Dallas Seavey’s sled dog Faloo in the good times/Facebook
Iditarod dog allowed to suffer for hours?
Fans of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race were today arguing about whether it was fair The Last Great Race imposed a two-hour time penalty on five-time champ Dallas Seavey for his failure to gut the moose he killed Tuesday.
What they really should be arguing about is why Seavey is still in the race given what happened here. Consider what Seavey’s Facebook page reported yesterday:
Now think about what the Iditarod reported today via a media statement:
- A moose was dispatched approximately 14 miles from Skwentna on the trail towards Finger Lake at 01:32 a.m. on Monday, March 4, 2024.
- Approximately 10 minutes was spent at the site of the encounter, to which then the musher and team proceeded approximately 11 miles until 02:55 a.m. where they camped for three hours, departing approximately 05:55 a.m.
- Musher and team then proceeded to Finger Lake checkpoint arriving at 08:00 a.m. The moose was later retrieved, processed and salvaged and is being distributed by Iditarod support based in Skwentna.
Let’s unpack this.
Seavey had a dog-stomping encounter with a moose. One of his dogs was critically injured. He was then less than two hours from the Skwentna checkpoint.
He failed to adequately gut the moose. This might be understandable and easily forgivable if he’d turned his team around and rushed his critically injured dog back to Skwentna to get it treated as fast as possible.
But that isn’t what he did.
Instead of turning around, he went an hour and twenty minutes down the trail, hauling the critically injured dog. Camped out for three hours with the critically injured dog. And then spent another two hours on the trail to Finger Lake where he finally sought help for the critically injured dog.
This adds up to six and a half hours the dog was left to suffer (although hopefully, Seavey gave it Iditarod-banned painkillers) when it could have been back in Skwentna in less than two hours and under treatment by veterinarians in the Matanuska-Susitna Valley or Anchorage within three hours.
But instead of trying to get the dog cared for as soon as possible, Seavey elects to go down the trail, camp out and eventually push on? What was he thinking? Was he waiting for the dog to bleed out so he wouldn’t have to pay a vet bill?
Or maybe he lied about the condition of the dog. That’s always a possibility.
Either way, the two-hour time penalty is too small. Either way, he ought to be out of the race.
If he didn’t lie about the dog’s injuries, the optics are terrible:
Iditarod musher’s dog team attacked by moose. Musher shoots and kills moose. Dog is critically injured. Musher decides to ignore dog’s injuries because he doesn’t want to alter his race schedule.
That’s an animal-rights two-fer: A moose was unnecessarily killed because of the Iditarod and an injured sled dog left to suffer for hours.
And if Seavey lied about the dog being critically injured, the optics don’t get much better.
Then it’s time to revisit the Seavey doping controversy of a past Iditarod when Seavey stomped and steamed and vehemently declared he didn’t do it while waving his finger at imaginary saboteurs because there was never any evidence of sabotage.
There were, however, some strong indications that he, or his then-wife, were most likely with the dogs when they were doped, evidence the Iditarod refused to examine, It chose instead to embrace Seavey’s sabotage claim, declare him not guilty and beg him to return to race more Iditarods.
And with animal rights activists breathing down the Iditarod’s neck, this is how Seavey pays the race back? Or is it just karma coming around?
Correction: This is an edited version of the original story. The Iditarod press release had the day Seavey killed the moose right but the date wrong.
Categories: Commentary, News, Outdoors
Iditarod is a competition, it’s not a bunch of show dogs out having a good time. Dogs get injured competing. Police and military K9s are killed or injured as a matter of course- it’s part of their job. Dogs also get injured every day by being overweight, being let out the front door, or falling off the couch. I know dogs who suffocated at home in a dog-food bag. Stuff happens to dogs, even when they are doing nothing at all. A dog bred to work, suffers when they don’t get to do that work. I see it all the time in my breed. It doesn’t end well. These dogs are doing the job they were bred for and selected to do. If they are not actively abused, and their needs are met.. this situation doesn’t strike me as one to call out as abusive or even negative.
Dallas isn’t a trained veterinarian and further didn’t have imaging equipment with him. I’m sure he checked gums at a minimum, probably was checking the pulse, attitude, temperature, etc. It’s not just any dog- this dog made the race team, she is worth more than a random dog at the kennel, even if you believe he doesn’t care about his dogs except as tools of self-promotion.
It’s quite an assumption to say all he was focused on was winning and he was willing to arrive at a checkpoint with a dead dog to meet that end. I highly doubt this. My best guess is that he didn’t realize how bad off this dog was until he arrived at the checkpoint. I don’t think he’s so callous and indifferent to dog suffering, nor do I think he doesn’t know the signs to look for in mortally injured dog. It’s easy to judge post-fact.
