March 28, 2004

• Doggy Doings

  Craig Medred is the “outdoors” columnist for the Anchorage Daily
  News.  He’s had his ups and downs and has some detractors among
  local folks, largely because a few years ago he went backcountry skiing
  or hiking (I’ve forgotten the details), got lost and had to be
  rescued.  I don’t know him personally, so can’t say I like or
  don’t like him, but he writes some interesting columns.  His
  headline today was Cowardly Columnist Attacks Last Great Race.  Some excerpts: 

  One thing you can count on about cowards is that they never show up on the battlefield.

  All of which leaves one wondering about USA Today columnist Jon
  Saraceno. He is a self-proclaimed authority on the imagined plight of
  the animals in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race who has never set foot
  on the trail. He is the sort of sports columnist you can’t reach on the
  telephone because he doesn’t have the guts to answer. He has his calls
  screened.

  As Norwegian Kjetl Backen grieved over a dead lead dog this year, Saraceno launched his annual attack on The Last Great Race.

  He wrote of team mutinies because of the “fast, grueling pace during
  unusually warm weather.” Indeed, the early pace was fast, and the
  weather was unusually warm and difficult for the dogs.

  But there is one small factual problem. There had been no mutinies when Saraceno pecked out his column.

  Saraceno wrote, too, of the many dogs “dropped during the race
  because they are unable to continue, but many others continue to trudge
  on with various injuries.”

  This, too, had at least a hint of truth to it. There are many dogs
  dropped in the Iditarod just as there are many humans who drop out of
  the Boston Marathon. They pull muscles. They get fatigued. They come
  down with illnesses. And they drop out.

  Then, like most humans, they go home and recover.

  That any dogs “trudge on with various injuries” is both a testament
  to Saraceno’s ignorance and an insult to the veterinarians who
  volunteer at the 20-plus checkpoints along the trail. Rest assured
  that, particularly in the front- running teams, any dog that shows
  signs of trudging is among those dogs that get dropped.

  You don’t average 8 to 10 mph with trudgers.

  And any back-of-the-pack musher with a dog that looks to be in
  trouble will have a veterinarian quickly counseling him, in a rather
  forceful manner if need be, to drop the dog.

  These are simple and obvious facts, the kind Saraceno might grasp if only he’d witnessed the race. But, of course, he hasn’t.

  He sits somewhere back in an office on the East Coast with his butt
  plopped down in a easy chair making claims that “mushers and their
  teams are not monitored by the media or anyone else” and that Daily
  News coverage of the race is “designed to lull readers and placate
  critics.”

  As a regular player in Daily News Iditarod coverage, this is news to
  me. I don’t know that I’ve ever before been accused of lulling anyone.
  Usually, it’s the opposite. And I know darn well I’ve never been
  involved in an effort to placate anybody or anything. Truthfully, I
  don’t think I know how.

  Given my reputation as a rabble-rouser, I should probably take this placating thing as a compliment.

  But I don’t.

  Maybe that’s because I’m the guy who put together the first and only
  objective accounting of just how many dogs have died in the Iditarod
  over the years, the accounting that Saraceno and his animal rights
  friends so love to distort.

  Maybe that’s because I’m the guy who has repeatedly questioned why
  dogs still occasionally die and what can be done about it, while
  Saraceno and his ilk advocate ending the race so sled dogs can join the
  many ignorantly abused dogs that have helped America’s epidemic of
  obesity slide from the human world into the canine world.

  Want to worry about dog abuse? Look no farther than the Pillsbury Doughdog down the street.

  Dogs didn’t evolve to roll, they evolved to run. That Saraceno
  attacks the integrity of the Daily News for accepting this reality is
  irksome. But, hey, I’m sure everyone here is used to having their
  integrity challenged.

  What I don’t think any of us is used to is a national columnist
  flat-out lying to his readers. And that’s what Saraceno does when he
  makes the claim that “teams are not monitored by the media or anyone
  else.”

