by JLJ » Tue Mar 22, 2022 8:17 am
I agree that rule management can be complicated, but I think that 'promoting dog welfare is the priority' shouldn't be just talk, and requires intelligent, thoughtful, situation specific decisions by not only mushers, but also by race authorities.
An example of this I remember, I think. (I'm pretty much never confident in recollections of my aged brain). A few years ago in the Quest, a musher, and I'm fairly sure it was Brent, was traveling along a stretch of trail that went along a creek, so low, windy and very cold. He observed strange behavior from two and only two of his dogs. As I recall he described it as suddenly flopping over and briefly lying still in a way that he had never seen from them or any other of his dogs. He checked them, and said they seemed fine, but the father of those two dogs had died suddenly, from a cause that was never able to be identified. After some consideration, he decided that he should push his emergency button. He did so, and explained the circumstances and asked if it would be possible to get help that included a vet out to him. If not, he said, he could continue with the team, or continue, carrying the two dogs in the sled, but if getting them checked by an expert without moving them was possible he thought it would be wiser, considering their odd behavior and their father's puzzling death. He was told that a vet would be on the way promptly.
The vet arrived, checked the dogs, found no problem and they all traveled slowly back to the checkpoint, where another check indicated that the dogs in question and all the rest of the team was in good shape. He just assumed that he was out of the race, but the Quest authorities told him that, because his problem was one that he had no reason to expect, and because of the nature of their father's death he did have unique reason to be concerned that it might be an indicator of an unknown life threatening situation for those dogs, and because he had definitely not gained any race time advantage as a result of calling for help and getting the dogs expert help, he would be allowed to continue the race if he wished, because the behavior he had shown was exactly the sort of dog care they wanted to encourage. He thanked them, but said that he thought he should scratch and stay with his dogs, as if there *were* any further signs of some unusual problem he would be the one most likely to recognize atypical behavior quickly.
I think that both the race authorities, and Brent, in this instance, were examples of what is appropriate.
Sorry this was posted too early -- I'm using a borrowed, very eccentric, computer and about every ten characters I type it does something crazy -- all sorts of wild things -- in this instance it decided to post the message as I was typing. Hope I edited it OK.