How many chihuahuas would it take to run the Iditarod do we think
Like 100?
@darkwood-sleddog would you like to humour us
I have been summoned?
(I am chucky in this scenario above)
Chihuahuas are tiny but mighty and I would think their tenacious attitudes would be a net positive. I will address how MANY chihuahuas i think you would need to = the pulling strength of an Iditarod team below but I want to address some other factors a hypothetical chihuahua musher would face with this...unique team makeup:
1.) Chihuahuas need small frequent meals most of the time due to their size while arctic breeds tend to use the same amount of food more efficiently. Obviously we are going to need MORE Chihuahuas than a Alaskan Husky Iditarod team (16 dogs at max capacity), but they will also probably need to eat more food per pound than the huskies not only because of the husky ability to need less food per pound, but also because Chihuahuas are a breed that was developed for warm weather they have much shorter hair and lack the double coats of even Alaskan Huskies so they will also spend more nutrients keeping warm. Iditarod sled dogs consume an average of 12,000 calories per day and the race takes about 10 days more or less to complete at a competitive pace.
2.) Chihuahuas are actually pretty good at pulling stuff and several compete in weight pull, so pulling is a good outlet in a non hypothetical scenario with the right precautions. SOME. VIDEOS .
Adorable.
3.) A dog's ethical "working load" for longer distances can be determined by a % of its body weight and scaled for conditioning and breed size. A larger dog is typically going to be able to pull more weight per pound, but little dogs shouldn't be counted out. For small dogs up to 25 pounds it is typically said that 10-20% of the dog's body weight can be safely pulled (for large dogs it's usually more). In a weight pull scenario like above, which is very short distance, dogs can pull up to 3x their body weight (sometimes more but not often).
Okay let's do math (which i'm bad at, but calculators exist so thank god):
The Chihuahua standard says that dogs must NOT exceed 6 pounds/2.7kg and Alaskan Huskies are often not more than 60 pounds/27.2kg and less than 35 pounds/15.8kg (for reference my smallest Alaskan Malamute is 75 pounds/34kg and my largest is 110 pounds/50kg....)
Loaded with gear an Iditarod sled weighs around 200 pounds/90.7kg.
Most Iditarod dogs are not at the maximum size/weight range, mostly closer to 45 pounds/20kg on average. For the purposes of this exercise I will use 5 pounds/2.2kg for the Chihuahua. I will assume that these Chihuahua's are at their maximum strength and conditioning much like sled dogs and use the 20% metric for the amount of weight they could pull. Because our average Chihuahua is 5 pounds in this scenario it makes the math easy. 20% of 5 is uh.....1.
So to conclude it is likely that you would need a team of 200+ Chihuahuas to pull an Iditarod sled (and omg the amount of food...). That paints QUITE the visual.
Here is Jeff Deeter from Black Spruce Dog Sledding, an Iditarod kennel, running a 29 dog team for reference of what a large amount of dogs in harness might...be like?
anyways whose gonna make a visual of the hypothetical chihuahua team bc i would like to see it
(please note that per Iditarod race rules non-northern breeds are not actually allowed to race in the Iditarod and this scenario is hypothetical).
Me and my 200+chihuahuas getting turned away at the Iditarod starting line even though we practiced so much and they are all perfectly conditioned and can each pull exactly one (1) pound
I was reading this thinking about the rocket fuel issue (if you have to carry your fuel with you, you need more fuel to carry the extra weight etc etc ad infinitum) and then I thought "you could maybe forage along the way?" and in conclusion someone who is good at drawing make this but it's 200+ Chihuahuas on a moose skeleton.
