Months After 2024 Iditarod Ends, Officials Disqualify Musher as Dog-Drugging Rumors Swirl
Faced with a sharp decline in popularity, an exodus of sponsors, and mounting controversies, the 2024 Iditarod was ice-cold. As reported by The Washington Post, this year’s Iditarod was the deadliest in recent years. More than 200 dogs were pulled off the trail due to exhaustion, illness, or injury, forcing the remaining ones to work even harder to haul the mushers.
The event’s remaining sponsors, including Liberty Media, should be ashamed of the blood on their hands. PETA is calling for an immediate end to the race—before more dogs suffer and die.
Update (September 13, 2024): Musher Joshua Robbins Disqualified Amid Dog-Drugging Allegations
Iditarod musher Joshua Robbins has been disqualified months after the conclusion of this year’s race. Iditarod officials announced this week that Robbins’ 27th place finish has been vacated for violating a race rule prohibiting the use of any “oral or topical drug which may suppress the signs of illness or injury” in dogs forced to run. The broken rule also prohibits the use of “injectables” and other “drugs” or “artificial means” to drive dogs to perform beyond their natural abilities. It’s not clear which part of the rule Robbins violated, but this apparent dog-drugging scandal should surprise no one, considering the horrors dogs endured during the 2024 Iditarod.
Although Robbins must return the prize money he won for finishing 27th in this year’s competition, officials have welcomed him to apply to participate in future races.
Update (March 18, 2024): PETA’s Postmortem of 2024 Iditarod Cruelty
Now that one of the deadliest Iditarod races in recent years is over, the corpses are all accounted for, and the survivors are being sent back to barren yards and chained up to dilapidated wooden boxes or plastic barrels, PETA is breaking down the chaos of the race and the suffering and deaths of dogs that permeated it.
Three dogs collapsed and died during the 2024 Iditarod:
They were 3-year-old Henry, forced to race by Calvin Daugherty; 4-year-old George, forced to race by Hunter Keefe; and 2-year-old Bog, forced to race by Isaac Teaford, who was reportedly using dogs belonging to notorious musher Dallas Seavey. Teaford was caught on camera attempting to force Bog, whose limp body was lying on the snow, to stand.
Seavey, this year’s “winner,” wrote the book on abusing dogs.
After Faloo, one of the dogs he was forcing to race, had been critically injured by a moose, he killed the moose and chose to proceed eight hours to the next checkpoint instead of seeking more immediate veterinary care at the previous checkpoint, just two hours away, because finishing first—not Faloo’s well-being—was his main concern.
Before the race even began, five dogs—including two from Seavey’s kennel—were killed in two separate training incidents after being hit by snow machines, and eight others were injured.
PETA is calling on top Iditarod sponsor Liberty Media and its CEO, Greg Maffei, to stop propping up this race that runs dogs into the ground.
Today, March 18, PETA supporters will protest outside Maffei’s property in Englewood, Colorado, urging him to end his company’s sponsorship of the Iditarod, as Alaska Airlines, Chrysler, Coca-Cola, ExxonMobil, Jack Daniel’s, and Wells Fargo have done.
Update (March 13, 2024): Iditarod 2024 Kills a Third Dog, and a ‘Winner’ Is Named
Calvin Daugherty, a musher in the race, ran 3-year-old Henry the dog to his death on Tuesday, March 12. Henry is the third canine to be killed by this year’s race.
Bog, George, and Henry deserved to enjoy rich, full lives—not to be forced to run to their deaths in this pointless race.
Dallas Seavey, at the center of his own bloody Iditarod controversy this year, was named the winner of the 2024 race. As it ends, mushers are still driving dogs to exhaustion, forcing them to pull sleds.
Seavey’s conduct is nothing to celebrate. His legacy will forever be cemented as one of pain and suffering.
When Seavey’s exhausted dogs return home, he will reward them by chaining them up to wooden boxes in the blistering cold. PETA is calling for an immediate end to this nightmare before any more canine corpses are added to the towering pile of them that this race has already amassed.
Update (March 11, 2024): Iditarod’s Death Toll Rises as Dogs Collapse and Die During the Race
On Sunday, March 10, a 2-year-old dog named Bog, who was forced to race in the Iditarod by musher Isaac Teaford, collapsed near the Nulato checkpoint and died. Three of Teaford’s other dogs had already been pulled from the race due to exhaustion, illness, or injury. Teaford was reportedly racing dogs belonging to notorious musher Dallas Seavey.
