Millennium Hotels to Face PETA Protest Over Cruel Dog-Sled Racing Sponsorship

Today, PETA supporters were spotted on Sloane Street, London, outside Millennium Hotel Knightsbridge taking a stand against cruel dog-sled races. PETA’s calling on Millennium Hotels and Resorts to check out of Iditarod dog cruelty by ending its sponsorship of the race, in which dogs are forced to run so fast and so far that many have died after inhaling their own vomit.

What Is the Iditarod, and How Do Dogs Suffer?

The Iditarod dog-sled race takes place annually in Alaska. Every year, hundreds of dogs are pulled out of the race because they’re ill, injured, or too exhausted to go on. During this year’s race, nearly 200 dogs were pulled off the trail, leaving the rest to have to work even harder. One musher even admitted that the dogs she forced to run suffered from horrible diarrhea, violently vomited, and developed aspiration pneumonia, the leading cause of death for dogs in the Iditarod.

Thousands of dogs are commercially bred each year for the race, and they spend their lives chained to dilapidated boxes or plastic barrels, left outside in sub-zero temperatures, denied companionship or even the ability to socialise with another dog, and treated like disposable racing machines. These dogs deserve a loving home, but instead, they’re pushed beyond their limits for mushers to gain money and fame.

While sponsors continue to sprint away from Alaska’s deadly Iditarod dog-sled race, Millennium Hotels and Resorts is apparently still happy to sponsor the gruelling event, which leaves 81% of the dogs who survive to the finish with lung damage. PETA and our affiliates are urging Millennium to help put an end to this abuse by joining ExxonMobil, Chrysler, Alaska Airlines, Jack Daniel’s, and many others that have already severed ties with the Iditarod.