Another Piece of Americana disappears, due to the lunatic fringe POSs.
6 dogs died in ‘17. only 1 last year and it got run over.
To call people who care about dogs dying for a race is over the top for me but I do not live there and don’t know enough about the sport to make a very informed comment except that I don’t take pleasure in seeing animals die from exhaustion.
This isn’t hunting.
I respect your posts and the issue doesn’t mean enough to me to argue with another FReeper.
But I’ll tell you one thing. These dogs’ deaths bother me more than what happened in NZ.
The Iditarod is commemorating a desperate rescue attempt that was only undertaken because thousands of people stranded in Nome would die without medicine. Nobody in their right mind would have done that trek otherwise.
There must be other ways to recognize that achievement without nearly recreating it each year, without all the dangers that went with the original emergency.
As far as other pieces of Americana going away, I would compare this to recreating of the a dozen trail rides that precede the launch of the Houston Livestock and Rodeo Show each year. That event uses animals too, horses to be specific, on a series of nearly month-long journeys from various parts of Texas.
One difference is that the horses are not run hard in extreme conditions. They don't even work as hard as horses did on the original trail rides that brought the cattle in. Still, it's getting more difficult to organize these rides as they rely more and more on busy highways and roads.
-PJ