From ALDF.org 
Animals will be harmed during the 2014 Iditarod, this is a fact. Teams of dogs will be forced to pull a sled over a thousand miles across the Alaska wilderness, often running at a grueling pace of up to one hundred miles per day for seven to ten straight days.
Injured or “dropped” dogs may not receive shelter, unless for medical treatment, and must be put back outside once treatment is completed. Furthermore, dropped dogs are left alone at checkpoints on a chain with four pounds of dog food. Dropped dogs — and all participating dogs — remain tethered at all times. Dogs receive one mandatory 24 hour resting period and additional shorter periods for rest — but the event relies upon the honor system, and it’s up to the musher to rest for the entire period.
Since the race began more than forty years ago, more than 140 dogs have died during the event — from heart attacks, pneumonia, muscle deterioration, dehydration, diarrhea, and spine injuries. They are impaled on sleds, drowned, or accidentally strangled.
Please take action to help ALDF speak out for sled dogs by asking the corporate sponsors of events like the Iditarod to withdraw their support.
Exposing the Big Game 
I don’t understand this – that animals have to die so that a person can win something as trivial as a sporting event. If they must do this kind of thing, the animal’s welfare should come first, and not the need for the human to win. God, we are a fucked up species.
“As if dog deaths were not enough, the rules allow mushers to kill moose, caribou, buffalo and other large animals “in defense of life or property” along the race. If the mushers were not racing in the Iditarod, they wouldn’t encounter wild animals defending their territory.”
http://animalrights.about.com/od/animalsinentertainment/a/IditarodDogs_2.htm
And I’m sure they shoot wolves as well.
It encapsulates the human priority system.
I have no problem with kids racing their dogs on a golf course or frozen pond for charity but for adults to do this for 1,000 miles is cruel insanity. The dogs love to run, by nature, just as they love playing in the snow. But when it ceases to be a fun thing for them and becomes a greed thing for humans, it becomes wrong.
That’s right.
Another thing that bothers me to no end is that hounds with short hair are being used for their speed. People have no business putting short-haired dogs in extreme cold. I have big hairy Mackenzie Valley village dogs, built to be ‘ice road truckers’ and I take them inside when it goes below freezing!
Reblogged this on "OUR WORLD".
What an egregious sport.