The 2025 Iditarod Will Be Another Grueling Race for Dogs

The 2025 Iditarod will cause immense suffering—just like the races before it, during which more than 150 dogs have died. Last year’s Iditarod was one of the deadliest in recent years: Three young dogs—Henry, George, and Bog—collapsed and died on the trail. More than 200 dogs were pulled off the trail due to exhaustion, illness, or injury, pushing the remaining ones even harder to haul the mushers through treacherous terrains.

This year’s grueling race will be the longest mileage since 2009, stretching approximately 1128 miles. Only 33 mushers are signed up for the 2025 Iditarod, tying the record for the smallest field of competitors in the race’s history. With sponsors dropping and dogs dying, the race is in dire straits.

PETA is calling for the Iditarod to be permanently canceled and for its remaining sponsors to cut ties with it. Stay tuned for breaking updates from the 2025 Iditarod and PETA’s protests against the event.

Iditarod Facts: The Sordid Legacy of One of the World’s Cruelest Races

• During the Iditarod, mushers force dogs to run about 100 miles per day through biting winds, blinding snowstorms, subzero temperatures, and frozen terrain. The dogs often suffer from cut and bruised feet, bleeding stomach ulcers, strained muscles, and other painful injuries.
• The leading cause of death for dogs in the Iditarod is aspiration pneumonia—caused by inhaling their own vomit. Up to half the dogs who start the race don’t finish it—they are pulled out of the race due to exhaustion, illness, or injury, or they die on the trail. 
• Countless other dogs have died during the off-season. When mushers aren’t forcing them to run, humans neglect, abuse, and chain dogs outside in below-freezing weather, as revealed in PETA’s exposé of well-known mushers’ kennels. Before the 2024 Iditarod even began, five dogs were killed, and eight others were injured after being hit by snowmobiles in two separate training incidents in November and December 2023.
• There’s no retirement plan for dogs used in the Iditarod. Humans have shot, bludgeoned to death, or abandoned those deemed no longer useful.
• Last year’s winner, Dallas Seavey, and his father, Mitch Seavey, who is set to compete in this year’s race, literally wrote the book—two books, in fact—on beating, depriving, and neglecting dogs in pursuit of an Iditarod championship. Here’s just one appalling passage from the books: “When he doesn’t respond, stop, go up to the dog, pull back on his tug line, and with a pre-selected willow stick about ½ inch in diameter and three feet long, give him a good whack on the butt as you repeat the command. You have to whack him good, too. Don’t just hit the tug line or something. If you are going to bother with this, it’s got to sting.”
• The race is hit with scandal after scandal year-round. Months after the conclusion of last year’s race, Iditarod officials announced that musher Joshua Robbins’ 27^th place finish in 2024 had been vacated amid dog-drugging allegations. Despite requiring Robbins to return the prize money he won, officials welcomed him to apply to participate in future races.
• According to official estimates, the 2025 Iditarod is the longest since 2009, stretching 1128 miles. Following backlash from mushers and fans concerned about dangerous trail conditions, the Iditarod moved its restart location from Willow to Fairbanks—after initially failing to take any action to protect the dogs from the dangers posed by the lack of snow. Mushers were apparently silenced on this issue, which comes as no surprise considering the Iditarod’s use of gag rules to attempt to avoid criticism and conceal information that would be damaging to the race’s reputation (see Rule 53 here).
• The Iditarod isn’t about Alaskan history—it’s about cash prizes and bragging rights for mushers. Proponents of the Iditarod have shamelessly co-opted the Serum Run—a one-time relay organized in response to a health emergency—in an attempt to glamorize a modern-day event that subjects dogs to even greater suffering. Dogs used during the Serum Run took turns in a relay to deliver an emergency supply of diphtheria serum to Nome, Alaska—meaning they were never forced to run 1,000 miles or more, as they are now.
• Numerous companies have cut ties with the race after reviewing PETA’s documentation of cruelty and hearing from the public. These include Millennium Hotels and Resorts, ExxonMobil (which was a major Iditarod sponsor, giving $250,000 a year), Jack Daniel’s, Coca-Cola, Chrysler, Wells Fargo, and Alaska Airlines. GCI (owned by Liberty Media), a major sponsor for years, appears to be distancing itself from the race, as its logo has been removed from the race website.

The Iditarod’s Death Toll Will Continue to Climb Until It Ends

The Iditarod’s remaining sponsors should be ashamed of the blood on their hands. Help us urge them to stop supporting this cruelty.