I posted this message on Mary Martin's excellent 'Animal Person' blog this morning and thank her and the wonderful AAS people for the support. It is important that this story gets out to the world.

I can not tell you how much I and the chained sled dogs around the Yukon appreciate your wise words and thoughts. Murray Lundberg has made himself a hero to the dog mushing community, for the time being that is. Unwittingly, from his ridiculous newspaper and blog rant, he has also helped to increase the number of people thinking about sled dogs, and not all those newly aware of the issue will agree with him, especially because of the cowardly way he posed his argument.

I have been writing letters to the papers here for close to four years now about animal welfare (all animals and the issues that affect them) and dogs (sled dogs) who are now bred mainly to serve the ego and greed of man. I feel I have some right to talk about sled dogs, as I have dog mushing on both sides of my family, and no, the dogs were not used for racing, but for work, because back in the 1930's, 40's and 50's and living in the far North (NWT, northern Saskatchewan, northern Alberta) people needed them for that purpose.

My father had a small team of dogs because after his father died, from a young age he had to help raise his family (his mother and nine siblings).

He hauled water with a dog team from the Slave River near Fort Smith, NWT and also had a fish line at the river with which he fed his family and dogs. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to talk with him in depth about his dogs before he passed away suddenly in 2003.

My maternal grandfather was a trapper (another should-be defunct means of earning a living) for most of his life and used dog teams to patrol the trapline. One of my mother's uncles was a well-known Roman Catholic priest (Father Lafferty) and traveled by dog team 'spreading the word' throughout the South Mackenzie district of the NWT and northern Alberta and Saskatchewan from the 1920's to the 1940's. So, I guess my advocacy for sled dogs does come from somewhere.

Sled dogs are no longer needed for work, but here in the Yukon, our Territorial tourism department invests annually $150,000 towards promoting the dog-killing/dog-abusing Yukon Quest and gives a further $50,000 towards the Quest prize purse. Currently, I believe less than half that amount is given to our two humane societies by the government.

The Territorial tourism department and a Yukon tourism industry lobby group both promote sled dog tourism (the president of the lobby group owns a dog tour business and the executive director of the Yukon Quest also sits on the board), another way in which dogs can be exploited winter and summer.

There is absolutely no oversight or regulation by government of racing kennels or dog tour operators. Any idiot or wannabe-musher in the Yukon can get a few dogs and start breeding them, or get unwanted dogs from other mushers, for purposes of racing and/or sled dog tours.

I talked to a sled dog rescue organization owner from Alaska in 2005 and was told that in Alaska, competitive mushers often kill their unwanted dogs and puppies because they do not want their highly-treasured bloodlines benefitting other mushers. I also talked to a Yukon Quest musher who called me around the same time, and after listening to the same crap (for close to an hour) which Lundberg spouts, I cornered him into commenting about Yukon-based Quest mushers killing unwanted dogs and puppies.

After, of course, stating that HE did not kill dogs (I neglected to also pose the question "did he have anybody, employee, etc. who killed his dogs?") I recall his words as being "possibly so" (in regard to the killing of dogs).

Again, right around this time a person I consider to be highly knowledgable about dog mushing told me that he or she was told by the dog handler(s) for one Yukon Quest musher that a man described as a very scary individual killed dogs (did not say how it was done, unfortunately I was so shocked to receive this information that I neglected to ask how the killing was/is done) as this Quest musher was too cowardly to do this distasteful work for himself/herself. No insider has to this date stepped forth publicly to expose the 'industry' of competitive Yukon dog mushing.

I recently talked to a couple who live in an area of the Yukon near dog mushers and they thanked me for speaking up for sled dogs but are themselves afraid of doing so because of the fear of possible harm to them or their companion animals. Dogs in many Yukon communities are shot as the prime means of controlling their population. It is actually not illegal to shoot dogs here in the Yukon, read the CBC interview about the Dawson-area dog hoarder who shot 74 of his dogs and was not charged with any crime:

http://sleddogwatchdog.com/cbc_interview_dog_shootings.html

I have heard second hand that not all Yukon dog mushers support the Quest because of the racing aspect and also because of the inflated egos these people possess. Rarely if ever does anybody from the mushing community speak up to criticize cruel aspects of the Quest or dog mushing.

Quest musher Frank Turner spoke up about Quest mushers culling dogs in 2007 but was quickly silenced by his peers and local media made no attempt to pursue the story. Incidentally, I also read in a Yukon News article this summer that Mr. Turner has 120 dogs and is still breeding more, and was planning to run in the 2008 Quest.

For hard-hitting criticism from knowledgable dog mushers, read the Seppala Sled Dogs blog message at http://news.seppalasleddogs.com/blog/2006_02.html

For a statement about 'Responsible sled dog breeding and ownership' read http://www.seppalas.org/responsible.htm
Not all AR people would agree with the concept itself but it is nice to see such sentiments expressed about an ethic that very few dog mushers (and no Yukon Quest musher) can live up to.

Mr. Lundberg and his minions' heads would spontaneously blow apart if THEY read the previous messages. What else would you expect after so many years of the local media (and blowhards like Lundberg) treating Quest mushers like rock stars?

Also, with regard to people who pop their heads up occasionally (it is like a game of 'whack-a-mole' to me, sorry if I offend anyone with this analogy) and wax eloquently about the glories of the Quest, even to the extent of defending the chaining of dogs, and the dog deaths and injuries that occur as a regular consequence of the race, they are pretty easily dealt with, as such cowardly individuals are. I categorize people like this into three groups (please post if readers can think of any more):

1)He/she/they is/are incredibly stupid

2)He/she/they is/are a bloody liar(s)

3)He/she/they has/have a vested interest in promoting an event or lifestyle that is inherently cruel and eploitative of animals.

After posting one response message there, I intend to stay off the Explore North blog because I feel like I need to be fumigated after visiting the site.

Terry Cumming