Ventana/Facebook

Musher blamed for dog death

As part of accepting at least some responsibility for the death of a dog in this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the Iditarod Trail Committee last week released a four-paragraph, 11-sentence statement more interesting for what it didn’t say than for what it said.

What the statement said was that “level of dog knowledge, and thus care,” displayed by 66-year-old rookie musher Daniel Klein from Wisconsin “did not meet the standards expected by the Iditarod,” before admitting to systemic, Iditarod “inadequacies…which highlighted the need for improved operations to protect both dog and musher.”

Klein, who dropped out of the race after a four-year-old dog named Ventana died, was then declared to have been officially disqualified, as if his Idit-adventure hadn’t gone badly enough already.

The statement did not explain the “inadequacies” of Iditarod officialdom, but it did add a little to what was already known about the pregnant Ventana. The dog, the Iditarod reported, was found “to be in a later stage of pregnancy. No other abnormalities were found on gross, microscopic, or toxicologic investigation.”

The statement made no mention of Wade Marrs, the owner of the dog leased to Klein, shortly before the race began or what knowledge Marrs might have had as to the dog’s pre-race condition. Marrs is a former member of the Iditarod board of directors, a former president of the Iditarod Officials Finishers Club, and a one-time member of the Iditarod Rules Committee.

The statement did not specify how many puppies the Ventana was carrying, which has a bearing on whether any of the 40 or more veterinarians reported to be working for Iditarod during the race should have been expected to spot the pregnancy.

The punishment of Klein, and Klein alone, would make it appear the Iditarod expects mushers to know more about dog care than the race veterinarians, which is either very high praise for Iditarod mushers or a very bad commentary on the competency of Iditarod vets.

As one long-time veteran musher observed, a dog with a small litter or a single pup is “often hard to diagnose as a layman musher, but if I was a trained vet, I would ask for my college money back.

“A pregnant dog running isn’t a big deal as humans have proven,” that dog driver added. “(But) disqualify a rookie for poor care months later is an asinine public relations fiasco. Ban the trail vets involved is the obvious action.”

Marrs’ Stump Jumpin’ Kennel was queried on Facebook during the race about whether it knew Ventana, was pregnant.

There was no response to the question, but the page did offer a lengthy poem authored by Marr’s wife, Sophia, who eulogized Ventana’s “unshaken joy in the harness.” And “the way she lived – not by force, but by instinct, by need.

“She did not run for us. She ran because stopping, though always a choice, was rarely one she ever made. And when the trail called her name for the last time, we felt the weight of a thousand miles press into our chests.”

Accidental pregnancy?

All in all, Ventana was portrayed as a highly valuable member of the Marrs’ kennel, and not the sort of dog that would be allowed to run around loose to engage in accidental breedings. Most of Alaska’s top-level mushers – and Wade, a five-time top-10 Iditarod finisher, is among them – keep close tabs on the matings in their kennels.

Whether Marrs was aware Ventana had been bred is unknown. Also unknown and unmentioned is what Ryan Redington, the veteran Iditarod musher mentoring Klein, knew about Ventana. Redington is another five-time, top-10 Iditarod finisher and the winner of the 2023 race.

After Ventana died, his kennel’s Facebook page described the dead dog as “a sweet pup we were borrowing this year from fellow Iditarod musher Wade Marrs. She was 4 years old, and had been training with us since the beginning of the season. I had the pleasure myself of racing with her in the Knik 100 this past December. Dan and his team will remain in Galena for a day or two, until Iditarod is able to arrange flights for the team back to Anchorage.”

Whether the dog was “borrowed” or leased when Redington ran it is unknown, but the Iditarod statement said Ventana ended up in Klein’s team as a “last-minute leasing.”

It did not, however, say from whom – be that Redington, who was reportedly “borrowing” Ventana, or Marrs, who owned the dog. Redington’s post as to the Knik 100 also makes it unclear who was actually in custody of the dog prior to the March start of the Iditarod, and thus in a position to know whether she had been bred or not.

The Iditarod statement also made no mention of what Iditarod rules say about pregnant dogs, although the rules are very clear:

‘The following conditions will prohibit a dog from participating: seizures (epilepsy), syncope (fainting) and/or pregnancy.”

The Iditarod statement said Klein, who has not responded to phone or text messages, was disqualified only after “a thorough investigation conducted by a six-member panel appointed by the Iditarod Trail Committee Board of Directors, which included three independent investigators, the race marshal, and co-chief veterinarians.”

Neither the names nor the qualifications of the “three independent investigators” were released. How independent they might have been is an even bigger unknown. The sled dog community in Alaska is highly inbred.

The race marshal is Warren Palfrey, a retired Canadian musher now heavily into sailing.

The co-chief veterinarians are Erika Friedrich from Virginia, who started working with the Iditarod as a volunteer in 2010, and 60-year-old Greg Kloster, a 2011 graduate of the University of Minnesota who now calls Wasilla home. 

Friedrich and Kloster were called into service after the unexpected death of long-time Iditarod chief veterinarian Stu Nelson in the fall of 2024. He died during a run near his Bonner County home. 

Whether the loss of the race’s long-time chief vet contributed to the dog’s death is anyone’s guess.

“The review of this incident caused the panel to investigate and scrutinize the process from Musher Klein’s entry into the race until the passing of Ventana,” the Iditarod statement said. “From the Qualifying Review Board Musher pre-screening, the last-minute leasing of Ventana to Dan Klein’s team, to the veterinary trail exam and discussion with the musher and race judges, several inadequacies were found which highlighted the need for improved operations to protect both dog and musher.”

“The Iditarod Trail Committee acknowledges that this responsibility is shared across the entire race community. It remains committed to the highest standards of dog care and takes this tragic event seriously. Efforts are underway to revise and strengthen protocols in these above-mentioned processes, to prevent this from happening again.”

Shared across “the entire race community?” So, like anyone involved with Iditarod is in some way partly responsible, but Klein, who appears to be a man who invested his life savings on an Iditarod run, is the only one being held in any way accountable?