All of those things at the start of your comment are true, but no one goes looking for sponsorship dollars for their fat dog or the one they let run lose to be hit by a car or the one that might suffocate in a dog-food bag. And law enforcement, which does sometimes go looking for sponsorship for K9s, can at least argue the dogs are involved in a valuable public service. The Iditarod is not a public service no matter what some fans think.
The fans who are so in love with Iditarod they put on blinders and demand everyone else put on blinnders as well are the fans who may be the death of Iditarod. I don’t really care about Dallas. But this is a bad, bad look for The Last Great Race, which once again failed to follow it’s own rules and is now acting as if it is fine with what Dallas did.
The needs of the dog in question in this case were eventually met by Dallas, but that came second to the race schedule. And if as he has said in a story he seems to be sticking to, the dog had only a 20 percent chance of survival by the time he got to the checkpoint, both he and Iditarod are damn lucky they beat the odds and the dog didn’t die.
As for Dallas’s other excuses, he’s a college-educated, professional dog musher. He knows the danger of internal injures in dogs stomped by moose or hit by snowmachines, or he should know these things. I’m glad your sure he monitored the dog. I’m not sure he did that. We don’t know what he did. He was out there all alone.
We also don’t know if the Faloo is worth more than any other dog in his kennel. He and his handlers were training a shit ton of dogs up on the Denali this winter. Putting this one in the team could well have come down to a fip of a coin, meaning he has another dog just as valuable sitting back in the dog lot. Maybe two or three or more.
And why would he worry about arriving at the checkpoint with a dead dog? A moose stomped it. You can’t figure out the story to follow?
“It was horrible. I was traumatized. The team was a wreck. I had to stop for three hours and get them all together so we could get our heads back in this race. We’re still trying to get over what happened. The others dogs just aren’t themselves, and I love them so much. Yadda, yadda, yadda.”
Dallas is a skilled story teller and a five-time Iditarod champ. A dead dog after a moose attack would have been an easier thing for him to explain than one on its last legs after a moose stomping and a three-hour camp out. Hell, a dead dog might have been a plus. I can almost hear the pounding on the roof of the rain of the sympathy that would have poured down on him if the dog had died.
What a ridiculous reply, its all about ego, money and winning. I guess its about power and control too now, right? To put a dog in harms way on purpose for those reasons. DS should have taken his dog to the fastest shortest vet care available, not continue putting the race first. Dogs as you well know don’t just die and are injured while racing. Dogs die when they don’t make the cut, they die from culling and they die from a lack of care and they die when they are done running after the fact. They die to let others make the cut, they die and are neglected when they are given to “recreation” mushers. Give me a break there is ZERO comparison to police dogs or other working dogs. Not even close. After being a musher since 1989 and in Interior AK since 03, sled dog rescue twenty years I have interviewed many mushers, handlers, and rescue organizations. I have been friends with some of these guys since 03. I have seen unbelievable things. nothin worse than a rabid race fan who has about as much depth as a kindergartner. Quite an assumption to say all he was focused on was his race?????? Are you kidding me? That is all most of them are ever focused on and Craig knows it. I know it. Its typical, with few just starting to get the recognition they deserve for a different way. P L E A S E get educated
There is no comparison with Iditarod sled dogs and other working dogs or police dogs – non. Dogs die and are injured during the race, dogs die after the race. Dogs die cause they get culled, dogs die cause they don’t make the cut or are too old to run. Dogs are given to “recreational” mushers where they are neglected and I have seen them shot in the head and dumped at the transfer site. I’ve seen dogs so sad and so traumatized with their new rec home that they commit suicide by eating a rock. Or they are given to a rec musher with ankles so swollen from racing and then doing tours all summer and no vet care. I have seen all this myself first person, and have interviewed famous mushers handlers. what they witnessed, photographed, and videod. I have hours and hours of this stuff. I am a musher but for these reasons I do not support the Iditarod or the Yukon Quest or any big money races. sure there a a few really good racers and mushers out there but they are never going to win cause guess what, they put their dogs ahead of their freaking race. Racing is about ego, money, and speed and Medred knows what he is talkin about.
yeah there is – its cumulative. Anyone that knows.
You know, I just have to say- in spite of the sometimes raw, very precise way in which you approach your writing pieces, I truly appreciate your efforts. I may not always agree, but you lay out very valid points. As a displaced Alaskan stuck in the Northeast (Lower 48), your site is a staple. Keep up the incredible work.
