supervised, examined, kept safe, fed, loved on, and are the dogs that mushers drop from their teams when they arrive in checkpoints along the race.

A dog can be dropped for a number of reasons–perhaps it has a sore wrist or shoulder, perhaps it isn’t feeling 100 %, perhaps it is running a temperature, or it’s showing some other symptoms of just not being its normal, usual, run down the Iditarod trail self.

When a dog is dropped from a team, the paperwork trail begins, recorded by the veterinarians. The dog’s identity, its symptoms and diagnosis, and the type of care it needs are written down and the paperwork follows the dog all the way back to Anchorage. If a dog is dropped at a checkpoint closer to Anchorage, the dog flies in an Iditarod Air Force plane to Anchorage, staying just outside the Lakefront Anchorage Hotel, on the bank of Lake Hood where the musher’s handlers from the kennel pick the dog up. Or, further along the trail, the dropped dogs are flown to the hubs of McGrath, Unalakleet, or Nome, depending on which is closer to the dogs’ location. Then, the dogs end up in Anchorage.

After careful deplaning, the dogs are individually  walked to and tethered to a chain that runs on the ground along a split rail fence. The tether keeps them safe while allowing them room to move, stand, roll, or lie down. On arrival, veterinarians  examine each dog, consulting the dog’s paperwork to follow up on the symptoms or diagnosis made by another vet on the trail. A volunteer reads the previous findings to the vet during this exam and records the vet’s current findings on this paperwork.

Bedded down on straw, fed, and blanketed, if the dog appears to enjoy a blanket, the dropped dogs gets lots of rubbing and loving from the dropped dog volunteers. Dogs who haven’t been able to be picked up on the day of arrival get to travel by dog truck to a women’s prison outside of Anchorage where inmates who have earned the privilege of working with the dogs care for them until they go home to their kennels.