Video footage shows Bog lying motionless on the icy ground and Teaford trying to make him stand before lifting his limp body.
Bog wasn’t the 2024 Iditarod’s only victim.
Race officials also announced that 4-year-old George had collapsed and died on the trail outside the Kaltag checkpoint. He was being raced by Hunter Keefe, who’d already forced four other dogs to run so fast and so hard that they had to be pulled off the trail. If these incidents had occurred under any other circumstances, these mushers would have been charged with cruelty to animals.
Musher Erin Altemus withdrew from the race on March 10, saying the dogs she was forcing to race were “mentally at their edge.” In an interview discussing her experience, Erin said that two of the dogs had shoulder injuries, so she rushed them to a checkpoint with one in her sled bag and the other one limping.
Update (March 5, 2024): One Dog in Critical Condition; Another Animal Dead at 2024 Iditarod
Just after midnight on Monday, March 4, notoriously cruel musher Dallas Seavey encountered an aggravated moose, who became entangled with him and the dogs he was forcing to race—so he shot and killed the animal point-blank.
Faloo, one of the dogs, was gravely injured during the ordeal, and yet the five-time “champion” reportedly delayed her care in order to remove the moose’s organs, as required by the rules of the race.
Although Faloo pulled through and is recovering from this traumatic incident after undergoing an emergency surgery, the violent encounter adds to the bloody legacy of the Iditarod and highlights why the race should end—effective immediately.
Seavey’s long list of controversies includes a November incident in which two of his dogs were killed by a snow machine during training. Dogs he has forced to race have tested positive for opioids, and his kennel has been accused of killing dogs who didn’t make the grade.
The Iditarod isn’t a feat of human resiliency. It’s a blood sport. A musher prioritizing the event’s rules above a dog’s critical injury reflects the appalling cruelty of the race.
Update (March 3, 2024): PETA Arrives in Alaska to Shine a Light on the Deadly Dog Race
On Thursday, February 29, a PETA supporter dressed as an Iditarod musher pulling a sled piled with “dead dogs” created a scene outside the Mushers Banquet Gala in Anchorage, calling for an end to the lethal race and the cruel treatment of dogs.
PETA supporters also protested at the Iditarod’s Ceremonial Start in downtown Anchorage on Saturday, March 2, displaying a giant banner high above the crowd reading, “Iditarod: Dogs Chained for Life, Run to Death,” with gashed and bloodied “dogs” chained to poles holding up the message.
On Sunday, March 3, attendees of the Iditarod Restart in Willow saw concerned locals and PETA supporters brandishing signs.
Originally posted on March 1, 2024:
To date, more than 150 dogs have died during Iditarod races, in addition to the countless others humans have killed simply because they weren’t fast enough or who have died during the off-season while chained outdoors in below-freezing weather, as revealed in PETA’s exposé of well-known mushers’ facilities.
Before the 2024 race even began, allegations of sexual assault and domestic violence made headlines. Iditarod officials initially failed to act after it was revealed that two mushers—both slated to compete in the Iditarod—had been asked to withdraw from the Kuskokwim 300 Sled Dog Race over allegations of abusing women. The two men joined a long list of mushers who have been accused or convicted of violent criminal acts.
Make no mistake: Dogs used in the Iditarod suffer badly. They’re chained outside in fierce weather when not being forced to race until their paws bleed and their bodies break down. PETA is demanding an end to this shameful spectacle before more dogs die in agony.
Year After Year, the Iditarod Exploits and Injures Animals
During the 2023 Iditarod, approximately 175 dogs were pulled off the trail due to exhaustion, illness, injury, or other causes, leaving the remaining ones to work even harder. Last year’s race ended in controversy after the winner was caught on video dragging exhausted dogs toward a checkpoint.
In 2022, the Iditarod sparked an intense backlash for punishing mushers who had brought dogs inside to shelter them from a potentially fatal storm, proving that cruelty is built into the race.
Please join PETA and thousands of conscientious people in urging the few remaining sponsors of the Iditarod to end their support of the death race.
