How many dogs have died in the Iditarod?
In almost all of the Iditarod races, at least one dog death has occurred. The first race is reported to have resulted in the deaths of 15 to 19 dogs. In 1997, the Anchorage Daily News reported that “at least 107 (dogs) have died.” In the years since that report, 35 more dogs have died in the Iditarod, bringing the grand total of dogs who have died in the Iditarod to at least 142. There is no official count of dog deaths available for the race’s early years and this count relies only on a reported number of deaths. Causes of death during the last ten years have included strangulation in towlines, internal hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and pneumonia. “Sudden death” and “external myopathy,” a condition in which a dog’s muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also been blamed. In 1985 a musher kicked his dog to death. The 1975 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was banned for life in 1990 after being accused of striking
