UPDATED CASE PHOTOS TAKEN BY MAT-SU ANIMAL CARE AND CONTROL: https://humanemushing.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/update-mat-su-borough-case-a17-002010-files/
UPDATED NEWS STORY REGARDING MAT-SU ANIMAL CARE & CONTROL’S CLOSED CASE: https://humanemushing.wordpress.com/2017/11/02/sled-dogs-arent-worth-protecting/
READ OUR NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE REGARDING COVERUP AT MAT-SU: https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/11/02/us/ap-us-iditarod-dogs-investigation.html
STATE POLICE CASE REMAINS OPEN.
ORIGINAL STORY BELOW:
If it weren’t for the sheer terror recorded in Dallas Seavey’s knee-jerk YouTube video on the day he was revealed to be the notorious Musher-X, we honestly would have thought that he was taking one for the team, and this was the Iditarod’s way of playing the victim in the wake of the humane mushing movement and productions of the Sled Dogs documentary. However, anyone watching his video can clearly see that he is a scared child who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Both Mitch and Danny Seavey (father and brother, respectively) attempted to shield Dallas and point the news away from him, making false claims in the process (source). Now mushers are coming out in scores on Facebook, claiming that they don’t believe that Dallas was administering pain-killing medication to his dogs in order to break Iditarod speed records. The distance which once took twenty days to cover now sees the Seavey family ticking off speed records at eight or nine days, quickly approaching a 7-day Iditarod.
Good genetics can only make a dog so fast. Mass production also helps, as the Seavey family boasts dog lots in Sterling, Seward, Willow, and Talkeetna. It’s easy to hand-pick the very best athletes when you factory farm litter upon litter of sled dogs for years on end.
Mushers and the Iditarod Trail Committee are grasping at any straw they can to attempt to save face and protect their golden goose family, the Seaveys. Most mushers are coming out in support to cover their dirty tracks. However, some mushers are deciding that enough is enough (https://craigmedred.news/2017/10/25/iditarod-deaths/) and are speaking up for the dogs and the truth. That being said, if you’re up for some more truth, check what’s been happening over the last week while Dallas was overseas:
People periodically reach out to me with eyewitness accounts of sled dog abuse and neglect, because I run Humane Mushing. I’ve had right around ten such correspondences with varying degrees of specificity since the Dallas Seavey dog-doping scandal broke on the October 23rd 2017. And then, on Wednesday, October 25th 2017, a current handler at Dallas Seavey’s kennel reached out to me. What this handler had to share was nothing I didn’t expect, but still none the less horrifying and upsetting. This is when I reached out People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, to have proper cruelty investigation put into play (see their press release here: http://bit.ly/2lyWLnr). The firsthand account you’re about to read, and the photos taken over the past two months at Dallas Seavey’s kennel may disturb you. Viewer discretion is advised.
“There was a litter of 8 that now only one is alive,” the handler wrote. “They did not have any vet care or anything. Mom wasn’t supposed to get pregnant. She is 1 and just didn’t know how to care for the pups. I nursed most of them to try and save them but only was able to keep one of the ones i was nursing alive for almost 5 days, but he had seizures and didn’t make it unfortunately. Now there is one left and the mom is caring for her.”
Below is a grave where a handler buried aforementioned deceased puppies.
Seven were buried in total at the time of these photos. When asked how the puppies died, we were told they died on their own from their illnesses. Accidental litters are reportedly not given the same care as planned litters at the Dallas Seavey kennel.
Friday, October 27th 2017 , at 11:03 AM MT, we received this message: “The other puppy died.”
Distraught and panicked, the handler we had been speaking with searched for the final dead puppy. The kennel manager stated that he would be burying the puppy at the new kennel location in Talkeetna – where six other sick, older puppies were reportedly housed while final kennel operations were being moved from Willow to Talkeetna. When Alaska State Police attempted to find these puppies over the weekend, they were reportedly unable to. After likely being tipped off by one of the local agencies which received our report of cruel and inhumane conditions at Dallas’s kennel, we are unsure as to whether the puppies were relocated to a third party musher’s kennel (as has been rumored) or simply killed.
Puppies aren’t the only ones suffering at the hands of Dallas Seavey and his handlers, however. Dogs who fight are reportedly forced to run together in a barbaric attempt to teach them to behave. “One of them always shuts downs and starts fighting with the other,” the handler said, “and I’ve told them to separate them many times, but they never do. And they fight, resulting in beatings, and then of course one of them doesn’t want to keep running and freaks out.”
These training sessions result in wounds like this, suffered by a dog named Slough, which never received actual veterinary care:
This is what you get when you support industrial mushing and the Iditarod:
Untreated, injured, sick, and dying dogs of all ages (some with chronic diarrhea and vomiting):
Dilapidated dog houses that are so saturated that mother dogs refuse to go into them and tend to their freezing, dying puppies. One handler made a makeshift bed of straw and put up a tarp while the kennel manager took two weeks to replace this mother’s house, which was saturated and soaked through. This is Ripple, an A-string dog that is featured on Dallas’s website.
Numerous dogs appear to suffer from untreated gum disease and broken, rotting teeth.
With 110 dogs, it’s obvious that care will rapidly decline.
Conditions at the new Talkeetna kennel location don’t appear much better.
With A-team dogs – multiple Iditarod finishers likely worth thousands of dollars -receiving such poor care, it’s horrifying to think what sort of care the “contenders” and “tour dogs” receive. Then there’s dogs like Gott – a 10 or 11 year old, 3-legged, special-needs dog who is brought to the front of the kennel and dressed up for promotional pieces for interviews by productions like Vice Sports (http://bit.ly/2A3iMh4), then put back on his chain in the corner where he struggles to function on a daily basis to even get out of his dog house (https://youtu.be/EOkShV2x4io) and is forced to remain on a chain, which provides limited movement (https://youtu.be/YpovZF8v4VU).
Other dogs are not provided with veterinary care even when they can’t put weight on a swollen leg for three days, like Tigress (https://youtu.be/JlHsa4EMzB0). Dogs are forced to live chained to filthy, dilapidated structures, amid melting pools of their own filth (https://youtu.be/QNnIILMqJTs), which result in bloody, infected feet (https://youtu.be/i9uodabxfFM).
Humane Mushing 