Certainly not the greatest picture of my son, but what the hey…a moment is a moment. This morning while Tucker was home (snow day!) researching the Iditarod for school, he found some info on musher Jeff King that wasn’t in the Wikipedia entry. So a couple of well aimed clicks later, the Wikipedia world can now see that King met his wife when their dog sled lines got entangled. (Hey, that’s a Valentines Day story for ya.) I’m so dang proud I can hardly stand it.
Someone help me…please.
Go Tucker, great job. I always love to see kids getting dirty in here.
Will, don’t know if you’ve heard about this one. Search for “pitot house” in Wikipedia. This article was written by a group of third graders who visit this home every year on a field trip. The article never existed before this class took it on.
Of course, the teacher for this class, had to make it sound more like an encyclopedia, but the spirit of the article, and the reseacrh within, belongs to the kids.
I should add. This teacher teaches in the school where I previously taught. I’m so happy to see my past co-workers doing amazing things!!
Will… you’ve inspired me. I teach computer networking concepts and my students know quite a lot about it (some thanks to me, but mostly thanks to their enthusiasm). I’m going to have my students help out with the Simple English Wikipedia:
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
Dang… Jakob is *years* behind the curve, years I tell you!
Will, such experiences as a parent are truly golden. Tucker not only had the chance to venture into new territory, he also was able to bask in your excitement and pride.
Congratulations to Tucker and Dad. There are strong connections between love, authorship, and creativity. How delightful to find this synchronicity on Valentine’s Day!
Will,
You just taught your son that he knows some things that others don’t know, that we are all contributors to knowledge creation, that he has a voice that matters, and that he can write!
I’m sure homework just got more fun for him!
Way to go Tucker! Dad you’ve taught him well. How lucky he is to have a guiding hand right next to him. I teach a unit on the Iditarod every year and this year my students will be creating a wiki for this. We’re a little late getting started because of the snow days. Keep up the good work!
This is great!! Congratulations! I just bought your new book, have read it, underlined, earmarked, scribbled notes in, and am presently re-reading information. No wonder Tucker can Wiki like a Pro. I have learned so much in the last week from your publication and reading blogs, I can’t believe it! Hope to start a blog soon. I am into Bloglines and have looked at the Wikipedia in terms of a post I know I can change for the better – I just have to get up the courage. Thank you so much for your wonderful publication and congratulations to you and your son.
Will, tell your son, nice job.
Then, have him check back to watch the history to see if his changes:
1. have been removed;
2. have been modified;
3. stayed the same.
Dan
PS.. I am the URL that added a small change to Tucker’s addition. He should be able to track me to find another change I made in another posting too!
CHALLENGE HIM to find out what reference I added in another item that does not yet have a page developed, but awaits one by addition (hint -if he needs it- it’s in red).
Might as well lead him along a bit further with his new-found skills, Dad!
Animal lovers hope Tucker adds information about the Iditarod’s long, well-documented history of dog deaths, illnesses and injuries.
In the Iditarod, dogs are forced to run 1,150 miles, which is the approximate distance between Chicago and Miami, Florida, over a grueling terrain in 8 to 16 days. Dog deaths and injuries are common in the race. USA Today sports columnist Jon Saraceno called the Iditarod “a travesty of grueling proportions” and “Ihurtadog.” Fox sportscaster Jim Rome called it “I-killed-a-dog.” Orlando Sentinel sports columnist George Diaz said the race is “a barbaric ritual” and “an illegal sweatshop for dogs.” USA Today business columnist Bruce Horovitz said the race is a “public-relations minefield.”
The Sled Dog Action Coalition (SDAC) was founded in 1999 to educate America about the exploitation of sled dogs in Alaska’s annual Iditarod dog sled race. The SDAC and its efforts to educate people about the brutalities associated with the Iditarod was profiled in USA Today and in the Miami Herald.
Please visit the SDAC website http://www.helpsleddogs.org to see pictures, and for more information. Be sure to read the quotes on http://www.helpsleddogs.org/remarks.htm and on all the quote pages that link to it. Links can be found in the drop box at the top and at the bottom of the page. All of the material on the site is true and verifiable.
Iditarod dogs are simply not the invincible animals race officials portray. Here’s a short list of what happens to the dogs during the race: death, paralysis, penile frostbite, bleeding ulcers, broken bones, pneumonia, torn muscles and tendons, diarrhea, vomiting, hypothermia, fur loss, broken teeth, viral diseases, torn footpads, ruptured discs, sprains, anemia and lung damage.
At least 130 dogs have died in the Iditarod. There is no official count of dog deaths available for the race’s early years. In “WinterDance: the Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod,” a nonfiction book, Gary Paulsen describes witnessing an Iditarod musher brutally kicking a dog to death during the race. He wrote, “All the time he was kicking the dog. Not with the imprecision of anger, the kicks, not kicks to match his rage but aimed, clinical vicious kicks. Kicks meant to hurt deeply, to cause serious injury. Kicks meant to kill.”
Causes of death have also included strangulation in towlines, internal hemorrhaging after being gouged by a sled, liver injury, heart failure, and pneumonia. “Sudden death” and “external myopathy,” a fatal condition in which a dog’s muscles and organs deteriorate during extreme or prolonged exercise, have also occurred. The 1976 Iditarod winner, Jerry Riley, was accused of striking his dog with a snow hook (a large, sharp and heavy metal claw). In 1996, one of Rick Swenson’s dogs died while he mushed his team through waist-deep water and ice. The Iditarod Trail Committee banned both mushers from the race but later reinstated them. In many states these incidents would be considered animal cruelty. Swenson is now on the Iditarod Board of Directors.
