Lost Iditarod Dog Found Six Days After Race
A lost Iditarod dog was found six days after going missing in the vast and cold Alaskan wilderness. May, a 9-year-old sled dog, was presumed dead. The sled dog became separated from the rest of the pack when she got tangled with the sled of another Iditarod racer. The famous and extremely difficult Iditarod Trail Race encompasses 1,049 miles.
Rescues looked for the lost Iditarod dog both on foot and in the air via plane. After seven hours of searching for the sled dog, volunteers looking for May feared that the dog had been killed by wolves. Six days after the Iditarod Trail Race ended, the strawberry blonde sled dog arrived back at the race starting point.
The Iditarod dog had traveled approximately 400 from where she had wandered off from her musher’s sled. May had raced in the Iditarod many times before. During the 2013 race across Alaska, May was on loan to Newton Marshall, a musher from Jamaica. Marshall was ultimately disqualified from the competition because he was one dog short. Iditarod rules require mushers to scratch if they cannot complete the course with all of their dogs.
Kaitlin Koch was one of several people on snow mobiles who spotted the lost Iditarod dog on Wednesday night. During an interview with the Anchorage Daily News, Koch detailed her shock after spotting May walking through the snow. The young woman said May had lost her race booties, but was in incredible shape considering the turmoil she had been through.
Koch, her boyfriend, and another pal tried to get the sled dog to follow them on their snow sleds. Koch ultimately stopped her snow machine and knelt down on the ground. May, the lost Iditarod dog, quickly came to Koch, and road all the way back to Big Lake on her rescuer’s lap.
May had suffered an injury to a paw and had lost some weight, but is otherwise considered in good health. Experienced musher Stan Smith compared sled dogs to true athletes, noting May’s determination to get back to where she had started the race. The lost Iditarod is now happily back home with her owners.
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