The New York Times, PETA and the Sled Dog Action Coalition

The New York Times, PETA and the Sled Dog Action Coalition
May 10th 2008
wolfmoonsleddog
Southeast
Location: Middle Georgia
Time - 9:40am
Temperature: 65 degrees F
Conditions: Sunny
Forecast: Partly cloudy today, thunderstorms tomorrow

Well, the New York Times article I posted has prompted a lot of interesting discussion on sled dog lists and message boards. It’s also generating ire from animal rights activists as it goes against their claims of sled dogs being pushed beyond their limits. On an animal rights message board, the director of the Sled Dog Action Coalition commented on the article:

Dr. Michael Davis has long profited from studying the Iditarod dogs. He wants people to believe that the dogs are “magical” and don’t get tired. But they do get exhausted. The stress of running over 1, 000 miles in a short period of time sets the dogs up for getting diseases weeks to months later. Dr. Davis doesn’t talk about this.

Ironically, you’ll find Dr. Davis’ studies mentioned in much of the material on the SDAC website. His research on “ski asthma” and ulcers in sled dogs (although taken out of context) is considered accurate by the SDAC because it supports their view. Yet, if he says that his research shows that sled dogs don’t get fatigued the same way humans do, that research is considered inaccurate.

I looked on the SDAC site and sure enough, on their “Greed Fules The Iditarod” quotes page they have the following:

Veterinarians profit from doing research on Iditarod dogs

He [Dr. Michael Davis] is pursuing the research for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which gave him a $1.4 million grant in 2003 to study the physiology of fatigue resistance of sled dogs.Dr. Davis, who is teaming with researchers at Texas A&M in a $300,000 Darpa grant, awarded last fall, has been traveling to Alaska for years to learn why the sled dogs are “fatigue-proof.”

- Douglas Robson, New York Times, May 6, 2008

[Dogs DO get tired racing in the Iditarod. They are NOT "fatigue-proof."]

Now nobody is saying the dogs don’t get tired. What they are saying is that dogs can run long distances without the effects of extreme fatigue that humans would experience in the same situation. If dogs experienced what humans would, there is NO WAY they would be able to do what they do in the Iditarod.

Yesterday’s piece is not the first New York Times sled dog article to draw attention from animal rights forces this year. Last March’s excellent “Sled Dogs’ Lives, Deaths Raise Questions” (also see my blog post of the article) was mentioned on a PETA blog. The post referenced that the NYT article had numerous quotes from Dr. Randall Basaraba, who has been researching the deaths of racing sled dogs and looking for ways to prevent future deaths. I was especially amused when the writer of the PETA blog stated “you would think that a man who has immersed himself in this topic since 1995 would actually be against the harsh treatment inflicted on these dogs”. Yeah, I’d think so too - if harsh treatment were something that was regularly inflicted upon the dogs. But, having also been immersed in the world of sled dogs, I can tell you right now that it isn’t. Not that I’ve seen anyway.

I meant to post a comment on the PETA blog post but I never got around to it and it’s kind of late to do it now. And anyway, I’d be debating a post with statements like “sled-dog racing isn’t healthy for dogs and never will be” and encourages readers to visit the SDAC website to “help speed up the demise of sled-dog racing.”

They’ve been trying to speed up the demise of mushing for years. The sport has only become more popular. LOL

Actually, I was surprised by the lack of attacks on sled dog racing this year. PETA hardly even updated their Iditarod page for 2008. In fact, I’d kind of forgotten about it until last weekend when the following picture was the #1 result for “Iditarod” on Yahoo’s image search (it has since fallen to #30 at the time of this writing).



This is one of several pictures PETA has on their Iditarod page. None of them have any captions or explanations whatsoever. Viewers are left to draw their own conclusions about what they show. The pictures actually show sled dogs in a dog truck and trailer. That is how teams are usually transported. However, without this information, those who know nothing about sled dog racing might assume that this is how sled dogs are kept when they aren’t racing! There are also two pictures of sled dogs on a dropline outside the truck. A dropline is how sled dogs are restrained outside of the truck during trips. Now I will admit that some of the dogs look a bit thinner than I would prefer to see but I will also admit that I know some Alaskan huskies who eat three times as much as a Siberian of the same size and it’s STILL hard to keep their weight on them.

In the PETA pictures, there is obviously writing on the side of the dog truck and trailer but it has been blurred out so that we can’t read it. Probably to prevent lawsuits but it also prevents viewers from seeing that the huskies, although they are sled dogs, are not Iditarod dogs! I know this because, earlier this year, I happened upon the originals. Here are a couple of them.



As you can see, the pictures are of dog trucks used by Howling Dog Tours. I do not know if Howling Dog even knows that PETA is using photos of them. There was a debate about whether their dogs were treated humanely but it has nothing to do with the Iditarod. So either PETA didn’t verify that the pictures were of Iditarod dogs or they knew they weren’t and still put them on their Iditarod page. Either way, it’s not good.

Note: Stay tuned for a second post some very real cases of sled dog abuse (I might not agree with PETA but my reaction to what you’ll see and read was pretty much the same as theirs).