Beware of the deadly cat assassin! http://youtu.be/YQK_Lfet29I

This X-ray of a Jack Russell terrier named Jack shows a mass of pennies the dog swallowed. (AP Photo/BluePearl Veterinary Partners)

doctors put Jack under anesthesia and methodically removed 111 coins from his stomach. (AP Photo/BluePearl Veterinary Partners)

The New York Daily News reports that a Jack Russell terrier named Jack swallowed 111 pennies last week and quickly became ill.

The 13-year-old pooch’s owner rushed him to a Manhattan veterinarian for emergency surgery.

That’s when dog doctors put Jack under anesthesia and methodically removed all 111 coins. The zinc from the coins could be lethal.

The dog’s owner told the newspaper his best friend is back to his normal self, driving him crazy.

___

Reported by the Associated Press with information from the Daily News.

Rescue Dog of the High Pass – Chapter 14: The Message

By Jim Kjelgaard

(Read Chapter 13 here)

The fire in the refectory’s great fireplace roared. The Prior, the Canons, the Sacristan, and everyone else who lived at the Hospice of St. Bernard and did not have to be away on some urgent business, were gathered around it.

Jean Greb, who felt well enough to sit up by now, occupied a chair in front of the fire. Shaken and thoroughly chilled, but not seriously injured, Professor Luttman lay on Jean’s pallet.

The Prior said, “Let us have the dog brought forth. Even though he cannot understand it, he should hear the message.”

All eyes turned to Franz, beside whom Caesar had been sitting only recently. The boy looked toward the door.

Caesar, who had accepted the stable but found the refectory much too hot, was waiting just inside the door. His jaws were spread and his tongue lolled. He wagged his tail at Franz and whined, obviously an invitation for his master to open the door and let him out into the comfortable snow.

“He finds the fire much too hot.” The boy spoke with a free tongue from a happy heart. He wondered now why he had ever been overawed by the Prior or anyone else at the Hospice. Beneath their somber habits beat very warm and wonderful hearts. If it were any other way, they would not be here. Franz finished, “He wants me to let him out.”

“A true dog of the high pass,” the Prior said. “Very well, Franz. You may let him out.”

The boy walked to the door, opened it, and Caesar trotted out gratefully. He began to roll in the snow. Franz returned to his place.

The Prior said, “All of us know of the miracle, a miracle wrought by a young maronnier and his dog. Now we shall hear the message Professor Luttman carries.”

“I have imparted the message to you,” Professor Luttman protested. “You are the proper person to tell Franz.”

“Not I!” The Prior laughed. “I am merely an onlooker here, and I must say that, for once, I thoroughly enjoy the spectator’s role. Proceed, Professor Luttman.”

“Very well.” The Professor turned to Franz. “Do you know what I really thought the day I expelled you from my school?”

“You thought I was too stupid to learn,” Franz replied.

“No such thing!” Professor Luttman denied. “I thought, ‘There goes an Alpinist, one who can never discover in my beloved books any of the inspiration that he finds in his beloved mountains. It is truly unjust to keep him in school when he does not belong here.’ I thought also that, one day, you would make your mark in the world.”

“I am just a maronnier at St. Bernard Hospice,” Franz protested.

“And how grateful I am because you are ‘just a maronnier,’” Professor Luttman said. “Were you not, I would have died in the snow.”

“They would have found you,” Franz insisted.

“We would not!” Anton Martek spoke up. “We would have continued digging where we thought he was. It never occurred to any of us that he might be three hundred feet away and down the wall of snow.”

“That is true,” Father Benjamin agreed.

“Very true,” said Father Mark.

“So I am alive today because of you and Caesar,” Professor Luttman continued. “Emil Gottschalk lives for the same reason. He wanted to give you—” Professor Luttman named a greater sum of money than the boy had ever thought existed.

“I would not accept his money,” Franz asserted firmly.

Professor Luttman said, “So I told him, so your father told him, too, but both of us agreed that the Hospice of St. Bernard might well use it. Now the Prior and I have talked, and the Prior declares that you shall decide how that money may be spent.”

Franz murmured, “I would like enough to keep Caesar in food, so that he will not be sent away from the Hospice.”

“I would buy more Alpine Mastiffs, dogs such as Caesar, and bring them to the Hospice.”