It’s not about agreeing. It’s about thinking. I never considered it a journalists job to sell people. That’s for politicians. A journalists job is to get people thinking.
But, of course, there is that down side as the late journalist, humorist and author Don Marquis once observed: “If you make people think they’re thinking, they’ll love you; But if you really make them think, they’ll hate you.”
I’ve never gutted a moose but I’ve gutted deer. Haha. Like a 5 gallon pail compared to a barn, I know. But he did the gutting job he thought would pass muster and continued on. But the dogs? Was he concerned? Not right away, that’s for sure. If he had a dog in the sled later, then he knew something was up, but kept going and going. But maybe he didn’t know the dog was badly injured? I don’t know. Never been in that situation.
It makes me mad at the whole enterprise and sad for the poor dog. But I’m just a recreational musher and the dogs are family. Whether this was “delaying needed medical care” or “drama/hype for the race or racer”, whatever. This is a bad deal.
A fair and accurate summation.
I think it’s irrisponsible to speculate about the dogs injuries and the motives of the musher. It’s irrisponsible of a vetrinarian to say something like, the dog has a 20% or 50% chance to live. That literally means nothing to me. Now they are saying the dog is going home, so I hope Faloo is OK.
I think under the pressure of the entire situation, Dallas tried to do the right thing by the dogs, and by the race rules. Like any of us Alaskans know, it ain’t always pretty, but you make it work. You live and you learn.
The veterinarians didn’t say it. Dallas said it: “My understanding is it’s pretty touch and go at this point,” Seavey said. “The first report was that she had a 20% chance.”
And what that says is that the dog had an 80 percent chance of dying. So we’re not to expect a professoinal dog driver to recognize the gravity of the situation and try to get the dog to a vet ASAP? Oh how times change:
“Four-time Iditarod Sled Dog Race winner Rick Swenson dropped back to 11th place in this year’s contest after a moose attacked his dog team Thursday morning.
“At 12:24 a.m. Swenson was the first to leave the checkpoint in the village of McGrath, 415 miles from the Anchorage starting line, but he returned 41 minutes later after one of his dogs was injured in the moose attack.” https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/03/08/Iditarod-champion-slowed-by-moose/3481636872400/
But then Swenson, despite his crotchety nature, was as the late Jerry Austin once described him: “A stupid old dog lover.”
And now, in the race that is supposed to be “all about the dogs,” it is apparenlty all about winning. But one can hardly hold Seavey responsible for that, or at least fully responsible. Fans who are willing to accept bad behavior on the part of Alaska mushers strongly reinforce the idea that winning is everything.
Clearly, trying to collect a record sixth Iditarod victory trumps the life of a dog. They’re expendable, right? There are a bunch more back at the kennel.
Wonder what math formula equation was used to determine its chances of living.
I’d expect the same one vets and physicians always use, the WAG equation.
I’m not going to claim to know what happened, or what was going through Dallas’s head, but a few thoughts:
1. It is possible that Dallas had reasons to believe the injuries were not that serious at the time, and only realized the severity later
2. I can think of several mushers who would pull their emergency beacon in a heartbeat if they thought one of their dogs was in trouble. I’ve even heard several of them make comments to the effect of they could care less about the “race” and they are only running to bond with their dogs. Aliy Zirkle (retired) and Nic Petit are two that exemplify this spirit, and there are many others. These are the mushers I admire, and why I watch the race.
You mean mushers like this: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/03/08/Iditarod-champion-slowed-by-moose/3481636872400/?
Here’s what Seavey told Alaska Public Media in Nikolai:
“One of his dogs, Faloo, had been running in the wheel position, closest to the sled, and got the worst of the kicking, Seavey said. The 5-year-old dog had to be flown from the next checkpoint to Anchorage, where veterinarians were caring for her.
“‘My understanding is it’s pretty touch and go at this point,’ Seavey said. ‘The first report was that she had a 20% chance.'”
He’s a professional dog driver. He has a dog this seriously injured, and he doesn’t recognize it? I guess it’s possible in the sense that anything is possible, but shouldn’t Iditarod expect more? I thought it was committed to try to eliminate dog deaths not create the odds for more.
I just watched Dallas’s interview on Insider. He was very humble and admitted to being in a state of shock at the time – which makes sense. He had just come through a very violent and chaotic emergency situation that was threating the life of his dogs (and potentially even him), and had to kill an animal to defend his team.
Dallas said Faloo appeared stable at the time, was walking around to go pee, and he thought it might even just be a surface cut. He reflected on the situation and said he made several decisions that seemed to make sense to him at the time but were obviously bad choices. He put it all down to being in shock. Anyone who has ever been in a traumatic situation knows it can be very hard to think clearly and you can make choices that seem stupid in retrospect.
