Iditarod 
musher brutally kicking a dog to death during the race. He wrote, "All the time 
he was kicking the dog. Not with the imprecision of anger, the kicks, not kicks 
to match his rage but aimed, clinical vicious kicks. Kicks meant to hurt 
deeply, to cause serious injury. Kicks meant to kill."

Causes of death have also included strangulation in towlines, internal 
hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and 
pneumonia. "Sudden death" and "external myopathy," a fatal condition in which a dog's 
muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also 
occurred. The 1976 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was accused of striking his 
dog with a snow hook (a large, sharp and heavy metal claw). In 1996, one of 
Rick Swenson's dogs died while he mushed his team through waist-deep water and 
ice. The Iditarod Trail Committee banned both mushers from the race but later 
reinstated them. In many states these incidents would be considered animal 
cruelty. Swenson is now on the Iditarod Board of Directors.

In the 2001 Iditarod, a sick dog was sent to a prison to be cared for by 
inmates and received no veterinary care. He was chained up in the cold and died. 
Another dog died by suffocating on his own vomit.

On average, 54% of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the 
finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of 
Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do cross, 81% have lung damage.

Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 
years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:

"They've had the hell beaten out of them." "You don't just whisper into their 
ears, ‘OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.' They 
understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way 
elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? 
They are all lying." -USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno's column

Beatings and whippings are common. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing 
Manual, "I heard one highly respected [sled dog] driver once state that "‘
Alaskans like the kind of dog they can beat on.'" "Nagging a dog team is cruel and 
ineffective...A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is 
effective." "It is a common training device in use among dog mushers...A whip is a 
very humane training tool."

Mushers believe in "culling" or killing unwanted dogs, including puppies. 
Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for 
any reason, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged or clubbed to death. 
"On-going cruelty is the law of many dog lots. Dogs are clubbed with baseball 
bats and if they don't pull are dragged to death in harnesses....." wrote 
Alaskan Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska's Bush Blade Newspaper (March, 2000).

Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, "He [Colonel Tom 
Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain 
their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens. Or 
dragging them to their death."

The race has led to the proliferation of horrific dog kennels in which the 
dogs are treated very cruelly. Many kennels have over 100 dogs and some have as 
many as 200. It is standard for the dogs to spend their entire lives outside 
tethered to metal chains that can be as short as four feet long. In 1997 the 
United States Department of Agriculture determined that the tethering of dogs 
was inhumane and not in the animals' best interests. The chaining of dogs as a 
primary means of enclosure is prohibited in all cases where federal law 
applies. A dog who is permanently tethered is forced to urinate and defecate where he 
sleeps, which conflicts with his natural instinct to eliminate away from his 
living area. 

Iditarod dogs are unhappy prisoners with no chance of parole. Please abide by 
California's Humane Education Law and instruct your teachers not to promote 
this cruel race.

Sincerely, 



































































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