A third dog has died in this year’s Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, according to officials.
Henry, a 3-year-old on rookie Calvin Daugherty’s team, collapsed at 10:15 a.m. Tuesday outside of Shaktoolik, the checkpoint at race mile 754, said a statement from the race.
“Daugherty administered CPR but unfortunately the attempts to revive Henry were unsuccessful,” the statement said.
A pathologist will conduct a necropsy to try to determine the cause of Henry’s death, it says.
The Iditarod reported the other two dog deaths on Sunday. George was a 4-year-old on musher Hunter Keefe’s team and Bog was a 2-year-old on Isaac Teaford’s team. Both collapsed on the trail, race officials say.
Officials say they’re still investigating what caused George’s and Bog’s deaths.
This is the deadliest Iditarod for the dogs since 2017. That year, three dogs died on the trail. A fourth dog died after overheating on a cargo flight from Galena and another dropped dog was struck and killed in Anchorage after it was released from Iditarod care and escaped from a handler’s home.
In 2018, one dog died during the race and in 2019 one dog died two days after crossing the Nome finish line. The Iditarod did not report any dog deaths from 2020 until this year.
Under race rules adopted in 2018, if a dog dies, the musher must voluntarily scratch from the race or they will be withdrawn unless the dog died due to an “unpreventable hazard” like a moose encounter.
Daugherty, Teaford and Keefe have all scratched from the Iditarod.
The race announced Henry’s death as Dallas Seavey was less than 20 miles from the finish line in Nome, where he’s expected to win a record-breaking sixth Iditarod.
Tegan Hanlon is the digital managing editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at thanlon@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8447. Read more about Tegan here.