In the 2001 Iditarod, a sick dog was sent to a prison to be cared for by inmates and received no veterinary care. He was chained up in the cold and died. Another dog died by suffocating on his own vomit.
No one knows how many dogs die in training or after the race each year.
On average, 53 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 cross, 81 percent have lung damage. A report published in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine said that 61 percent of the dogs who finish the Iditarod have ulcers versus zero percent pre-race.
Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:
“They’ve had the hell beaten out of them.” “You don’t just whisper into their ears, ‘OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.’ They understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? They are all lying.” -USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno’s column
Beatings and whippings are common. Jim Welch says in his book Speed Mushing Manual, “I heard one highly respected [sled dog] driver once state that “‘Alaskans like the kind of dog they can beat on.'” “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…A whip is a very humane training tool.”
Mushers believe in “culling” or killing unwanted dogs, including puppies. Many dogs who are permanently disabled in the Iditarod, or who are unwanted for any reason, are killed with a shot to the head, dragged or clubbed to death. “On-going cruelty is the law of many dog lots. Dogs are clubbed with baseball bats and if they don’t pull are dragged to death in harnesses…..” wrote Alaskan Mike Cranford in an article for Alaska’s Bush Blade Newspaper (March, 2000).
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.”
Iditarod administrators promote the race as a commemoration of sled dogs saving the children of Nome by bringing diphtheria serum from Anchorage in 1925. However, the co-founder of the Iditarod, Dorothy Page, said the race was not established to honor the sled drivers and dogs who carried the serum. In fact, 600 miles of this serum run was done by train and the other half was done by dogs running in relays, with no dog running over 100 miles. This isn’t anything like the Iditarod.
The race has led to the proliferation of horrific dog kennels in which the dogs are treated very cruelly. Many kennels have over 100 dogs and some have as many as 200. It is standard for the dogs to spend their entire lives outside tethered to metal chains that can be as short as four feet long. In 1997 the United States Department of Agriculture determined that the tethering of dogs was inhumane and not in the animals’ best interests. The chaining of dogs as a primary means of enclosure is prohibited in all cases where federal law applies. A dog who is permanently tethered is forced to urinate and defecate where he sleeps, which conflicts with his natural instinct to eliminate away from his living area.
Iditarod dogs are prisoners of abuse.
Sincerely,
Margery Glickman
Director
Sled Dog Action Coalition, http://www.helpsleddogs.orgÂ
Great information. I had no idea. However, I don’t think that was the lesson that Tucker was learning when working with his dad. That’s not to say that what you have written won’t become part of a bigger discussion in the Richardson household.
I do see that there is information on the Iditarod and the dog abuse within the Iditarod article on Wikipedia, so Tucker probably doesn’t need to add it. I don’t know if you put the information in there, but if you did, great job. If not, insert information that might be excluded. That’s the benefit of this tool, and that’s what I think the lesson was in this case.
Thank you to everyone for teaching me about the Iditarod. It is my favorite subject in school right now. In class we are doing a progect on the Iditarod.
I read with saddness the earlier lies and misinformation posted by Margery Glickman. Most of that came from the sadly outdated and VERY misonformed web site mentioned in her post. It always makes me very sad to see like that who know nothing about sled dogs and the races preaching to others. I am sure Tucker learned about the major efforst mushers put into dog care and preperation. Jeff king himslef runs a model kennel where visitors and tourist are regulalrly welcomed to come and inspect his operation.
The outdated and untrue information (published I may note out of florida where I am so sure they have lots of experience with northern breeds) should be overlooked, or if it upset you do theresearch and prove for yourself, as everyone who everyone who actually understands the breed and the sport does, how misguideed it was.
Jodi – you are a great defender of Iditarod animal abuse. Margery Glickman moved to Alaska with her family in the late 1990’s to work at an Iditarod musher’s kennel and was sickened by what she saw. Information on her web site is meticulously researched – she does not solicit money for her brave efforts. It is too bad that teaching Iditarod propaganda to children happens in the U.S. because it happens in Canada too with the Yukon Quest, another obscene race that kills and injures sled dogs.
In 2007, Frank Turner, one of our most experienced Quest mushers spoke out about Quest mushers culling/killing dogs when developing their racing teams. When questioned, a Quest spokesman told a reporter that it was “not the Quest’s business” what Quest mushers did with their dogs. Shame on you for your ignorance Jodi. Get educated about the real world of the Iditarod and Yukon Quest (by the way, I live in the Yukon, so don’t accuse me of being a southerner who doesn’t know what he is talking about).
THREE DOGS WERE KILLED IN THE 2007 QUEST AND MANY INJURED!
Overblown propaganda. The dogs do it because they love it. Animal abuse?
QOUTE: Tom Classen, retired Air Force colonel and Alaskan resident for over 40 years, tells us that the dogs are beaten into submission:
“They’ve had the hell beaten out of them.†“You don’t just whisper into their ears, ‘OK, stand there until I tell you to run like the devil.’ They understand one thing: a beating. These dogs are beaten into submission the same way elephants are trained for a circus. The mushers will deny it. And you know what? They are all lying.†-USA Today, March 3, 2000 in Jon Saraceno’s column. END QOUTE
Its sad that you use someone’s service to the country as a title implying some kind of authority (or even intelligence) on the subject.
YOu don’t have to beat them, you don’t have to whisper in their ears, they do it because they LOVE IT. If you have never seen a race (short or long), real working dogs in action and the bond between them and their people, please stop poisening minds and spreading slander. At least give people the chance to make up their minds for themselves. Predators, preying on weak minds.