Dan to Theo to Ben said:
As someone who knows less than practically nothing about this event, please allow me to ask a couple dumb questions.
Why do some teams have more dogs than other teams? Do dogs die of starvation or frostbite along the way, what happens with the others?
All teams start with 16 and they must finish with 6. During the race, dogs sustain injuries, get sick and just decide they want to rest and not get up. The majority of the time, injury is the reason for a dog being "dropped" from a race team. Once dropped, they are flown back to Anchorage and cared for until picked up by an owner's handler. During these races, dogs are fed 10,000 calories a day. High fat, high protein, high energy chow that helps them sustain their weight and keep them strong. Starvation really isn't something mushers worry about as dogs are fed better than most humans eat. Salmon, halibut, beaver, T-bone steaks, are all big parts of their meals.
Frostbite isn't a major concern for the dogs as their bloodlines/lineage has shown to have been bred from Siberians. Their coats are deceivingly thick too. The will wear coats for warmth in extreme cold temps, but for the most part, the dogs can handle the cold.
Deaths do happen. Last year, a dropped dog was waiting for a flight back to Anchorage when a storm rumbled in. The dog was chained and housed with other dogs when snow blanketed the entry to his house and he suffocated. Unfortunately, it was human error as the dogs were not checked on for a few hours.
Is is better to have more dogs no matter what, or fewer better-trained dogs is better? Does the weakest link concept apply here? Are huskies better than malamutes? Are there other breeds that participate?
With more dogs, teams have more pulling power, so yeah, having more dogs is a good thing. All serious mushers have kennels of 100+ dogs to pick and choose their teams. Training season begins in late August and runs through Iditarod. Basically, mushers run their kennels 4000+ miles and cull out the weaker dogs long before the long distance races. If a dog is a weak link while running, a musher will simply drop the dog at a checkpoint and continue on. So, the 16 dogs in an Iditarod team are all highly trained and in excellent shape. These dogs are Alaskan Huskies and not Siberians. Alaskan's will average 10 mph in a race, Siberian's 8 MPH and Malamutes about 6. Malamutes also tend to be 30 pounds heavier. One year, a musher had 4 Alaskan huskies and 12 poodle mix. He finished in 15 days. So, yeah, other breeds are possible.
Is the required rest for safety reasons only? Do people inside the sport think it makes it "less athletic" to have a "required rest" period
Yep, safety is a big reason for the rest. Also, the dogs are tired and need to rest. Like anything strenuous, rest is very important for eating, digestion, relaxing sore muscles. Same for mushers, it's important. People inside the sport know that they have to rest their dogs during the race anyways, so making it mandatory to have two 8 hour stops and one 24 hour doesn't really bother anyone. Besides, watching mushers strategize their rest breaks (outside of the mandatory 8 hour in White Mountain) is always fun.
it seems the racers must be dog-lovers. Are there conflicting emotions in the existence of this race? (i.e. showing off the animals/ultimate training vs. animal safety/lack of cruelty?)
Yep, I'd say mushers love dogs. There are your normal amount of people against dogsled races including the usual suspects like PETA. Like anything else, we try and educate the animal groups on how the dogs are cared for and how much they are the top priority in these races. It doesn't matter, running dogs is CRUELTY to them.