  Since he lacks the guts to put himself out on the trail (I’m sure
  the weather is just too much for him), I’m willing to wager this is a
  simple lie of ignorance. It’s a lie nonetheless. The dogs are
  scrutinized by reporters and others all along the trail. Get on the
  Internet, and you can find Web sites that will give you photos of the
  dogs here, there and everywhere, plus some video.

  Then there are those veterinarians who professionally monitor the
  dogs. I know some of them. I’ve met them along the trail over the years
  in the process of personally following Iditarod dogs by snowmobile for
  hundreds of miles.

  Along the way, I have even done a few things to help dogs in
  trouble. I’ve joined mushers to untangle dogs with limbs wrapped in
  ganglines — a misstep that can lead to muscle pulls or possibly,
  though rarely, broken limbs.

  And the year five-time Iditarod champ Rick Swenson had a dog die in
  overflow (the only dog he’s ever had die in tens of thousands of miles
  of Iditarod mushing, it is worth noting), a Daily News photographer and
  I grabbed a bundle of trail markers, drove up the trail, and marked a
  safe way around that overflow for other dog teams to follow.

  Some of my colleagues later questioned whether that was the
  ethically proper thing for a journalist to do. I don’t really care if
  it was or not, because it was the right thing to do.

  I confess to sharing the trait that St. Michael musher Jerry Austin once assigned to Swenson: “He’s a stupid old dog lover.”

  So I guess I take it personally when some fat-mouth, city slicker
  back on the East Coast slides his easy chair up to the computer that
  attaches him to a national forum and launches an assault on the Daily
  News as a front for dog abuse and dog abusers.

  It’s time for somebody to call Saraceno out, and I’m more than happy to do it.

  Listen up, city boy. Next year, if you can figure out how to ride a
  snowmobile, I’m willing to guide you on a 1,100-mile tour of the
  Iditarod Trail to watch these dogs in action. I’m wagering we can get
  the Daily News to pay for it. If not, I’ll foot the bill myself.

  I can’t guarantee we’ll get to Nome in comfort, but I will guarantee
  we get there safely. Alaskans are a friendly and tolerant lot. We’re
  even willing to accommodate liars and cowards on their simple word that
  they are willing to reform their ways and take an objective look.

  Who knows, maybe you’ll even get lucky and find some horrible
  cruelty we’ve all somehow missed. Maybe you’ll uncover some dirty
  secret that will put you on the road to winning USA Today’s first
  Pulitzer Prize. Of course, we’ll still be ahead. The Daily News has two
  of those. But wouldn’t it be nice if the publication that considers
  itself America’s newspaper was at least once recognized by our
  profession for doing some reporting of merit?

  For you, the first step is to get your butt out of the office and
  onto the trail. Good reporters go to the battle to see what’s going on.
  Show enough gumption to do this next March and, if nothing else, you’ll
  win my respect.

  Even if you don’t find any of the God-awful dog abuse you claim is
  going on here in Alaska, even if you conclude the race is simply more
  than the sissified dogs of today should be asked to do, I’ll shut up
  and tolerate whatever drivel you might write in the future as a
  reflection of an honest disagreement about what constitutes proper
  relations between humans and animals in this day and age.

  But I’m tired of listening to nonsense from someone who has never been there.

  So here’s your chance.

  Put up, or shut up until you’ve at least seen enough of the event to have some idea of the subject about which you write.

  Daily News Outdoor editor Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com.

  …

  JON SARACENO’S COLUMN appeared in the March 15 edition of USA Today on page C-7. Saraceno can be reached by e-mail at jons@usatoday.com.

  Okay, you got the whole column there, because I just couldn’t find
  anything dispensible to cut out.  So sue me for copyright
  infringement, ADN!  (or is that something one gets arrested for?)

  And here are some bare-bones teasers for another story from today’s paper, headlined DOGLY GIFTS:

  WHAT, EXACTLY, CONSTITUTES AN AMAZING DOG? What it does? How it
  looks? The way it acts? Maybe an amazing dog doesn’t have to do
  anything amazing. Instead, it has to give something amazing. All of
  these dogs do just that. They give humbly without expecting anything
  back. They give joy and acceptance and the comforting feel of a soft
  head to pat in the middle of the night. They give so many gifts.