Dallas went on to state it didn’t even occur to him that turning back might be closer. He was focused on getting Faloo to Finger Lake as soon as possible. He stopped to rest because the team was exhausted and Faloo appeared stable.
I encourage everyone to watch the interview if you can. It is very easy to second guess others and make logical decisions from the comfort of your living room, but quite a different thing when you are in the middle of it. Dallas was very honest about how he could have done better and was even baffled at some of the choices he made, saying being in shock was the only explanation….giving examples where he remembers one thing while acknowledging what really happened was clearly different that what he remembers.
I don’t know Dallas, but I do believe he cares greatly about his dogs.
It is always easier to ask forgiveness than to seek permission. I’m sure Dallas was humble. I’m sure that if this had been Brent Sass there would not only have been humbleness but tears. Brent and Dallas are both former reality TV actors with Brent clearly the better of the two.
I have a hard time buying the “shock” claim. Dallas has been in a lot of difficult outdoor situations over the years. They’re all pretty much the same in that you have to do the right shit after the bad shit in order to prevent everything going to hell. You become pretty conditioned to ignoring everything but what needs to be done next.
I shot an effing grizzly off my leg once. There was no shock. It’s the wilderness. You’re out there by yourself. All you’re thinking about is what you need to do next and thinking very methodically.
I can possibly buy his thinking Faloo wasn’t that bad off. That would be a fairly easy thing to rationalize when you’re focued on winning the race. I’ve seen people rationalize things much harder to rationalize. But then this comes with the problem of Dallas being focused on winning the race. Is that what he should be focused on?
And anyone who believes Seaveys’ team was “exhausted” and couldn’t continue another two hours down the trail to get the injured dog to the checkpoint simply doesn’t know Iditarod. Skipping rests and going hours more down the trail is a standard tactic for mushers trying to win the Iditarod or close the gap on a leader. Seavey wouldn’t be running if he didn’t think his team capable of skipping a scheduled rest stop and running for extra hours before the next rest.
Here, you can read about how Seavey cut rest to win a past race: https://www.adn.com/iditarod/article/when-nature-was-its-worst-dallas-seavey-was-his-best/2014/03/11/
The decsion here was clearly to rest on the shedule or cut rest to get the dog to the checkpoint sooner. Seavey judged the dog stable and decided that given that he could stick to the schedule and worry about the dog later. It was a racing decision. Let’s not try to disguise it or sugar coat it. Let’s all just be thankful the dog didn’t die.
As for Seavey’s general truthfulness, I think we are now in a world where the top contenders in the Iditarod say what they think it is best to say in any given situation. That may be the truth. It may not.
Lastly, since he and his spokespeople pretty quickly declared the dog to be “critical condition,” what was the dog’s condition at the checkpoint when Seavey arrived 6+ hours after the attack. That’s a key issue because the “Dog Care” rule very clearly says this:
‘If a returned dog is in critical condition or a life threatening condition, the musher maybe held up to eight (8) hours for investigation.”
If the dog was critical, why wasn’t Seavey held until completion of an investigation into what happened? Why was he permitted to leave and the investigation, which found he’d broken the rule requiring mushers gut moose, undertaken later? Are there special secret rules for five-time champions?
Dallas was not in “Shock”…
He has killed PLENTY of moose in the past…
Even moose charging his dog team.
None of these events were novel to him, and he knew damn well it was closer to go back…give me a break!
no surprise – hey its a Seavey. They are not known for putting dogs fist. Just another reason why this race is crap for the dogs.
You know, The one that comes with years of experience and is generally pretty conservative? Fk gee
“Approximately 10 minutes was spent at the site of the encounter”
If I’m reading this correctly, that means he and his dogs come into contact with a moose, the moose and a couple dogs get into some type of altercation, Seavey pulls his firearm and kills the moose, surveys the scene, collects his dogs, disembowles the moose, and then is back on the trail in approximately 10 minutes.
I might be able to do an ugly job of disemboweling a moose in under 10 minutes if it were laying dead on the ground not going through the throes of death. Typically a large game animal will spend minutes randomly kicking as the last neurons in the dying brain fire, getting anywhere near the belly of a dead/dying moose in the middle of nowhere at 130 am with a knife and the intent to gut the moose would be a remarkably irresponsible and idiotic thing to do until the moose had stopped kicking.
Not sure exactly what the trail was like right where he was, but unless he was on a totally blind corner where he would be a danger to other teams coming up and not seeing him, he probably could have unhooked the tugs and let the dogs rest right there while he gutted the moose. It’s not like he needed to be in a place that was wide enough for other teams to get by, since nobody would have been allowed to go by anyway until the moose was gutted well.
