Sled dog dies along Iditarod trail, officials say
GALENA, Alaska (KTUU) - A dog from the team of a Wisconsin rookie musher died Friday on the Iditarod trail, race officials said.
In a release, Iditarod officials said a four-year-old female named Ventana on musher Daniel Klein’s team collapsed on the trail about eight miles from Galena, which sits 369 miles into the 1,128-mile race, around noon Friday.
Iditarod said attempts to revive the dog were unsuccessful.
Klein got into Galena at 2:10 p.m. Friday afternoon, and according to Iditarod GPS data, stopped on the trail for almost an hour before then.
The death forced Klein to scratch from the race, leaving 30 teams remaining out of 33 that started.
Ventana was flown to Anchorage for a necropsy, Iditarod said, where a board-certified pathologist will try to determine an exact cause of death.
Klein, a musher out of Eagle, Wisconsin, was making his first start in the Last Great Race, and was running 27th when he scratched.
It was the first dog death of the 2025 Iditarod, a year after three dogs died during the 2024 race.
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