The Prior laughed. “If there was any danger of Caesar being sent away—and there isn’t the slightest—there is enough money to feed him for the next hundred years and a vast sum besides.”

Cold as the arm was, he could still feel the pulse that beat within it.

Franz looked appealingly at the Prior. “I am not worthy to spend a sum so huge!”

“You must,” the Prior told him. “No one else can.”

Franz turned his troubled eyes to the floor. After a moment, he looked up.

“There is only one thing I would do,” he said finally. “I would go down into the villages, the mountain villages where people and animals alike must learn the arts of the snow. I would buy more Alpine Mastiffs, dogs such as Caesar, and bring them to the Hospice. I am sure you may find someone with sufficient skill to train them properly.”

“And I am equally sure we already have someone,”  the Prior declared. “His name is Franz Halle. This is a day of great joy for all of us. Think of the lives that would have been lost but will be saved after we have these—

“These dogs of St. Bernard.”

TODAY’S QUESTION

This is the end of “Rescue Dog of the High Pass,” so today we’d like to know what you thought of the book. Give us a review of the story. Leave your review below or email it with contact info (to get your JD Water bottle) to juniordispatch@yorkdispatch.com

VOCABULARY

Look up these vocabulary words, define them and use each in a sentence.

• Loll
• Onlooker
• Beloved

CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK

• Anton Martek — Franz’ boss at the Hospice
• The Alps — A mountain range in Europe
• Aunt Maria Reissner — A relative of Franz
• Caesar — An alpine mastiff (usually called a St. Bernard) owned by Franz
• Dornblatt — Not a person, but the town where this chapter takes place
• Erich Erlic — A resident of Dornblatt, known for having a good skill with his saw
• Emil Gottschalk — A rich landowner in Dornblatt
• Father Benjamin — A traveler with great knowledge
• Father Paul — The priest of Dornblatt
• Franz Halle — A school boy and owner of Caesar
• Grandpa Eissman — An old man in town that Franz helps. Eissman was an expert mountaineer.
• Hermann Gottschalk — The son of Emil and schoolmate to Franz
• Hertha Bittner — One of Franz’ schoolmates
• Jean Geiser — A missing hunter
• Jean Greb — A handicapped man helped by Franz
• Lispeth Halle — The mother of Franz
• Professor Luttman — The school teacher
• Paul Maurat — Head of the kitchen at the hospice
• Widow Geiser — A woman who runs a farm in Dornblatt
• Willi Resnick — One of Franz’ schoolmates

MORE INFO

Get the FREE Gutenberg.org of this book here.

VIDEO

In this video, we see a whole lot of Saint Bernards. A veritable colony of Saint Bernards! http://youtu.be/PgIz1Add98s

Rescue Dog of the High Pass – Chapter 13: Caesar’s Feat

By Jim Kjelgaard

(Read Chapter 12 here)

There was a wind, but it was not the roaring blast that so frequently snarled through St. Bernard Pass and it had not tumbled the snow about enough to cover the ski trail left by Father Benjamin and Jean Greb. It was a safe path, for two men had already traveled it in safety. Rather than having to choose carefully a slow and uncertain way, the four could now move swiftly.

Followed only by Caesar, who found the going easy on a path packed by so many skis, Franz stayed just far enough behind Anton Martek to avoid running up on the toboggan the giant pulled. Father Benjamin led the way, followed by Father Mark. There were ropes and shovels on the toboggan.

Franz tried to swallow his heart that insisted on beating in his throat, rather than in his chest. An avalanche was as unpredictable as the chatter of a jay. For all his vast experience in the mountains, Jean Greb had not known this one was coming until it overwhelmed both himself and Professor Luttman. No one could ever be sure.

Franz tried to reassure himself by thinking of the three men ahead of him. All were not only men of the mountains in general, but of St. Bernard Pass in particular. There was no situation that could arise in the Pass which they had not met before and with which they would not know how to cope, Franz told himself. They were very sure of finding Professor Luttman.

But in his own heart, Franz knew how very wrong he could be.

An avalanche was a freakish thing. When tons, and millions of tons, of snow thundered down a slope, it was somewhat comparable to a treacherous river. There were currents that surged toward the top and those that bored toward the bottom. Even though Jean Greb had been cast out on top, Professor Luttman might be lying at the bottom. For all their ability to work miracles, the men of St. Bernard Hospice would never reach him alive if he were. They would never even find him.

