Iditarod Musher Brenda Macke says

The first Musher, who in this year’s Iditarod Trail Dog Race, Rookie Brenda Macke, said, said on Friday that she had broken off because one of her dogs needed “immediate veterinary care” – contradictory with the first reports of the race that all of her dogs were in good health.

Mackey missed in the Tanana Checkpoint on Tuesday afternoon, 202 miles into the 1,128 miles long.

In its first announcement, the Iditarod Trail Committee said that “Mackey had 14 dogs in the dishes when she arrived in Tanana, everything was in good health.” The only other information about her decision was that Macke, part of one of Alaska Mushing’s most famous dynasties, had made the decision “in the best interest of her team”, a generic concept that has become a standard component of Iditarod scratch berquaces.

The interior of Alaska Musher wrote from the checkpoint in Galena on Friday morning and told a different story.

“I did not decide to scratch the dishes with 14 healthy dogs. I had 13 in the dishes and one that I needed as an immediate veterinary care and made the decision to bring them to a veterinarian as soon as possible,” wrote Mackey on Facebook.

In a long post, Mackey described some reservations about a dog named Jett on Monday evening in Tanana because she seemed. She said she asked a vet to check the dog again, but everything came back and looked normal. Mackey left Tanana shortly before 11 p.m. on this day. After 26 miles, she stopped to give her team a snack, and the problem with Jett started a mile later, she said.

“I should have heard my stomach and send it home. I stopped to look at her and she gasped quickly with her front legs and also trembled very quickly. I took it off the line and she collapsed. I took out my dog ​​Bivvy SAC and put it in, ”wrote Mackey.

She took out the emergency device, all Iditarod mugers have to wear and press the SOS button.

“I had the feeling that I needed an immediate emergency starter care for her. She didn’t move in her pocket, ”wrote Mackey in the post office.

Another Musher, Minnesota Rookie Emily Ford, came across Mackey and her team and used a thermometer that she wore on the sick dog. It came back at 103.5 degrees. At that time, Mackey decided that it would be faster to turn back to Tanana instead of staying on the way that was waiting for help, she wrote.

It is not clear what happened when Macke activated her emergency device.

“I knew that I was disqualified as soon as I pressed my button, but at that moment I just wanted help for her. However, nobody knew that I had pushed it, ”wrote Mackey.

On Friday afternoon, the Iditarod Trail Committee announced in a follow-up declaration that new information has been created from the checkpoint on Tuesday since its first announcement on Tuesday.

The committee said that Mackey had a dog with a dog, Jett, 13 dogs in the dishes, “rest in their sled due to health concerns”. Racing organizers on Friday also said that Mackey, while Mackey tried to activate the SOS button on her tracker, did not do it right.

Mackey said she heard three theories about what could have happened: that it didn’t work, that she pressed the wrong button or that she didn’t last long enough.

“I pushed it 5 times in a row to really go home. I have an emergency, that was my logic and there is no indication of a change in the flashing red light, so I just pushed it on. Apparently there are no records of activation, ”wrote Mackey.

On the way to the checkpoint, Mackey wrote, seemed to “revive” her dog Jett and behaved normally when the veterinarians examined her in Tanana. The dog was sent to Anchorage to make more animal species, which Macey did not finally explain what could have happened on Friday morning on Friday morning, she said. Macke in social media described Jett last week as a 3-year-old who can run in every position in the sled dog team, including lead.

In a telephone interview by Galena, Mackey said that she had told the racing judge in Tanana that she had pressed the button he didn’t know. When she had the team parked and Jett was inside with the veterinarians, the official approached her, she said.

“Andy came to me, says:” You know, Brenda, I hate to do it, but you pressed your button, “she said.” I said: ‘Andy, I know that I pressed my button. Yes, that’s okay.’ “

She said she thought she would sign a disqualification form, but afterwards she recognized – after her husband told her, as it had been reported – that it was a scratch form.

“Because (the race official) was:” Well, we have to know a reason why, and the most common thing to write is only for the health of your dog team. “

“I just didn’t even calculate and process and not even looked at the paper, just crazy about my name,” she said.

“Nobody asked me once if I wanted to scratch, but whatever and my intention was to press the button and I knew that I was being disqualified. So the intention was there, even if it didn’t work. So that was my choice. “

She said she was not sure why reporting her with a completely healthy team of 14 dogs.

“It was really confusing and I was up to date last night,” she said. “I was really disturbed and disturbed – it’s like … a kind of insult to the injury here. I felt that it was in this really desperate situation. “

In his explanation on Friday, the Iditarod Trail Committee said: “We are pleased that Jett is apparently in good condition and seems to be healthy and in high mood. The ITC apologizes for the false communication and any fear that we may have caused Brenda, your team and her supporters. “

Mackey said she didn’t think the situation with Jett was taken as seriously as in Tanana. She wrote on Facebook that “Jett’s bloodwork revealed an old with over 600 very high, so that the next day overnight she was considered surveillance and more bloodwork”. The dog continued to have a high temperature.

Macke wrote that the following day Jett continued to measure a high old – a liver enzyme value that veterinarians measure as part of blood tests.

The National Animal Rights Group Peta asked questions about dealing with the incident by the Iditarod and repeated his call to end the race in order to permanently end the concerns about the well -being of the sled dogs.

Mackey comes from one of Alaska Mushings’s most famous families. Her grandfather, Dick Macke, won the race in 1978. Her father Rick won it in 1983. And her uncle Lance won the race four times in a row.

Brenda Macke beat and grew up dogs most of her life and kept a kennel with her husband in two rivers. The two even met in the thousand mile sled dog races, although it was the Yukon quest, not iditarod.

Macke had driven in an earlier idiarod, the strongly modified 2021 route during the Covid 19 pandemic. This year she scratched the Checkpoint in Nikolai.