Iditarod’s 2019 champion, Pete Kaiser, said his main lead dog, Delmer, is “probably the best Iditarod leader I’ve ever had.”
Delmer is six years old and racing in his fourth Iditarod, Kaiser said.
“He’s in his prime and seen the trail several times, been to Nome, and he’s very good at what he does, and it’s a pleasure to have him in the team,” Kaiser said.
Kaiser was at a family reunion in Kansas when the dog was born back in Alaska.
“I met a distant cousin, an old farmer, whose name was Delmer, and while we were down there, had this litter born back at home, and it was a single-pup litter, and so I just decided to name him Delmer,” Kaiser said. “It’s like your classic farmer name.”
Delmer the dog is excitable, Kaiser said.
“If I walk into the dog yard at 7 in the morning, he is the first one to fly out of his house and wants to know everything that’s going on. Like he’s very attentive to his surroundings,” Kaiser said. “He doesn’t miss anything that’s going on.”
Delmer has a lot of energy, but with his experience knows how to contain it when he needs to, for example, in checkpoints when Kaiser said he wants his dogs resting.
“He has tons of energy for the trail and his job at hand,” Kaiser said. “And he’s just a great dog.”
Delmer is part of our “Dog of the Day” Iditarod series. Previously we met Paul, Ralph, Mussel, Junior, Meg, Schooby, Mayhem, Skookum, Rolex and Titan.
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Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