Franz tried to banish such gloomy forebodings from his mind and might have succeeded had not one thought persisted. If Father Benjamin believed there was a good chance of finding Professor Luttman, he would have made Jean Greb as comfortable as possible and tried to find him. And in the refectory, while Jean lay unconscious, Father Benjamin himself had said that there was no hope.

Franz thrust a hand behind him and felt a little relieved when Caesar came up to sniff it. He was by no means sure that Caesar could find Professor Luttman, but he was positive that they stood a far better chance with the big mastiff than they ever would without him. He tried to picture in his imagination all the places where the avalanche might have occurred — and gasped with dismay when they finally found it!

The prevailing west wind funneled through a broad gulley. On the east, the gulley was bounded by a gentle slope. But on the west, the slope rose sheer for almost half its height before giving way to an easy rise. The wind had plastered snow against the steep portion. More snow, either wind-borne or  falling, had gathered upon it to a depth of twenty feet or more.

It was a much greater burden than the slope should have held. With almost a perpendicular wall, and not a single tree or bush to hold it back, a whisper might set it off and send snow roaring into the gulley. It was a death trap that any experienced mountaineer would recognize at a glance.

Jean Greb, seeing the peril, had chosen to climb above the steep portion on the west slope, rather than veer to the east. It was a choice any mountaineer might have made. But something, possibly the light ski tread of Jean Greb and Professor Luttman, had started the snow on the steep wall rolling. This, in turn, had set off an avalanche on the gentle slope and all of it had poured into the gulley.

In the center of the gulley, snow lay a hundred feet deep. On the north end, where the cleavage between the snow that had rolled and that which had not rolled was almost as sharp as though some colossus had cut it with a knife, there was a near-perpendicular drop that varied between sixty and ninety feet in height. The tremendous force of the avalanche had packed the snow to icy hardness.

Father Benjamin halted, waved his arm and said, “I found your friend here, Franz. He was trying to dig into the snow.”

Franz stared with unbelieving eyes at the faint scars in the immense pile of snow. They could have been made only by a ski pole, but a ski pole was the only tool Jean had. Franz knew suddenly that Father Benjamin had been entirely right in bringing Jean to the Hospice. A hundred men with a hundred shovels could not move that mass of snow in a hundred years. It was better to save the man who could be saved than to let him senselessly risk his life for the man who could not.

“You found him here?” Anton Martek asked.

Father Benjamin answered, “This is where the avalanche cast him up. Since he and his companion were traveling very close together, he is sure that his friend cannot be far from this place.”

Anton said, “I know of nothing we may do except dig here.”

“Nor I,” said Father Mark.

Father Benjamin said, “If I had a better idea, I would surely make it known. Let us dig, and let us have faith as we do so.”

The boy seized a shovel and began to dig, along with Anton and the two priests. He shook his head in disbelief for, even though he used all his strength, his shovel took only a tiny bite of the hard-packed snow. Despite the cold wind that snapped up the gulley like an angry wolf, beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead….

Franz thought that an hour might have passed when, while the other three continued to dig, he had to stop and rest. For the first time, it occurred to him to look about for Caesar.

The big dog was at the north end of the avalanche, peering over the perpendicular wall. He trotted anxiously back and forth, then leaned over to rest his front paws on a ledge. Suddenly Franz remembered when Caesar had found Emil Gottschalk buried in the snow.

Anton Martek and the two priests remained too busy to notice the boy’s departure when he made his way to Caesar’s side. The great mastiff wagged his tail furiously and stared down the wall of snow.

Suddenly Franz remembered when Caesar had found Emil Gottschalk buried in the snow.

“Is he there?” Franz whispered. “Is he there, Caesar?”

The dog took three paces forward and three back. He whined, leaned over again to rest his front paws on the ledge, then withdrew to his master’s side. Franz studied the awful wall that suddenly seemed a thousand feet high, and where a mistake in judgment or a misstep meant possible death and certain injury.

But Caesar would not stop staring down it, and only three feet below was the ledge where he had rested his paws. Franz stepped down, widened the ledge with his shovel and reached behind him to help the dog down. He sought the next ledge that he might dig out with his shovel.

