Missing Iditarod Dog Found 150 Miles Away, Heading Home

Missing Iditarod Dog Found 150 Miles Away, Heading Home
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An Iditarod dog missing seven days is back under the watchful eye of friends delighted to be reunited with her. May, an experienced lead dog from the kennel of veteran Iditarod musher Jim Lanier, ran off March 6 when Jamaican musher Newton Marshall worked to untangle a line between the checkpoints of Rohn and Nikolai in an area of the Iditarod Trail known as the Farewell Burn.

Those who know May suspect she was making a run for the race start in Willow or her home kennel in Chugiak.

The saga of her disappearance, sightings and eventual capture can be assembled through a series of posts on the Facebook pages for the Iditarod Trail Committee, Marshall and Northern White Kennels.

On Thursday, three snowmachiners caught the reddish-blonde dog with blue eyes at Horseshoe Lake -- near Big Lake. She'd lost weight and developed sore feet but otherwise was said to be in good health. Not bad for a dog that'd just done a solo 150-plus-mile journey through some of the Iditarod Trail's most unforgiving terrain. Then again, May is a seasoned Iditarod runner, having completed races previously with Lanier, his wife Anna Bondarenko, and Girdwood's Nicolas Petit.

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