Also, if I had a dog that was injured in a moose encounter – even if I didn’t see it happen or know the extent of the injuries – I’d probably worry about the possibility of internal bleeding or something along that line JUST by the fact of a moose being in that proximity to my dogs. Clearly the dog was bagged, so there must have been some reason for concern. Even if the dog appeared fine, I’d be hustling just knowing I had a dog in the bag as a result of a moose conflict.
I started actually following the Iditarod in 2022, so I’m still getting a sense of the major personalities in the race, even though I’d heard of the Seaveys, Lance Mackey, Jeff King, etc., before I got invested in the competition. I have to admit that I took Dallas’s story at face value when it was relayed, but the subsequent evidence released and the analysis in your article have give me pause.
You’re right: the way he handled this situation will, best case scenario, offer ample fodder to those opposed to the race and those skeptical of his record. Worst case scenario, a dog that could have been saved loses her life unnecessarily. Here’s to hoping that either Faloo’s injuries have been exaggerated or that she pulls through a critical time and has many happy years ahead. Sticking to a race plan should be no reason to abandon the prudent care a musher owes his/her team.
If he had gone back, so turned around, is the trail in that area wide enough for head on passes? Serious question. thank you
It wouldn’t have been ideal, but he was also damn close to Shell Lake, a few miles at the most. And from Shell Lake, there is a far better, piston-bullied trail back to Skwentna, a virtual highway. And I really doubt that if he had messaged Irod to say, “I have a critically injured dog and am taking it back to Skwentna via the Iron Dog Trail to avoid head-on passes,” Iditarod would have said, “no, don’t do that,” or penalized him.
Hell, the best thing Iditarod could have happen these days is for a musher to do something like that. It’s a PR gold mine for the race:
“Five-time Iditarod champs risk chance of sixth victory to rush injured dog back for medical treatment!”
It would be interesting to know what Seavey and the race marshal or other Iditarod officials may have discussed. On the trail or before that press conference.
There are whole bunch of things here it would be interesting to know.
The integrity of ‘The Last Great Race’ is perhaps once again called into question.
It would be interesting to know if the following corroborate reported events:
1) GPS data
2) following musher observations
3) veterinary records & reports
4) physical evidence – sled, gear, clothing, etc.
Does anyone sense patterns of excessive ego, deception, or deceit with respect to:
A) the Tramadol incident associated with ‘win’ #5?
B) Heister’s ‘Chat with Dallas Seavey’ (20-NOV-23, iditarod.com)?
C) Dallas’ ‘Interview (infomercial?) in Cripple’ (7-MAR-24, iditarod.com)?
Have ‘fortune & fame’ corrupted the race’s golden boy of years past?
Does today’s Dallas represent the core values of the event?
Or, has he become an anomaly, in stark contrast to the character of the vast majority of today’s field of competitors?
Those are a couple good and sensible questoins.
Wow… and here I thought a “journalist” with the amount of years in Alaska would at least try to consider there is another side to an story. 🥴 I thought you were better than this. 🤷
You’re either anti-mushing, anti-Seavey, or or just another “journalist” with an axe to grind. You don’t have to be pro either to at least present the obvious alternative explanations rather than present only the ones that make Seavey look bad. 🤦
Then again… perhaps we should add X-ray machines to the required kit…. 🤔
Yeah, Bill. I’m a secret PETA plant.
So since you think there’s another side to the story, please share it. Seavey made a three-hour stop he didn’t need to make only two hours from Finger Lake when he claims to have been packing a “critically injured” dog. Not just an injured dog, but a critically injured dog.
He wasn’t going to blow up that dog team by going another two hours without the stop. Yes, he might have taken something out of them that affected how well his team performed on down the trail, but he certainly wasn’t going to blow them up.
If happen to agree with letting a “critically injured” dog, possibly bleeding from internal injuries, lay in the sled for an extra three hours just so someone won’t mess up his or her run-rest schedule in the Iditarod, that’s fine. We just have different standards then. But that isn’t the real issue.
The real issue is that this looks like shit to anyone who cares about how dogs are treated, and most of the Iditarod fan base cares about how dogs are treated. This is a sad reality of the modern day. We’re past the Jack London days of cutting the dogs who drop out of harness and just mushing on to get wherever you’re going as fast as possible.
Or is your other side of the story that the dog wasn’t all that seroiusly injured or not injured at all? I mean that is possible. Seavey is a former reality TV star, an actor. And shooting a moose to protect your dog team does make for a good story line.