They were halfway down the wall when the boy heard a thunderous, “Franz! Franz! Come back!”

He recognized Father Benjamin’s voice but he dared not look back, for even a fairy could not have found more standing room on the thin ledge where the boy and his dog stood. Franz reached down with his shovel to scoop out the next ledge.

After what seemed an eternity, they were at the bottom of the wall.

Caesar ran forward and began to dig in the snow. Scraping beside him, presently Franz found the limp arm of a man.

Cold as the arm was, he could still feel the pulse that beat within it.

(Continue on to Chapter 14, the conclusion of the book, here)

TODAY’S QUESTION

In this chapter, Franz works hard shoveling as he and the rest of the search party dig for the missing man. It seems like an impossible task, but eventually they find him. Tell us about some seemingly impossible tasks that you’ve done. Maybe it’s learning to ride a bike. Finally getting an A+ on a math test or learning all the words to a song. Leave your answer below or email it with contact info (to get your JD Water bottle) to juniordispatch@yorkdispatch.com

VOCABULARY

Look up these vocabulary words, define them and use each in a sentence.

• Jay
• Gulley
• Perpendicular
• Pace
• Eternity

CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK

• Anton Martek — Franz’ boss at the Hospice
• The Alps — A mountain range in Europe
• Aunt Maria Reissner — A relative of Franz
• Caesar — An alpine mastiff (usually called a St. Bernard) owned by Franz
• Dornblatt — Not a person, but the town where this chapter takes place
• Erich Erlic — A resident of Dornblatt, known for having a good skill with his saw
• Emil Gottschalk — A rich landowner in Dornblatt
• Father Benjamin — A traveler with great knowledge
• Father Paul — The priest of Dornblatt
• Franz Halle — A school boy and owner of Caesar
• Grandpa Eissman — An old man in town that Franz helps. Eissman was an expert mountaineer.
• Hermann Gottschalk — The son of Emil and schoolmate to Franz
• Hertha Bittner — One of Franz’ schoolmates
• Jean Geiser — A missing hunter
• Jean Greb — A handicapped man helped by Franz
• Lispeth Halle — The mother of Franz
• Professor Luttman — The school teacher
• Paul Maurat — Head of the kitchen at the hospice
• Widow Geiser — A woman who runs a farm in Dornblatt
• Willi Resnick — One of Franz’ schoolmates

MORE INFO

Get the FREE Gutenberg.org of this book here.

VIDEO

This video is a change of pace for our videos in this series. This time we look as how some “impossible” photography is created. http://youtu.be/mc0vhSseGk4

Mitch Seavey became the oldest winner, a two-time Iditarod champion, when he drove his dog team under the burled arch in Nome on Tuesday evening, March 12, 2013. Race marshal Mark Nordman is at right. (AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News, Bill Roth)

Mitch Seavey, 53, outdueled Aliy Zirkle on the final stretch of the Iditarod, becoming the oldest champion in the history of the 1,000-mile race.

The Sterling musher steadily pulled away from Zirkle on the 67-mile run from White Mountain, where just 13 minutes separated the two mushers in the afternoon.

Led by Tanner, a 6-year-old, orange-brown husky who is a kennel favorite, Seavey coasted down Nome’s Front Street at 10:39 p.m.

“I gotta go congratulate my lead dog Tanner,” Seavey said after his team came to a stop. “He’s probably the best I’ve ever had.

“Tanner is happy to be a sled dog and he makes it look easy.”

Seavey’s winning margin of 23 minutes, 39 seconds made it the fourth-closest race in Iditarod history. Seavey finished in 9 days, 7 hours, 39 minutes, 56 seconds. Zirkle finished in 9 days, 8 hours, 3 minutes, 35 seconds.

“I was going for it,” Zirkle said, “but that slippery little sucker, I couldn’t catch him.”

As she traveled from White Mountain to Nome, Zirkle watched Seavey’s winding tracks in the snow. She tried to guess if the musher was speeding up or slowing down based on whether the tracks stayed smack in the middle of the trail or drifted to the side.

“And you don’t know,” she said. “But it’s kind of fun to guess.”

“And then for about 30 miles of the trail we’re high above treeline in these rolling mountains, and every time I would come up over the hill I would see him coming back down the other side,” Zirkle said.

