If you take a look at the racers in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, that started Saturday, 5 March, you’ll see a lot of different dogs pulling those sleds.

Breeds of dogs who sled are generally descended from the dogs that are indigenous to North America or came to the continent from Asia with the first people thousands of years ago. The oldest breed is the Inuit dog, or qimmiq. Some of the other traditional sled pullers are Alaskan husky and Malamute. Recently, breeders have developed the Eurohound, a cross between a pointer and a husky. Everything Husky has links to information about all Northern Breed Dogs, including sled dogs, herding dogs and hunting dogs. Sled dogs are strong and fast, generally compact. Most of the sled dogs have a double coat to protect them from harsh weather, according to Dog Breed Info.

One thing all of these dogs have in common is a love of running and pulling.

Technically, the Alaskan husky isn’t a breed. Alaskan huskies don’t have a registry or a standard. However, the dog is generally recognizable by appearance and specific in physiology. Huskies do have a long history, and Stephanie Little Wolf describes the blending of speed and strength that resulted in today’s husky on Sled Dog Central.

Veterinary researchers, like Arleigh Reynolds, have found that huskies are three times better at taking oxygen into the body than the best human athletes, Mark Derr reported in his book Dog’s Best Friend: The Annals of the Dog-Human Relationship. Huskies can sprint at 22 miles per hour for 20-30 miles (racing greyhounds sprint at 40 mph + but only less than one mile) and maintain a cruising speed of 15 mph for long distances.

Alaskan Malamute is a large, powerful dog, standing about 25 inches at the shoulder and weighing in at 75 to 85 pounds. Malamutes are not as fast as some of the other sled dogs, but they can pull heavy loads, according to malamute.org  Historically, Alaskan Malamutes helped to carry supplies for the camps along the northern coast. Five of the 20 dog teams that carried diptheria vaccine to Nome in 1925 included Malamutes, according to Sheryl’s Alaskan Malamutes.  Mushers occasionally run Malamute teams in the Iditarod, but they have trouble getting to the finish line.

Inuit dog is the closest relative to the wolf of the sled dogs, according to Sled Dog Central, and the closest to the original Northern breed. These dogs have worked with humans from Nunavut to Greenland, and have great stamina. (Look for the next installment of this series on the history of the qimmiq in North America.) The future for sled dogs is bound up with human breeders who have blended the Northern breeds’ endurance and the racing hounds’ speed in the Eurohound, a new mix of Alaskan husky and pointer. Europeans began to breed their own racing hounds with Alaskans in the 1980s, according to the Sled Dog Association of Scotland.  The Northern Alberta Mushers Association describes the Eurohound as a performance dog. Eurohounds vary in appearance and were bred and introduced to racing in Scandanavia.

The Iditarod Insider presents video clips and 24-hour GPS tracking of the teams, for a fee, for fans of the race. For the duration of the race, the Anchorage Daily News profiles one sled dog per day as part of extensive coverage of the race. The feature includes video of the dog and musher, bios of the mushers and their teams, maps and even an opportunity to pick this year’s winner.

Tagged as: Alaskan husky, Eurohound, Iditarod, Inuit dog, Malamute, sled dogs, veterinarians