Dub
Administrator
I'm gettin' so the past is the only thing I can remember.
Posts: 19,852
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Mush!
Mar 3, 2024 13:56:45 GMT -5
Post by Dub on Mar 3, 2024 13:56:45 GMT -5
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Post by millring on Mar 3, 2024 17:26:46 GMT -5
IceSha has the app so she can follow it.
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Mush!
Mar 3, 2024 17:41:14 GMT -5
Post by billhammond on Mar 3, 2024 17:41:14 GMT -5
Everyone Some people will be glued to their television sets for the next couple of weeks watching the 52nd running of the Iditarod dogsled race, the 1,000-mile run across the Alaskan wilderness braving brutally cold temperatures, blinding whiteouts, and other stuff too.
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Mush!
Mar 3, 2024 21:12:17 GMT -5
Post by Marshall on Mar 3, 2024 21:12:17 GMT -5
There are animal rights groups that are against this. Seems like some dogs die nearly every year.
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Mush!
Mar 3, 2024 22:13:19 GMT -5
Post by drlj on Mar 3, 2024 22:13:19 GMT -5
It would seem to be fun for everyone but the dogs.
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Mush!
Mar 4, 2024 1:19:54 GMT -5
Post by epaul on Mar 4, 2024 1:19:54 GMT -5
They were bred for the sled and that only. Without dog sleds and sled racing, they would not be. Period.
No existence. Nothing. Zilch. Full stop.
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Post by millring on Mar 4, 2024 5:46:36 GMT -5
If you go to a dog sled race/event, it's pretty evident that the dogs thrive on it. There's little to no forcing the dogs to run (quite the opposite -- the effort is in holding them back at the start line, they are so revved up and anxious to run). The only hesitant dogs are the puppies you see in training who are getting used to having something dragging behind them.
Besides that, there are help stations all along the trail with first aid and the ability to lift injured dogs and mushers to safety. The race has been under the microscope of well-meaning scrutiny for years. If it was as cruel to dogs as soft city folk might fear, we'd know it.
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Post by Cornflake on Mar 4, 2024 7:11:14 GMT -5
I know nothing about dog sled races. But in my bird hunting days I took some of my dogs along on quail hunts. It was as if I'd seen the real dog for the first time. They were born to hunt. They were in their element and they loved it.
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Mush!
Mar 4, 2024 8:38:46 GMT -5
Post by Marshall on Mar 4, 2024 8:38:46 GMT -5
If you go to a dog sled race/event, it's pretty evident that the dogs thrive on it. There's little to no forcing the dogs to run (quite the opposite -- the effort is in holding them back at the start line, they are so revved up and anxious to run). The only hesitant dogs are the puppies you see in training who are getting used to having something dragging behind them. Besides that, there are help stations all along the trail with first aid and the ability to lift injured dogs and mushers to safety. The race has been under the microscope of well-meaning scrutiny for years. If it was as cruel to dogs as soft city folk might fear, we'd know it. As soft city folk, we visited a sled dog "farm" in Breckenridge last summer. You can take a ride on a wheeled sled in summer. And, "Yes", the dogs are friendly and very excited to get in the harness and run.
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Mush!
Mar 4, 2024 8:43:49 GMT -5
Post by Marshall on Mar 4, 2024 8:43:49 GMT -5
It's interesting that the dogs are kept in separate individual little areas, usually on a chain, with a small hut for each dog. That's their winter sleep quarters. The young pups are kept in separate cages and visitors are allowed to pick them up and cuddle them. They need to get used to human touch. Most are very friendly.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Mar 4, 2024 10:45:29 GMT -5
The kind of mush my great aunt Jane made:
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Post by aquaduct on Mar 4, 2024 20:07:37 GMT -5
I know nothing about dog sled races. But in my bird hunting days I took some of my dogs along on quail hunts. It was as if I'd seen the real dog for the first time. They were born to hunt. They were in their element and they loved it. About a year ago now we picked up a couple of dogs to help fill our time in old age. The first was a English Setter mutt (we think) rescue from Texas named Annie. Big, sweet, dopey, and definitely the mellow one of the pair. A couple months after that my wife discovered a neighbor with an absolutely gorgeous Irish Setter named Monty. My wife's always loved Irish Setters so she then figured out where the breeder was (Oklahoma) and we arranged to get a little 8 week old half-sister puppy that we've named Iris (Iris H. Setter- get it?). Irish Setters, we have learned, are uncontrollable bird dogs and absolutely fearless and voracious hunters of anything else that moves and they can get close enough to. She's been quite a trip. She snagged a small bird in our backyard last summer and then proceeded to play with the body while my wife watched in horror. The neighbor who clued her into Irish Setters has 50 acres of undeveloped land on the other side of the freeway at the base of the Alleghenies that he lets us take the dogs out to just to let them run. Annie, being slower and dopier specializes in finding piles of poop (deer, bear, mouse, whatever) and rolling in it. I forgot to mention she's pure white. Last Saturday, she went down in the tall grass and came up a sick blend of brown and green with big wads of poop stuck in her prodigious hair. Yikes. Iris, on the other hand, runs full bore from the moment the car door is open. She got a mole about a week ago and proceeded to do the same victory dance with that. Now every time we go out, she finds the gradually disintegrating corpse (how the hell does she do that on 50 acres?) and rolls all over it, before springing up and chasing flocks of birds all over the property. My wife joined an Irish Setter board on Facebook and asked about it. The answer- "what do you mean that they haven't brought it into the house yet? Get used to it." That dog's a stone killer.
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