by Emily Murray - Emily is in her fourth year of college at NMU,
working towards a degree in secondary English education with a
journalism minor.
Glory days can’t last forever. Time passes and people retire. Turns out
the same thing goes for sled dogs, minus health care and a pension. So
what happens to retired sled dogs? That depends on the musher.
Dr. Timothy Hunt is a veterinarian at Bayshore Veterinary Hospital in
Marquette, Mich., as well as a veteran musher.
Thirty dogs make up his kennel, two of which are no longer racing. Hunt
has retired 24 dogs since he began in the sport in 1995. He finds good
homes for them through word-of-mouth, without advertising. That way he
knows what kinds of homes they are going to.
“They deserve to be given time at the end of their career. It may be
the high point of their lives,” Hunt said.
He likes to put them in homes with other dogs, and preferably with
young kids. In these kinds of situations the dogs are happy because of
the attention they get.
“They’re one-on-one instead of one-on-thirty,” Hunt said.
That attention can make a big difference during a sled dog’s
retirement, which may extend many years beyond its racing career.
A typical sled dog’s career spans ages two to eight, though they can be
older, Hunt said. Beyond their athletic career they usually live to be
around 14 to 15. Because of sled dogs’ active lifestyle they do not
typically have a lot of health problems, Hunt said; problems that do
arise often involve arthritis.
“They usually are healthy right up to the end of their days,” Hunt said.
So if health issues are not a pressing question for mushers in deciding
what to do with their retired dogs, one might ask why they do not
always keep them.
Hunt said that what people do with their retired dogs often depends on
what part of the country you are in. This is because of variation in
kennel size and income of the musher.
“At some kennels a lot of dogs go down the tubes,” Hunt said, and added
that going down the tubes means, “Whatever you think it means.”
Hunt said that some dogs are treated like cattle: when their usefulness
is done, dispose of them. Dogs may be abandoned or even become victims
of cruelty or abuse.
“I try to lead by example,” Hunt said. “You owe it to them to find a
good place for them.”
Tracey Weber at the Marquette County Humane Society says that retired
sled dogs are brought to the humane society, but very rarely. In this
last year only one such was brought in from a hobby musher, Weber said.
According to Weber, mushers tend to retire their dogs with them, or
sell them to other mushers who put them in a breeding program.
“Mushers tend to be pretty responsible in finding homes for their
dogs,” Weber said.
When retired sled dogs are brought in, they can sometimes sit for a
while, Weber said. This is because they have lived outside, without a
lot of family interaction, and typically are not house-broken.
“They’re not easy adoptions,” Weber said.
Neil Rasmussen of Grand Marais, Minn., has been sled dog racing since
1990, and has participated in the U.P. 200 six times. He passes his
older dogs on to people who enjoy a well-trained, experienced sled dog
that they can run recreationally. He doesn’t like to call this
retirement.
“I don’t believe in retirement for dogs or people. We just all do
something different. It might be more or less than before but is
usually mentally better,” Rasmussen said.
Rasmussen said that he currently has 16 dogs, but has had more dogs
than he can count over the years. Many of his older dogs have been
taken by his dog handler, who uses them to train beginning sled dogs.
These older dogs were very good leaders, which is excellent for
training younger dogs to be good sled dogs, Rasmussen said.
“They still want to do what they can just like people. We all need
goals and meaningful things to do throughout our life,” Rasmussen said.