We have yet to hear exactly how Faloo was injured by the moose. This author has likely never had to deal with an injured dog–and it is just as likely that while it was clear she was injured, it was not immediately clear how serious the injuries were. As a retired veterinarian who saw my share of injured dogs, sometimes it really is not clear from the outset which injuries will be life-threatening versus merely race-ending. As such, it was appropriate for Dallas to move out of the area to a better camping spot (keep in mind that he was on a series of switchbacks when this happened, where there was nowhere to safely camp and make his dogs comfortable) and then to take an unplanned rest stop as soon as he got to a better spot to focus on Faloo and see how she was progressing–and then when she was not progressing as hoped, to go on (equally good choice at that point versus returning to Skwentna) to get her flown out to medical care. Dallas made a logical call under the circumstances.
I’ve never gutted a moose, but I’ve gutted my fair share of elk–and to an experienced outdoorsman, 10 minutes for a quick field gutting is not unreasonable. (I’d likely take closer to 15 in my elk-hunting days, but I don’t have Dallas’s physique.) Clearly the job was adequate for the meat to be usable. Sorry, but I think the penalty was overly harsh and unwarranted, given that his first priority was getting his dog team to safety to better evaluate Faloo and see how she was progressing (or not progressing).
Heidi: As someone who has dealt with too many injured dogs and witnessed both kicking moose – one once denuded a spruce tree with her hoofs while we danced around it – and stomping moose, I’m going to have to kindly say that you are full of shit. If you go search on the internet, you can probably still find the video of a moose stomping a man to death in Anchorage.
The way moose critically injure humans or dogs is by dancing on them. This causes classic blunt force trauma. The chances of injury to internal organs is significant, and if that is the case, the time to treatment is important. As a vet, you ought to know this but apparenlty don’t.
I agree with you that it was appropriate for Seavey to move to somewhere he could get the team off the trail and check out all of the dogs. But you say he was “on a series of switchbacks” when this happened. Have you been on the old Iditarod Trail out of Skwentna a lot? I have. Seavey was in that windy, climbing section of trail along Shell Creek.
The late Don Bowers, who wrote the best Iditarod trail guide, fairly describes that section of trail this way: “You’ll cross Shell Creek, then climb back up for three more miles of up- and-down running through the woods and across swamps and small lakes to Onestone Lake.” There is nothing in there anywhere that I would describe as a series of switchbacks.
Onestone would also be a good place to camp. Seavey went eight miles past it.
There is also a good trail from Onestone a couple miles over to Shell Lake which connects to the piston-bulled Iron Dog Trail back to Skwentna which is a faster, smoother, easier way back to that checkpoint than going back into traffic on the Old Iditarod Trail. I find it hard to believe Iditarod would have objected if Seavey had messaged that he wanted to do that or even said he was going to the Shell Lake airstrip and “would you please send a helo there; I have a critically injured dog.”
The mushers all carry two way communication now. Isn’t part of the purpose for that incidents like this?
But lets get back to Seavey’s eight mile run past Onestone. Maybe you can provide a good explanation for that other than that this was his planned stopping point as part of the run/rest schedule he’d set up for the race? And why a three hour stop if all you have to do is check the team for injuries? I can do that in 20 minutes and push on to get the injured dog to Finger because time is an important element here if Faloo was “critically injured.”
Since you seem to know a whole lot about this, how injured was that dog and what exactly were the injuries?
Lastly, you actually timed how long it took you to gut an elk? I’ve never gutted an elk, but I have gutted plenty of moose and caribou. I’ve never thought to time it. A big bull caribou would be more the size of an elk than an Alaska moose, and I’d expect I could get it done in ten. I’m pretty good with a knife. But then having thought about this a bit, given it doesn’t matter how shitty a job you do in gutting a moose in this situation, I’d expect I could do on in 10 by zippering the abdomen and taking my required Iditarod ax to the chest cavity to speed removal of the heart and lungs and not get so messy digging around in the chest cavity to cut the tracheau and pull out the heart and lungs.
The meat is a strawman. At the temperatures here, the moose can sit for hours maybe even a day before bloat starts to contaminate the meat.
Yet another nail In the Iditarod coffin. When will the public and the Sponsors say enough is enough? The hypocrisy and bad behavior exercised by some mushers and the race leadership is becoming the story. Not the race!
I would not be surprised if this year’s Iditarod is the last one. It’s time to consider ending it. Period!
“Can he be that clueless to the aim given the animal rights nuts?”
No, fully aware that there would be minimal consequence beyond perhaps a slap on the wrist.
