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Iditarod Dog Found 7-Days After Disappearing From Team

Anchorage Daily News/MCT Photo 

ABC News: The 53-year-old winner of the 41st Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race made history this week as the oldest winner of the grueling endurance race, but an Iditarod dog lost for seven days may have had the most amazing journey at this year’s race.

May, a strawberry blond female, got loose last Thursday from the team of Newton Marshall, the Jamaican musher leading her sled in the 1,000-mile race across Alaska.

When Marshall stopped mid-race Thursday to help a fellow musher repair her sled, the lines of the two sleds became entangled, and May was separated from the team, according to a post on Marshall’s fan Facebook page.

As the search for May, a veteran Iditarod dog, got under way, it also played out on social media, with the team behind her owner, veteran Iditarod musher Jim Lanier, who also competed in this year’s race but did not race with May, posting sightings and frequent updates to his own Facebook page.

Lanier’s wife, Anna Bondarenko, flew to Alaska to “be the familiar face to call May in from the cold,” according to a post on Facebook. She relied on help from local residents to search for May, borrowing snow machines and crisscrossing the state by plane as new sightings of May came in.

May was seen running along the Iditarod trail numerous times but was always missed by those who spotted her, and by Anna who was “always a day behind her, due to weather issues flying between checkpoints,” read a Facebook post.

On Thursday, with hope running slim, the couple got the good news that May had been found by three snowmachiners on a trail.

“We had just pulled over on the side of the trail … and about 100 yards away a dog was trotting down the trail,” one of the snowmachiners, Kaitlin Koch, 22, told the Anchorage Daily News. “It was coming at a pretty slow pace, and we were waiting to see if someone on a four-wheeler or snowmachine was with her.”

Describing the dog as alone, skinny and with blood on her paws, Koch said she got off her sled and approached May, who welcomed the help.

“She came right up to me,” Koch said. “She sat in my lap the entire trip back to Big Lake.”

The trio had doubts that the missing Iditarod dog they had heard about could be this one, so far away from the race’s end, but they called Iditarod headquarters to report her found, just in case. One hour later, one of Lanier’s friends arrived to take the dog home, reports the Daily News.

“It’s an incredible journey,” said the friend, Stan Smith, to the Daily News, also noting the dog had eaten canned salmon and kibble stew as part of her recovery.

A Facebook post from Lanier, who could not be reached today by ABCNews.com, estimates that May traveled over 150 miles before being found while Smith, himself an Iditarod veteran, told the Daily News he thought May likely traveled 300 to 400 miles.

Based on the sightings of May reported along the course, Smith, who also could not be reached today, believes the dog was trying to find her way back to the start of the race but missed a crucial turn along the way.

“She was absolutely running home,” he told the Daily News. “She traveled several times from Rohn to Nikolai, all the way up the Dalzell Gorge, up the Alaska Range to the other side, through Rainy Pass, across Shell Lake; she was spotted multiple times in Skwentna. So many reports of seeing her. They were all heading south.”

While May’s musher, Newton Marshall, the improbable dog sled racer from Jamaica, was forced to drop out of the race in Nikolai after May became lost, her owner went on to finish the race.

Lanier crossed the finish line of his 16^th Iditarod on Thursday — the same day May was found — in 35^th place. The race took him 10 days, 10 hours, 21 minutes and eight seconds to complete, according to his Facebook page.

Related:

Iditarod dog dies after being buried in snow

Iditarod Dog Saved With Mouth-To-Snout CPR

Musher to Dog Mouth to Mouth… Uh Snout

Iron Dog – Updated

Musher to Dog Mouth to Mouth… Uh Snout

  Scott Janssen and his team at the start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (Image Credit: Marc Lester/The Anchorage Daily News/AP Photo)

ABC News – Originally Posted: Mar 8, 2012 7:03pmBy Dana E. Sherne:

When Marshall collapsed on the Iditarod trail, Scott Janssen did what any good friend would do: He stopped his sled and gave mouth-to-mouth CPR.

Or mouth-to-snout, as the case may be. Marshall is a veteran sled dog, and a personal pet of Janssen and his wife Debbie Janssen.

On Monday night, about 5 miles from the next checkpoint at Rohn, Alaska, the husky suddenly fell.

“Marshall was running really tight on the line, no problems at all, and all of a sudden, he collapsed,” said Debbie Janssen.

When Scott Janssen stopped the sled and grabbed Marshall, the dog wasn’t breathing, so he closed the dog’s mouth and began breathing into Marshall’s nose, all the while compressing the animal’s chest.

Scott Janssen had to administer mouth-to-snout twice, because after the first time attempt, Marshall woke up but then quickly fell unconscious again.

The second time, Debbie Janssen said, her husband could see in his dog’s eyes that he was coming to.

“He looked at Marshall and said, ‘Come on! Come back to me!’” Debbie Janssen said. “And Marshall did. He came back. He started breathing.”

At 9 years old, Marshall is one of the oldest dogs on Scott’s team. He has competed in about six Iditarod races, and given his age, this was to be his final attempt.

After Marshall was resuscitated successfully, Scott Janssen tucked the pooch into his sled bag and then approached the front of the sled to reassure each dog with a quiet voice or a gentle hug.

“They were all freaking out,” Debbie Janssen said. “They’ve been a team and could tell something was wrong.”

The team then continued on to Rohn, where Marshall showed no signs of stress, according to Iditarod spokesperson Erin McLarnon. Leaving Marshall with the Iditarod vet, Scott and his team of 14 dogs continued on toward the finish line in Nome.

Marshall is being flown back to Anchorage, where the Janssens own a funeral home.

Scott Janssen, who calls himself the “Mushing Mortician,” is competing in his second Iditarod. He trained with experienced musher Paul Gebhardt for four years. And it was Gebhardt who taught him how to perform mouth-to-snout resuscitation.

(Image Credit: Serena Marshall/ABC News)

“He loves all these dogs,” Debbie Marshall said. “He told me he couldn’t imagine Marshall dying in front of him.”

ABC News interviewed Scott Janssen before the race. At the time, he said that the scariest part of the event is knowing harm could come to his dogs.

“I don’t want anything to happen to my dogs,” he said, naming moose as a major concern. “I would do anything, even to the point of sacrificing myself, to make sure that moose don’t get to my dogs.”

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