Iditarod dog revived after collapsing on trail
A mushing mortician in his second Iditarod brought one of his dogs back to life after the 9-year-old husky collapsed on his way down a steep section of the Dalzell Gorge.
“Boom! Laid right down. It was like a guy my age having a heart attack,” Scott Janssen told the Anchorage Daily News.
“I know what death looks like, and he was gone. Nobody home,” said Janssen who owns a funeral home in Anchorage and bills himself as the “Mushing Mortician.”
Janssen said he rushed to the dog, named Marshall, and administered mouth-to-snout CPR, compressing the husky’s chest and breathing into his nose.
After about five minutes, Janssen said he talked to the dog: “I’m like c’mon dude, please come back.”
“And he did.”
Marshall collapsed late Monday night as the 51-year-old musher navigated a tricky section of trail that follows Rainy Pass as mushers exit the Alaska Range. Marshall, believed to be one of the oldest dogs in the Iditarod this year, has finished about five or six races, and this was to be his last.
Janssen carried Marshall in his sled until the Rohn checkpoint, where veterinarians examined him and administered an IV.
“He was fine this morning,” Janssen said. “He’s still at the checkpoint and they’re flying him back home today.”
Fatalities have been common during the Iditarod’s 40-year history, but no dogs have died in the past two years.
Posted by jwoestendiek March 8th, 2012 under Muttsblog, videos.
Tags: alaska, animals, cpr, deaths, dog, dogs, husky, iditarod, injuries, marshall, mortician, mouth to snout, mushing, mushing mortician, pets, race, revived, revives, scott janssen, sled, sled dog, trail
Comment from Lucy Shelton
Time March 8, 2012 at 1:57 pm
I’m sure Zoya DeNure can relate and empathize, because she performed mouth-to-snout resuscitation on her 8-yr old dog, Miller, in the race last year, after he collapsed in harness. As reported by Anchorage Daily News, DeNure said, “My whole body was trembling. I felt like it was my fault. I felt like the worst person in the world. I hated myself because I put him on the trail.” While taking him back to the previous checkpoint, “her heart in her throat and tears streaming down her face,” he opened his eyes. Not sure that Miller would make it, DeNure scratched from the race out of concern for him. Miller did pull through after many hours on IV.
We have four dogs, one of them a husky mix, take them hiking in the mountains, and I would never push them beyond their limits. The main concern is that the Iditarod is too darn long, and the conditions too grueling for these magnificent dogs, and serves no reasonable purpose. Too many dogs have died,–142 as far as we know, only half make it to the finish, and they suffer injuries, illness, exhaustion, sore wrists, and the list goes on. It’s all well documented. Is a once-a-year brutal race really worth putting the dogs through it?
I sincerely hope that Marshall will be okay and will not suffer any consequences. I, also, hope that none of the dogs will die.