  THE GIFT OF BEING THERE

  Queenie is just so full of herself. The 1-year-old golden retriever
  likes to give out a low snort, sit down, throw back her head and pant
  as if chuckling to herself: Ha, got ya!

  Queenie’s owners agree that she has quite a few tricks up her paws,
  and though they’ve never seen any of them, they’ve been the brunt of a
  few. Lynne Koral and Allen “Sandy” Sanderson, both blind, have raised
  Queenie since she was a puppy. Few people believed they could do it.
  Even their blind friends advised them against it.

  “It’s like what happened with my son,” Koral said. “My parents
  wanted me to have an abortion because they said a blind person couldn’t
  raise a son. He’s almost 30 now,” she laughed.

  …

  THE GIFT OF ACCEPTANCE

  Molly Hasbrouck walks funny. Her rear wobbles, her back leg hops and
  her hips sway slightly, as if unsure which direction they want to go.
  But the feisty 9-year-old pit bull mix, who lost one of her rear legs
  in a car accident in New Mexico three years ago, refuses to let
  anything slow her down.

  Her owners, Lesley and Hunter Hasbrouck of Eagle River, say Molly
  can do anything a four-legged dog can do — and probably more. It’s her
  pluck, they say. And her determination. No matter what, she won’t give
  up.

  But Molly’s future hasn’t always looked so sunny. After she was hit
  by the car, her owner dropped her off at the clinic where Lesley was
  working and requested that she be put to sleep.

  Lesley refused to allow this.

  “She was so sweet,” she said. “She just stood there when they brought her in, her poor little leg dangling.”

  Instead, the clinic amputated Molly’s leg, and Lesley took her home.
  Since she was living alone at the time, she felt she needed
  companionship and protection.

  “Which I got,” she laughed. “I got it with a three-legged dog.”

  …

  The gift of memory

  Iris is a charmer. The silky-haired cocker spaniel walks with a
  grace so smooth and confident that if she were a woman, she’d be
  dressed in lace and moving through an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.
  Instead, the 3-year-old spends at least one day a week strolling
  through the halls of the Anchorage Pioneers’ and Veterans’ Home with
  her owner, Butch Von Lolhoffel.

  It’s obvious from the way she holds her head that she takes her job
  seriously. When she comes across a resident in a wheelchair or walker
  or who is lounging in one of the meeting areas, her tail goes up and
  she adopts a self-important prance. The residents laugh and clap their
  hands.

  “Look at the dog,” they shout, their voices suddenly younger. “Would you just look at that dog.”

  …

  THE GIFT OF HELPING OUT

  Jimmy-Lee
  is too darned handsome for his own good. The intelligent-faced German
  shepherd loped out of the back of police officer Mark Haywood’s patrol
  car with the air of a clumsy star. He tripped slightly and looked
  around to see if anyone noticed. Then he shook out his coat and stood
  in the parking lot with an eager look around his mouth.

  “Come on,” he seemed to snap. “Let’s get to work.”

  According to Haywood, Jimmy-Lee loves to work, especially when it
  involves riding around in the back of the patrol car, which has his
  name painted across the back door. Jimmy-Lee has been cruising with
  Haywood for five years, hanging out in dimly lit parking lots and
  searching crime scenes for evidence.

  It’s hard to imagine such a lovable dog taking a bite out of
  someone’s arm, but that’s exactly what Jimmy-Lee is trained to do. Plus
  tracking down a “bad guy” over bare pavement and detecting gunpowder
  residue in drawers and glove compartments.

  “He’s quite the dog,” Haywood said, ruffling behind Jimmy-Lee’s ears.

  Haywood, a K-9 handler and instructor, said he uses praise, not
  food, for rewards. He addresses Jimmy-Lee in a harsh tone for
  correction and a high, happy tone for praise. He demonstrated with a
  high-pitched “Good, good boy” that caused his face to flush slightly.

  “It’s embarrassing, let me tell you, using this baby voice in public,” he said.

  …

  Reporter Cinthia Ritchie can be reached at critchie@adn.com.

  • 7:47 pm
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