Al Grillo / AP file

Canadian musher Sebastian Schnuelle drives his team across Norton Bay March 16, 2009, near the Shaktoolik, Alaska checkpoint on the Iditarod race.

Race organizers note an expansive system of checks and balances has evolved over the years to better monitor the more than 1,000 dogs along the trail. Veterinarians are deployed to checkpoints. Mushers must keep a dog-care journal. There are mandatory rest stops and random drug testing of the dogs. Deaths are carefully scrutinized. And this year, all teams were outfitted with satellite tracking devices, which tipped Packer's wife that he had run into trouble.

"We work every year with our mushers, veterinarians and all the people who are part of this race in terms of one single goal, and that's to create the very, very best continuum of care for the four-legged athletes that we consider to be the greatest in the world," St. George said. "It is our responsibility to continue to strive for no deaths in this race."

At least one animal welfare group — the Humane Society of the United States — no longer actively campaigns against the Iditarod, although officials aren't endorsing it either.

They acknowledge, however, the event's significance in commemorating the work of dog teams that were sent on the trail in 1925 to bring diphtheria serum to Nome to combat a deadly outbreak.

"I would like to see the Iditarod celebrate the history and culture of the event and not be just a timed event, but they're trying to make it as safe as they can for both the animals and humans," said Dave Pauli, the humane society's Western region director. "We're definitely reformists and not abolitionists on an event like this."

Packer says he's not done with the Iditarod, despite his ordeal. He believes the extreme conditions were an aberration and his team of dogs were actually in superb condition.

"It's just such an incredible experience to cross the Alaska Range with a dog team, to cross this huge range of mountains," he said. "You go through some incredibly beautiful country."

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