The more we know, the more this situation should be examined. One thing is that all the mushers should carry satellite phones so if they run into a situation, a plane or helicopter can be dispatched immediately to deal with any injured dog or person. And there is no excuse whatsoever for someone to camp and not get help for an injured dog. NONE! If it had been one of my dogs, I would have gone to the nearest checkpoint and screamed for help. But then, my dogs are family. Things like this just remind me of why I prefer my dogs to a lot of people I keep reading about or run into. My neighbors are an exception to this, but come to think of it, they are all dog people who love their fur babies like I do.
I have probably gutted more moose than most. Winter, moose falling in the snow; 30 minutes will get a really rough job, but enough to meet regs. Make sense to at least cut it in half to clear the trail. Somebody would certainly be along pretty quick to help? Seems to me Dallas could have rested at the site of the kill and at least figured the condition of the injured dog?
Nice to see someone with a lot of experience weighing in, John. I’ve tought about this a bit. If I zipped the abdomen with no worries about slashing open intenstines and stomach and used my Iditarod-required ax to open up the chest cavity, I might be able to get the job done in 10. It’d be ugly. But I think it might be possible.
I’m not sure about Dallas resting at the site. He was in the short stretch of Shell Creek/Shell Hills shit climbing up to Onestone Lake, but why he didn’t just partk at Onestone to check everything out is beyond me. Why go another eight miles or so unless you’re just sticking to a pre-arranged run/reset schedule for the race?
And why stop for three hours there with a “critically injured” dog. He’s only a couple hours from Finger. It might affect his race on down the line if he runs a couple extra hours into Finger to get the dog taken care of, but he’s certainly not going to blow up the team by doing that. And there are other options here given two-way communication these days.
Why not just get on his little message machine and ask Irod for advice? Maybe ask them to send a chopper to Onestone to help evac a “critically injured” dog? Or is it possible that dog wasn’t really “critically injured” but only was so labeled later because when you’re a former reality TV star you know how to play events for the maximum drama?
John – do you understand what’s going on here? 5 AAC 92.410 is plenty clear that the meat of a DLP moose must be “salvaged”. ADFG has repeatedly made clear (see page 22 of the hunting regs) that “salvage” includes transport and in my interpretation the requirement to salvage all edible meat suggests a need to avoid spoiling meat, which may or may not be done.
I don’t really care about this instance, the ITC apparantly salvaged the kill for Dallas. Probably doesn’t meet the letter of the law, but whatever. But, please tell me that mushers don’t think ripping the guts out, cutting the moose in half and rolling it off the trail meets the State’s salvage requirements.
Do the troopers enforce this differently than the regs read? Do mushers have a different defacto legal standard than the rest of us?
Buddy of mine from Nome has shot a lot of moose. Says it would take one guy working alone at least two hours.
I agree Jim…
I have always had a buddy to help hold a leg and turn the animal with me.
Alone, at night, in deep snow….with 16 barking dogs adding to anxiety & one of them injured… I believe 2 hrs is reasonable, especially since salvaging the meat is a high priority. Lock in the Ice break, alert Irod command with Garmin device & get to work.
A few volunteers from Skwentna could have snowmachined there in less than an hour. None of Dallas’s actions seems to make sense other than winning the race was his only concern.
what a terrible biased article .Only Seavey knows his intentions -he may have plannned on going straight on to next checkpoint after gutting moose but encountered slower conditions than anticipated so did the right thing by dogs and rested them then continued on as soon as could .
Early in morning ,tired ,sleep deprived a person does the best they can in circumstances.
Unlike author of article in warm controlled safe environment ,likely well rested and sleep satiated giving an unrealistic account of possible intentions on the ground in situatiion of danger ,f3ear and much adrenaline.
Dallas has been seriously disadvantaged by this moose encounter compared to other mushers .I think he did the best he could do under very difficult circumstances
Thanks Simon. Everyting you say would apply nicely to some rookie amateur. Seavey is supposed to be a professional and a seasoned one at that.
A three-hour rest is a long rest, and if his team is going to be gassed by marching another two hours to Finger to make sure a “criticially injured” dog gets prompt treatment, he shouldn’t be in the race.
A top-level team isn’t going to blow up becuase it’s asked to run that extra two hours. Granted, the two hours might take something out of the dogs that costs a competitive musher like Seavey on down the trail, but the team isn’t going to decide to stage a Brent Sass-White Mountain revolt when asked to leave the Finger checkpoint.
So there are only two real possiblities here: The three-hour stop was part of Seavey’s preplanned, rest-run schedule and he wasn’t really all that concerned about a “critically injured” dog, or the dog’s injuries weren’t as serious as described but later became “critical” to further justify the moose shooting and make the story look better. Seavey, you must remember, is a former reality TV star like Brent Sass.
