This is a common praitcce among working dog breeders. The fact is, most of their dogs would not be suitable as family pets for the reasons your describe, as well as the fact that they are hard-core working dogs, and lack many of the family-friendly, couch potato traits that the average pet owner is looking for.If you can't sell these dogs to another musher who can use them, you have few options. This is especially true in remote areas of Alaska and Canada, where populations are low and it's difficult to network in order to find these dogs homes.IMO, better this than having so many excess dogs that your kennel management or ability to feed them all suffers.The fact is, this is the way dogs were bred and handled for hundreds of years before the warm-and-fuzzy pet owning population came into existence. Personally, I couldn't do it. But I understand that sometimes it must/should/needs to be done.ADD: J's Husky In fact, a shorter-legged dog running on a team of leggier dog runs no real risk of breaking its legs. It does, however, run a risk of tiring faster and working harder to accomplish the same speed as the others. It will slow sooner, and slow the rest of the team. These dogs are typically just sent to a slower team, in kennel or with someone else.
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