Togo (dog)
Togo (* An October 1913 in Little Creek , Alaska ; † 5. December 1929 in Poland Spring , Maine ) was a sled dog of the breed Siberian Husky , who in 1925 as a lead dog of the musher Leonhard Seppala , the longest and most difficult section of the Serum Run to Nome lay back. He is an important ancestor of the Siberian Huskies living today.
Togo was named after Heihachiro Togo , a Japanese admiral in the Russo-Japanese War . His fur was black, brown, and gray, and he weighed about 22 kg. His father was Suggen, Seppala's lead dog in the All Alaska Sweepstakes of 1914. At the time of the Serum Run , Togo was already twelve years old.
Serum Run to Nome
When in January 1925 in Nome in Alaska , the diphtheria outbreak that had antiserum against the disease by almost a thousand miles distant place Anchorage are transported there. Due to the extremely cold and stormy weather, air transport was not possible, so that the drug could only be transported by dog sled . This was done via a relay with twenty dog sleds.
Seppala's team with the lead dog Togo took over the serum on January 31, 1925 in Shaktoolik from Henry Ivanoff's team. The outside temperature at this time was −34 ° C, taking into account the wind chill −65 ° C. The route headed west across frozen Norton Sound . Due to the difficult visibility, Seppala lost orientation, but Togo found the roadhouse in Isaac's Point around 8 p.m. , where the team rested for six hours after 134 km. At 2 a.m. on February 1, Seppala continued the transport.
During the night the temperature had dropped to −40 ° C and the wind speed was over 100 km / h. Seppala chose a route near the coastline on thin ice, crossed the 1,500 m high Little McKinley Mountain and finally reached Golovin , where Charlie Olsen took over the cargo, to which Gunnar Kaasen and Balto would finally hand it over for the last leg .
After the serum run
After successfully completing the Serum Run, the greatest attention was paid to Balto , the lead dog of the last team. However, the stage covered by Seppala from Nome to Shaktoolik and back to Golovin was 420 km long. His team transported the serum over a distance of 146 km, almost twice as far as any other team in the relay, and would have been lost without Togo's sense of direction. Seppala was disappointed with the lack of recognition for his lead dog and commented:
"It was almost more than I could bear when the newspaper dog Balto received a statue for his 'glorious achievements'."
"It was almost unbearable for me when the newspaper dog Balto got a statue erected for his 'glorious achievement'."
In October 1926, Seppala went with Togo and a few other dogs on a tour that took them from Seattle to California . The public interest was considerable and Seppala became the advertising medium for the cigarette manufacturer Lucky Strike . The team then traveled to New York City , where it parade down Fifth Avenue to Central Park and then performed several times at Madison Square Garden . At one of these appearances, the polar explorer Roald Amundsen awarded Togo a gold medal.
Seppala and his team competed in several dog sled races in New England against the local Chinooks and each won their races by a large margin. As a result, Siberian Huskies became popular in Maine , and Seppala sold most of his dogs to a local breeder. This popularity led the American Kennel Club to recognize the breed in 1930. Most of the dogs in this breed are descended from dogs that participated in the Serum Run , including Togo.
Togo was euthanized on December 5, 1929 at the age of 16 in Poland Spring, Maine, due to old age . The New York Sun Times dedicated its editorial to him the next day ; many other newspapers also printed obituaries for Togo. Seppala had him stuffed after his death. The stuffed Togo can be viewed today at the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Museum in Wasilla ; his skeleton is in the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University in New Haven (catalog number YPM MAM 007243).
In 2011 Time magazine named Togo the most heroic animal of all time.
literature
- Salisbury, Gay and Salisbury, Laney. The Cruelest Miles . WW Norton & Company , 2003, ISBN 0-393-01962-4 .
Web link
- Article about Togo on Workingdogweb , accessed on May 13, 2020