One of the things that struck me from seeing some coverage around this recently is that Balto died at age 14 and Togo, another prominent dog in that sled run, died at age 16.
After having a couple German Shepherds as a kid those numbers were striking for large working dogs. Looks like Huskies still have pretty good life expectancy (12-14 years in the US from the AKC), Malamutes a bit less, but both stronger than GSD, which are like <10 years in the US these days.
Hopefully things swing away from the fascination with "purebred" before those breeds see further declines.
From the article it seems like the working dogs, vs the breeding-for-sale dogs, are still pretty healthy: “What we found is that Balto is more genetically diverse and genetically healthier than your breed dog of today but similar to those working Alaskan dogs that we have now—which is what you expect from a group that is still bred for work rather than the aesthetic phenotype that breed dogs are now held to,”
After having a couple German Shepherds as a kid those numbers were striking for large working dogs. Looks like Huskies still have pretty good life expectancy (12-14 years in the US from the AKC), Malamutes a bit less, but both stronger than GSD, which are like <10 years in the US these days.
Hopefully things swing away from the fascination with "purebred" before those breeds see further declines.
From the article it seems like the working dogs, vs the breeding-for-sale dogs, are still pretty healthy: “What we found is that Balto is more genetically diverse and genetically healthier than your breed dog of today but similar to those working Alaskan dogs that we have now—which is what you expect from a group that is still bred for work rather than the aesthetic phenotype that breed dogs are now held to,”