Mike Dillingham: Alaska Dogs and Iditarod Mushers: The Adventures of Balto, Back of the Pack, Honor Bound, Rivers

Balto Day in Cleveland became Balto Weekend. On Sunday, the day after the parade, thousands of well-wishers visited the zoo to meet the dogs.

The team’s new outdoor pen wasn’t yet ready, so the dogs received visitors in their basement digs — after a hearty breakfast of a pound of raw meat each and veggies. People who hadn’t visited the zoo in years climbed out of bed like sleepwalkers, heading to the zoo almost without thinking, as if they had been programmed. They knew only that the zoo was the place to be on Sunday, and that they wanted to go there. And Balto and his six teammates were the star attractions, more popular than any of the other animals.

People who had only glimpsed the dogs from the parade’s sidelines wanted to gaze fully into the dogs’ handsome faces, peer into their intensely alive, bright eyes, bask in their special magic, which was the magic of their breed, really. (Huskies, you may recall, were still rare in the 48 states that then made up America.) But there was something else, too.

The dogs were like proud veterans home from a long war after many battles: the dangerous serum run, their grueling travels across the country, their long prison sentence in the dime museum. These huskies were more than heroes; they were survivors: strong, resilient, deserving of the highest praise.

Over eight hours, 15,000 people swept through the zoo’s turnstiles like a great wave. Al Kintzel, the dogs’ newly appointed keeper, directed the steady flow of human traffic in and out of the basement, gently cautioning, “Watch your step.” Thousands of children, their eyes round with wonder like pilgrims inching toward a shrine, led parents and grandparents down the narrow stone steps. “Come on,” they pleaded, tugging the sleeves of the adults in a most unpilgrimlike way. “I want to see Balto.”

None were disappointed. “Wynken, Blynken and Nod,” mused one small boy, who like many of the children, wished with all his heart he could take the dogs home. “I like Balto, Alaska Slim and Old Moctoc better.”

At noon, the bottleneck was halted and the dogs were taken outside for some fresh air and a short, brisk run. Then they trotted down to the basement and allowed themselves to be admired for four more hours — until the zoo finally closed for the day. Old Moctoc snoozed a bit, but that was to be expected. Once or twice, Balto was brought close to the children to be petted and hugged. For dinner, the dogs each ate two biscuits, which was all they wanted. They were too tired to eat more and quickly fell asleep.

Courtesy of Special Collections, Cleveland University Library.

Within days, the zoo opened a new outdoor exhibit: the team’s new home! Shaped like a half-moon — or a wide smile — the fenced-in area was grassed and had a large, leafy shade tree as shelter against the bright Midwestern sun and rain. Size-wise, it was considered generous for a dog yard then: 100 feet in diameter and 50 feet wide (a third the length of a football field and a third the width). The pen was described in a news story as “proper shelter,” a place where the dogs could live contentedly while on display.

They did. After the hoopla died down, the dogs continued to be one of the zoo’s most popular exhibits, which was unusual: Many zoos display wild dogs, such as dingoes or wolves, but none display domestic dogs — the kind that humans, over thousands of years, have turned into loyal pets. You don’t see Labs or poodles in zoos, do you? You don’t see them today, and you didn’t see them in the 1920s. Cleveland’s Balto exhibit was something unique in the annals, or records, of zoo history. A zoo was simply an unusual place for domestic dogs to live, but then these dogs had led unusual lives.

But the zoo exhibit was no freak show, no cheap display of “animal oddities.” It was the dogs’ retirement home, a place where they could play, sleep, eat and rest — in relative peace and quiet and surrounded by nature.

There were fewer exhibits then, mostly animals of local origin, including raccoon, foxes, bears, deer and a flock of Canada geese. Prairie dogs and ostrich were among the few exotic species. The deer were nearby, but there were no other animal species that the dogs could see — just trees, flowers, landscaped walkways and lush parkland. The dogs were happy, especially in winter, when it snowed and they got to pull their sled around Brookside Park. They went on several runs a week. Balto remained the No. 1 leader, but Fox sometimes got to lead, too.

In 1930, the dogs watched a huge construction project unfold like a magic trick: the Fulton Road Bridge. The zoo grounds were cradled in a narrow valley and, with more and more people driving cars, an overpass was needed to ease traffic and connect Fulton Road to the rest of the city.

Soon, people were driving over the valley instead of around it, taking them right over the far end of the zoo — and practically over the dogs’ heads. For the curious dogs, the sights and sounds of the bridge being built and later, the endless whiz of cars, were a constant source of entertainment.

But the dogs were growing old. Each day, they played a little less and slept a little more until one by one, they died. By March 1933 — six years after the team’s arrival at the zoo — only two dogs were left. Gone were Old Moctoc, the team’s oldest member, with his wizened, wolf-like features, and Fox, the second-in-command after Balto in the dogs’ heyday of sled runs. Gone, too — but not forgotten by the children of Cleveland — were Alaska Slim, Billy and Tillie, with her gleaming gray-and-cream-colored coat. Only Sye and Balto remained, two old comrades, sharing their last days under a shade tree in the moon-shaped pen.

But Balto’s great heart was faltering. Now age 11, he was partly deaf, partly blind and barely able to move his back legs, which were inflamed with arthritis and stiff. It was clear to his keeper, Captain Curley Wilson, that Balto was dying, breathing with difficulty and sleeping so much that every time he drifted off, Curly wondered whether he would awake.

Finally, a kind veterinarian, Dr. R.R. Powell, offered to ease Balto’s last days — to make him more comfortable and gently end his struggle. Curley accepted, and Balto was carefully moved to Dr. Powell’s animal hospital — just in time. He was slipping further beyond reach by the hour, plummeting through silence and whiteness into a comforting cloud castle of unconsciousness.

The distressing news was reported in the papers, setting off an avalanche of phone calls from children to the zoo. “How’s Balto?” “Is he suffering?” “How’s Sye doing?” they wanted to know. Zoo officials assured the children that Balto was in good hands.

But Sye was lonely, moaning and howling inconsolably as if a full moon had emerged from behind a cloud. He paced back and forth in his pen like an agitated prisoner and barely touched his food. Sye was alone. Given his keen husky instincts, he must have known that his lifelong companion would never return.

Dr. Powell insisted on caring for Balto free of charge. He was glad to be of assistance, even honored to be entrusted with caring for the dog during his final hours. On Tuesday, March 14, the veterinarian injected the comatose, or nearly lifeless, dog with a drug to hasten his slide into peace. Balto died a few hours later — at 2:15 p.m. Sye had lost his best friend, and the people of Cleveland had lost a beloved pet.