Zirkle, 43, said she thought she saw Seavey’s yellow sled after Safety, but it was just a hallucination.

Meantime, Seavey was imaging he was seeing Zirkle all across the tundra.

“I saw the raven Aliy, I saw the fuel tank Aliy. And the upside-down boat Aliy,” Seavey said. “Everything I was seeing back there I thought must be her … I would continue to scare myself that she was catching up to me.”

Zirkle’s time is the second fastest by a woman. Her time last year — 9 days, 5 hours, 29 minutes, 10 seconds — is the fastest.

“You’re gonna win this thing,” Seavey told the Two Rivers musher as he shook her hand.

OLDEST WINNER
Seavey replaced Jeff King as the Iditarod’s oldest champion. King, who was poised early Wednesday morning to claim third place, was 50 when he won his fourth victory in 2006.

Mitch’s son Dallas was 25 when he won last year’s race, giving the Seaveys the oldest and youngest champs in race history.

Both of those distinctions came at Zirkle’s expense. Dallas beat her by 59 minutes, 44 seconds last year.

Tuesday’s victory was the second for Mitch — he won his first in 2004 — and marked his 19th finish in 20 attempts.

“I hate to go off into the sunset knowing I only did it once in 20 tries,” he said, “so it’s sorta a validation.”

The finish was the 12th for Zirkle, who was hoping to drive her team to its second thousand-mile championship of the year. Nine of the 10 dogs she finished with — Quito, Olivia, Scruggs, Scout, Beemer, Nacho, Chica, Biscuit and Willie — helped Zirkle’s husband, Allen Moore, win the Yukon Quest last month in Fairbanks.

“My dog team is my heart,” Zirkle said. “They’re my family and they’re fantastic.”
Seavey will collect $50,400 and a new pickup truck for his victory. Zirkle gets $47,100 for second place.

Mitch Seavey congratulates second place finisher Aliy Zirkle after she arrived in Nome. (AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News, Bill Roth)

PATIENCE PAYS OFF
Seavey had to ward off both King and Zirkle in the last one-third of the race.

Patience paid off for him on Monday, when he resisted the urge to follow when King blew through Koyuk to temporarily claim the lead. Seavey stayed at the checkpoint for another three hours and was able to overtake King on the run to Elim.

He owned a 48-minute lead leaving Elim on Monday night, but Zirkle came on strong during the overnight run to White Mountain and sliced 35 minutes off his lead.

Seavey did himself no favors on that run — he twice fell asleep and fell off his sled, according a Facebook post by his son Danny Seavey.
‘RUN MY TUSH OFF’
Normally the 67 miles from White Mountain to Nome is a formality. If you get to White

Mountain with a comfortable lead, your only job is to avoid screw-ups during the roughly 10-hour trek to the finish.

Zirkle’s plan?

“Run my tush off,” she said early Tuesday as the leaders rested in White Mountain.

Zirkle was trying to become the third woman to win the race and the first since Susan Butcher’s final championship in 1990.

Her sled dogs are a small, pixie-like team that descended from a favorite leader named Cha-Cha, are led by pink-nosed veteran Quito. (That’s short for Poquita, smallest of her litter of Spanish-named puppies.)

Though Zirkle trailed by a scant 13 minutes at White Mountain, King noted that even a lead of a few minutes there can hand the frontrunner the advantage over the final run west across rolling hills to the coast.

“You can get out of sight and the second team doesn’t have the advantage of drafting off you visually,” said King, who said he led DeeDee Jonrowe by about seven minutes out of White

Mountain en route to his 1993 title, which he won by more than 30 minutes.

Nome musher Aaron Burmeister like how Zirkle’s team looked in White Mountain.

“Aliy’s team’s coming together really nicely for her. And they’re really coming on strong here late in the race,” he said. “Mitch has been racing up with me at the front of the pack for a good portion of the race, back and forth. I know his team is pretty tuckered, about like mine right now. His are tuckered because they’ve been raced hard.”

But Jonrowe and King said they watched Seavey’s team along the trail and saw formidable dogs.

“I saw (the team) going into Grayling, on the Yukon a lot. Just powered through that wet, nasty, sludgy stuff,” Jonrowe said.

