{"id":14561,"date":"2026-03-19T10:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T10:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=14561"},"modified":"2026-03-19T10:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T10:46:11","slug":"devastating-collapse-on-the-trail-but-what-happened-to-this-dog-mid-race-is-now-sparking-outrage-far-beyond-the-iditarod-%f0%9f%98%a2%f0%9f%92%94-during-one-of-the-toughest-stretches-of-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=14561","title":{"rendered":"DEVASTATING COLLAPSE ON THE TRAIL \u2014 but what happened to this dog mid-race is now sparking outrage far beyond the Iditarod \ud83d\ude22\ud83d\udc94 During one of the toughest stretches of the race, a dog on Mille Porsild\u2019s team suddenly collapsed and di*d \u2014 a moment no one saw coming, and one that insiders say unfolded in seconds under extreme conditions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mar. 17\u2014A dog died on veteran musher Mille Porsild\u2019s team Tuesday during the Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race, race officials said.<\/p>\n

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The 4-year-old dog named Charley died en route to the Elim checkpoint, the race said in a prepared statement. No other dog deaths have been reporting during this year\u2019s Iditarod.<\/p>\n

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Porsild, 53, was born in Denmark and now lives in Willow.<\/p>\n

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\"Dog<\/p>\n

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Race officials said the dog passed all prerace evaluations and veterinary testing. A necropsy will be conducted in Unalakleet by a board-certified veterinarian, according to the Iditarod.<\/p>\n

Under the Iditarod\u2019s Rule 42, in the event of a death of a dog on their team, a musher can either voluntarily scratch or be withdrawn by race officials. The rule carves out an exception if \u201cthe death was caused, as determined by the Race Marshal, to be due to the inherent risks of wilderness travel (example, moose encounter), nature of trail, or force beyond the control of the musher (these causes are all referred to as an \u2018Unpreventable Hazard\u2019).\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Iditarod<\/p>\n

Race officials said Tuesday morning that they would release more information on Porsild\u2019s status in the race when it was available. The Iditarod tracker showed Porsild\u2019s team in Elim as of midmorning Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Last year, a dog from rookie musher Daniel Klein\u2019s team died about 8 miles outside the Galena checkpoint. A necropsy found that the 4-year-old dog named Ventana was pregnant. Klein scratched from the race and was officially disqualified months later after a panel \u201cconcluded that the level of dog knowledge, and thus care, displayed by Klein did not meet the standards expected by the Iditarod Trail Committee\u201d: Race officials said the dog was in \u201ca later stage of pregnancy\u201d with no other abnormalities found.<\/p>\n

During the 2024 race, three dogs died. Necropsies were performed on all three dogs but a definitive cause of death for the dogs could not be identified, according to race officials.<\/p>\n

Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has called for the Iditarod to cease operation due to potential risk to the sled dogs. The organization held protests in Anchorage leading up to the 2026 race.<\/p>\n

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Mar. 17\u2014A dog died on veteran musher Mille Porsild\u2019s team Tuesday during the Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race, race officials said. The 4-year-old dog named Charley died… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14563,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561\/revisions\/14563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}