I dreaded going in today. I haven't felt like that in a long time, probably sometime during a dead-end job I had more than 10 years ago. I couldn't help but think that I was going to have another day of craziness. I knew I just had to go in and face it, though. Just push on through. I armed myself with my CD player and some CDs. I needed something to get my mind off things, and I also needed something to ease the tension that was in the room. Van Morrison kept me company until the bell rang, then George Winston helped to keep a calm room.
I had some fun things planned, and hoped that the kids thought they were fun too. I have been planning to use the Iditarod (Yes, Karen!) as a learning tool. I can incorporate reading, math and a little geography into it. The race starts next Saturday (3/1), so I figured I would get the kids ready for it by showing them the website. When I went to plug the laptop into the projector, I realized that it hadn't been used in a while. The dust that covered it was unbelievable. (Add the Swiffer Duster to the list of supplies I have going... ) My thoughts were validated suddenly when the kids were mesmerized by my use of technology. How sad that the former teacher didn't use the technology available. My pity for these kids continues.
Next I read a book that my Mom bought for me when she was in Alaska this past fall. It's called Granite, and it is about a musher in the Iditarod named Susan Butcher and her best lead dog. I read the book to the kids without showing them the pictures to explain the concept of visualizing. They really got into it. We were actually having a conversation. I did have to stop several times to ask kids to be quiet, but for the most part, they were great.
I felt good. I also realized that these kids need so much. They need structure first of all, but they also need variety, technology, movement, and challenges. After the lesson went well, I felt up to the task of trying to give them what they need.
When I told my teaching partner Laura (the other 5th grade teacher) about it, she said, "You actually taught this morning." Yes, I did. And it felt great. I am hooked once again.
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Several of Susan Butcher's dogs died in the Iditarod in her effort to gain fame and fortune. One of the dogs used by Butcher in the 1994 Iditarod died from exertional myopathy, otherwise known as "sudden death syndrome." Another dog used by her dropped dead in 1987 from internal hemorrhaging. Several were injured and killed by moose. People who love their dogs don't make them run in the Iditarod. The bottom line is that the Iditarod is terribly cruel to dogs. For the facts, visit the Sled Dog Action Coalition website, http://www.helpsleddogs.org.
Here's a short list of what happens to the dogs during the Iditarod: death, paralysis, penile frostbite, bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons, vomiting, hypothermia, sprains, fur loss, broken teeth, torn footpads and anemia.
At least 133 dogs have died in the Iditarod. There is no official count of dog deaths available for the race's early years. In "WinterDance: the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod," a nonfiction book, Gary Paulsen describes witnessing an Iditarod musher brutally kicking a dog to death during the race. He wrote, "All the time he was kicking the dog. Not with the imprecision of anger, the kicks, not kicks to match his rage but aimed, clinical vicious kicks. Kicks meant to hurt deeply, to cause serious injury. Kicks meant to kill."
Causes of death have also included strangulation in towlines, internal hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and pneumonia. "Sudden death" and "external myopathy," a fatal condition in which a dog's muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also occurred. The 1976 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was accused of striking his dog with a snow hook (a large, sharp and heavy metal claw). In 1996, one of Rick Swenson's dogs died while he mushed his team through waist-deep water and ice. The Iditarod Trail Committee banned both mushers from the race but later reinstated them. In many states these incidents would be considered animal cruelty. Swenson is now on the Iditarod Board of Directors.
In the 2001 Iditarod, a sick dog was sent to a prison to be cared for by inmates and received no veterinary care. He was chained up in the cold and died. Another dog died by suffocating on his own vomit.
No one knows how many dogs die in training or after the race each year.
On average, 53 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do cross, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:
"They've had the hell beaten out of them." "You don't just whisper into their ears, ‘OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.' They understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? They are all lying." -USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno's column
Beatings and whippings are common. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, "I heard one highly respected [sled dog] driver once state that "‘Alaskans like the kind of dog they can beat on.'" "Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective...A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective." "It is a common training device in use among dog mushers...A whip is a very humane training tool."
During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Brooks admitted to hitting his dogs with a wooden trail marker when they refused to run. The Iditarod Trail Committee suspended Brooks for two years, but only for the actions he admitted. By ignoring eyewitness accounts, the Iditarod encouraged animal abuse. When mushers know that eyewitness accounts will be disregarded, they are more likely to hurt their dogs and lie about it later.
Mushers believe in "culling" or killing unwanted dogs, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged or clubbed to death. "On-going cruelty is the law of many dog lots. Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don't pull are dragged to death in harnesses....." wrote Alaskan Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska's Bush Blade Newspaper (March, 2000).
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, "He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens. Or dragging them to their death."
The Iditarod, with its history of abuse, could not be legally held in many states, because doing so would violate animal cruelty laws.
Iditarod administrators promote the race as a commemoration of sled dogs saving the children of Nome by bringing diphtheria serum from Anchorage in 1925. However, the co-founder of the Iditarod, Dorothy Page, said the race was not established to honor the sled drivers and dogs who carried the serum. In fact, 600 miles of this serum delivery was done by train and the other half was done by dogs running in relays, with no dog running over 100 miles. This isn't anything like the Iditarod.
The race has led to the proliferation of horrific dog kennels in which the dogs are treated very cruelly. Many kennels have over 100 dogs and some have as many as 200. It is standard for the dogs to spend their entire lives outside tethered to metal chains that can be as short as four feet long. In 1997 the United States Department of Agriculture determined that the tethering of dogs was inhumane and not in the animals' best interests. The chaining of dogs as a primary means of enclosure is prohibited in all cases where federal law applies. A dog who is permanently tethered is forced to urinate and defecate where he sleeps, which conflicts with his natural instinct to eliminate away from his living area.
Iditarod dogs are prisoners of abuse.
Sincerely,
Margery Glickman
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org
OH Margery GO AWAY!!!
Kelly: What an awesome class and I've got goosebumps for you!! Plus, I'm so excited about you using sled dogs!!! One of my old friends is running the race...Scott Smith! Might be fun to have groups pick a musher to follow during the race...
Van the man can always soothe the soul....
One of his songs.."There will be days like this" seems to fit.
One verse: "When everything falls into place, like the flick of a switch, Well my mama told me therell be days like this"
And another verse "When no one steps on my dreams, therell be days like this, When people understand what I mean therell be days like this, When you ring out the changes of how everything is, Well my mama told me therell be days like this"
Eric and I used to sing this everyday on the way to school. To me and Eric the song is self explanatory and Miss Step-on-my-dreams-dogsleder should listen to it!
I guarantee these kids are talking to their parents about the new teacher...Good, bad, or indifferent, at least they are talking to them and telling them the Iditarod story!
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