If you watch his interview at Finger Lake about killing and gutting the moose, He says, “I gutted it the best I could, but it was ugly. You don’t want to picture that…” What I can’t figure out is if it fell on his sled, even if he moved the moose, his sled would have been at least somewhat out of shape, and if he gutted it, why didn’t he have any blood on him, his white mickey mouse boots, or his sled? Seems like the Iditarod is afraid to disqualify there 5 time champion. I’ve never gutted a moose, but it would be a stretch to a whitetail in 10 minutes, let alone a moose.
Maybe he was cleaned up for the interview and ran his sled thorugh the Finger car wash beforehand?
Why not another question mark following “Bad Decisions?”
Who has affirmed the moose was gutted? Or did Dallas just cut the belly open and not do anything with the guts? What was the temperature at the time? 6 1/2 hours later he reports the DLP and dog injuries. That is a long time for an improperly handled moose to spoil. Then add the time for someone else, who had to go retrieve his DLP moose. The times do not add up. 10 minutes at the site? I would figure it would take all of 10 minutes, just to take care of the dogs. Handle a critical injured dog. take care of two others dog. Get the moose off your sled and get your team back in focused and heading down the trail. When did he have time to gut a moose?
Agree on the 10 minutes to get back in action. Do know that someone gutted the moose. A Shell Lake resident I’ve known for a long time said he saw the carcass hours after the shooting and the intenstines, lungs and heart had been removed and pitched out of the trail though the carcass was still lin the trail.
I’ve long been a fan of the suggestion I think Jeff king made years ago …change the rules to state that if a dog dies on your team during the race , then you are out of the race . Yes these things can happen for reasons that are no one’s fault , but I think it’s hard to argue that such a rule would likely improve how teams are run and cared for a lot more than they risk an unfair outcome .
more/lots of drama with a sled dog race, which is no longer relevant in our current times
Good journalistic work right here as ADN puppets attempt to paint Seavey as the moose killing hero.
I figured based on the times; he had no work in gutting it…which SHOULD disqualify him from this year’s race.
I didn’t even think of how close he was to the Skwentna checkpoint (Which usually has a volunteer vet on hand to evaluate dogs).
Dallas did everything he could to hide the dogs condition as long as he possibly could (While running full speed & advancing his team in the race).
I just look at the fact that this is the 4th or 5th dog to get severely injured or killed this Iditarod season from his team…just so he can become the “winningest” musher in history.
If my dog was kicked by a moose, I would have gone back to Skwentna & got them on a plane ASAP….but my dogs are not expendable to me.
Well, I’ll plead guilty to the mistake of yesterday assuming that the eight hour run was attributable to his spending time gutting that moose. Obvously that was wrong. Ass-U-&-me. Bad mistake. But it’s hard to believe the true story. Can he be that clueless to the aim given the animal rights nuts?
Not really enough information to make a judgement regarding Seaveys’s treatment of the injured dog – one way or the other. The fact that all the other 15 dogs are still running in his team, suggests that the moose really did not get into his team big time before he managed to shoot it. Which would mean that there may have not been a single dog with visible injuries after the incident, not to mention seemingly critically injured dog – then. So keep on racing normally. Such an injury to internal organs that you cannot detect at site, may even have you have the dog running still in the team, and later slowly or abruptly develop into seroius internal bleeding. Depending on when this happens the dog that seemed OK earlier, can be anything between “just not OK” and critical condition when arriving to Finger Lake. Even in the first option, the dog is still likely to be in critical condition once it finally gets to vet clinic in Anchorage – if it is question of internal bleeding. Or then it may have been a completely different story. As said, not enough facts for now. Serious internal bleeding makes dog´s gums turn pale, so that is one sign to watch if you suspect such an injury. Apathy is also a symptom.
One of the first things I’d have been doing was looking at that dog’s gums.
Inquiring minds want to know; transparency is a good thing. There’s no way in hell anyone could properly gut a moose in 10 minutes, and combined with the rest of the story, a two hour penalty isn’t enough regardless who the musher is.
You’d have to be really good with a knife. I’ve never timed the process, but think I could get it done in 15 minutes on a cow where you don’t have to leave the sex organs attached to the carcass. And if you’re not thinking about meat care, you could probably save some time but not giving a crap about how neatly you open the moose up. Slash it, spill the stomach and intestines, reach up into the chest cavity, severe the tracheau, roll out the heart and lungs , and legally – at least for DLP – you ought to be good to go.
There is now Dallas Seavey’s video interview with details in Iditarod Insider.