EARLY CONTENDERS FADE
While former champion Martin Buser of Big Lake led at many of the early checkpoints thanks to an unheard of 20-hour run to start the race, it was after his team came off the Yukon River that Seavey staked his move.

By Elim, what had looked like a Seavey-King duel became a Seavey-Zirkle duel. Zirkle rested her dogs for about an hour less than Seavey, cutting Seavey’s lead to 48 minutes.
Zirkle got even closer on the run to White Mountain. Her headlamp alerted Seavey that she was closing in.

“I knew she was coming. I saw her light after I left Elim, when we got to the mountains,” Seavey said. “Typically my team does well in the mountains and I didn’t see her anymore until we got here on Golovin Bay.”

The clang of church bells announced Seavey’s arrival to White Mountain at 5:11 a.m. Tuesday.

The musher was still unpacking at 5:24 a.m. when Zirkle slid to a stop, bouncing on her sled.

“Mitch is up for a race, aren’t ya?” Zirkle said to reporters — and a nearby Seavey — as she finished feeding her dogs.

“You calling me out?” Seavey said, heating water a few yards away. He was going to get his sneakers out for the finish, he joked.

“Can I borrow your sneakers? My boots are still wet and nasty from the rain,” Zirkle replied.

OUT OF WHITE MOUNTAIN
Hours later, snowmachines zoomed to the frozen Fish River as volunteers counted down to Seavey’s departure for Nome. Already, 11 teams were parked a few hundred yards from ski planes roaring for takeoff. Dallas and Mitch Seavey hunkered at the elder Seavey’s team.

“I don’t think I’m going to be catching up with you guys by any stretch of imagination. But I don’t think you’ll have to wait too long,” Dallas said of his ETA in Nome.

Under clear skies, Mitch resumed his race.

“Tanner! Gee! Line up!” he commanded his team of 10 dogs before driving off at 1:11 p.m.

Zirkle made last-minute inspections before following 13 minutes later. She walked down her line of dogs, rubbing their faces and checking collars. Once Zirkle was on the sled runners, she called to Quito, who began a whistling howl.

The musher and the rest of the team joined the chorus, then gave chase.

SAFE LEAD BY SAFETY
Late Tuesday, the pair was crossing the Bering Sea shore where coastal wind rakes the snow and Seavey and Tanner could be seen marching west toward Nome.

Quiot and Zirkle, kicking from the sled, followed about two miles down the trail.

By the time Seavey reached Safety, 49 miles from White Mountain and 18 miles from Nome according to the race’s GPS tracker, his lead had stretched to 25 minutes.

A race that looked too close to call just a few hours earlier belonged to him.

___

Read more of the Junior Dispatch’s 2013 Iditarod coverage:

• Your primer on the 2013 Iditarod
• A look at the weather on the trail
• The starting lineup of the 2013 Iditarod
• Mushers blast out of Willow
• Nurse comes back to mushing
• A veteran returned the race after 27 years
• Mushers plan their stops along the Iditarod trail
• Martin Buser reveals his plan to win
• You won’t find big money in dog sled racing
• How music star Kid Rock helped a young musher
• Lance Mackey earns gold in Iditarod
• Martin Buser’s gamble to win
• Aily Zirkle shows her dominance
• Mitch Seavey starts to take control of the race
• A dog gets loose, and its musher forced to quit the race
• Lance Mackey’s struggles included loosing a tooth
• A look at the final hours of the race
• Mitch Seavey wins 2013 Iditarod (initial story)

Junior Dispatch also offered a series of “Fast-Facts” to help familiarize readers with the rules of the game:

• Iditarod Map and race primer
• A look at where the racers come from
• Previous winners in the race
• Stop-and-go racing
• The Passing game
• Beware the moose
• Earning a red lantern
• Husky alternatives
• Speedy delivery
• Sports in Nome
• Alaskans dominate
• What’s in a Nome?
• Animal Cruelty?
• The legend of Balto
• The legend of Togo
• More polar fun

___
___
By KYLE HOPKINS and BETH BRAGG of the Anchorage Daily News from NOME, Alaska. (MCT)
(c)2013 the Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska)
Visit the Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska) at www.adn.com
Distributed by MCT Information Services

Mitch Seavey leaves White Mountain in Alaska, Tuesday, March 12, 2013, during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. (AP Photo/The Anchorage Daily News, Bill Roth)