Woodsong
Gary Paulsen
132/132
I finished the book and it exceeded my expectations. This may have been the best book I read all year. The main characters are a man, his wife, his son and his sled dogs. The setting is the alaskan wilderness, and several little Alaskan towns.
The book started of kind of slow then got really good. The only good parts at the beginning of the book was when a hawk started to annoy the animals at his home and when him and his sled dogs went out into the wilderness. The best part of the book by far though was when the man and his dogs participated in the Iditarod sled race. The Iditarod sled race is an Alaskan tradition, it is a sled race that lasts about 2 weeks. Then sled drivers and his dog team have to survive the Alaskan wilderness and finish the race before the other teams. The man’s sled team didn’t win, but finished and the man thinks that he learned a lot about himself during the two week race. He had dogs falling asleep while they were running, because it was so boring. He had to deal with the horrible Alaskan weather and he was able to handle many other tasks at the same time. Which is amazing for a person to do.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to read Gary Paulsen books or any one who wants to read a good book. This book kept me entertained from top to bottom with twists and turns you wouldn’t expect from any book. It is a good book and I think if you have access to this book then you should definitely read it.
For the dogs, the Iditarod is a bottomless pit of suffering. Six dogs died in the 2009 Iditarod. Two dogs on Dr. Lou Packer’s team froze to death in the brutally cold winds. What happens to the dogs during the race includes death, paralysis, frostbite (where it hurts the most!), bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons and sprains. At least 142 dogs have died in the race. No one knows how many dogs die after this tortuous ordeal or during training.
On average, 52 percent of the dogs who start the race do not make it across the finish line. According to a report published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, of those who do finish, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who complete the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Iditarod dog kennels are puppy mills. Mushers breed large numbers of dogs and routinely kill unwanted ones, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, including those who have outlived their usefulness, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged, drowned or clubbed to death. “Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don’t pull are dragged to death in harnesses……” wrote former Iditarod dog handler Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska’s Bush Blade Newspaper.
Dog beatings and whippings are common. During the 2007 Iditarod, eyewitnesses reported that musher Ramy Brooks kicked, punched and beat his dogs with a ski pole and a chain. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, “Nagging a dog team is cruel and ineffective…A training device such as a whip is not cruel at all but is effective.” “It is a common training device in use among dog mushers…”
Jon Saraceno wrote in his March 3, 2000 column in USA Today, “He [Colonel Tom Classen] confirmed dog beatings and far worse. Like starving dogs to maintain their most advantageous racing weight. Skinning them to make mittens.. Or dragging them to their death.”
During the race, veterinarians do not give the dogs physical exams at every checkpoint. Mushers speed through many checkpoints, so the dogs get the briefest visual checks, if that. Instead of pulling sick dogs from the race, veterinarians frequently give them massive doses of antibiotics to keep them running.
Most Iditarod dogs are forced to live at the end of a chain when they aren’t hauling people around. It has been reported that dogs who don’t make the main team are never taken off-chain. Chained dogs have been attacked by wolves, bears and other animals. Old and arthritic dogs suffer terrible pain in the blistering cold.
The Iditarod, with all the evils associated with it, has become a synonym for exploitation. The race imposes torture no dog should be forced to endure.
Margery Glickman
Director
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.org
You made this book sound really good. You had a great summary and I liked how you said which parts of the book you thought were the best. Good job