Dear Friend,

A PETA exposé of former Iditarod champions' kennels has revealed that dogs were denied veterinary care for painful injuries, kept constantly chained in the bitter cold and biting wind, and forced to run hundreds of miles even when exhausted and dehydrated.

PETA's eyewitness found that at the kennel of former Iditarod champion John Baker and musher Katherine Keith, dogs' only respite from wind chills as low as minus 19 degrees was dilapidated, uninsulated boxes.

Snickers was one of Baker's lead dogs when he won the Iditarod. PETA's eyewitness found her limping and suffering from chronic, painful arthritis. Rather than providing his elderly champion dog with the veterinary care and comfort that she desperately needed, he chained her up outdoors by the frozen sea—all alone and unable to escape the Arctic cold.

Another dog, Birch, sustained a crippling, extremely painful spinal cord injury that left her unable to move around comfortably and struggling just to get in and out of the shelter that she had access to. Baker and Keith wouldn't take her to a veterinarian—they just chained her up outside and left her there.

At three-time Iditarod champion Mitch Seavey's kennel, PETA's eyewitness found scores of dogs kept continuously chained to barrels. Some had run in circles for so long that their paw pads were worn down or raw.

One dog, Captain, had open, infected wounds on his neck, a result of the constant irritation caused by his collar as he paced back and forth at the end of a chain. A worker squeezed pus and ripped tissue out of the wounds.

Please join us in demanding that Iditarod sponsors immediately stop subsidizing the mistreatment and suffering of dogs.

Thank you for all that you do for animals.

Sincerely,

Colin Henstock
Assistant Manager of Investigations
Cruelty Investigations Department
PETA