Why do they run documentary

Images of dogs living on heavy chains — except for the training and the racing they do — looks increasingly at odds with proper dog care, even in Alaska or rural parts of Canada. And in a world where many states and localities are now restricting tethering as a matter of law, one has to wonder if the pressure is going to build on this industry to stop operating in this way as a matter of proper care and housing.

The comments in the film by the mayor of Snowmass, indicating that tethering is wrong for pets but okay for sled dogs, will strike a particularly false and inconsistent note with the vast majority of dog lovers in our society. Animal welfare activists have long criticized mushing — while mushers, in turn, say there has been little effort by critics to distinguish between the good and the bad in the sport.

Indeed, many mushers believe themselves to be deeply bonded with their dogs in lives of purpose and high adventure. A film like Sled Dogs will test mushers: do they acknowledge the worst among them, and will they strive to demand better or close ranks with the undeserving? Similarly, the rest of us might be careful with stereotypes. There is little doubt that dogs are the center of the universe for many mushers—a fact that deserves consideration, just the same as their dogs deserve lives founded on compassion.

This resulted in the province introducing tougher animal cruelty laws and proclaiming April 23, the anniversary of the second day of the killings Animal Abuse Prevention Day. They argue that even in the best of circumstances, and even among the most diligent and responsible enthusiasts for the sport, are we demanding too much of animals who have not volunteered for this kind of life? With the other camp, defenders of mushing think that the animals were born for running and competition.

Sled Dogs does bring up uncomfortable but important questions, like so many other important documentaries about major animal industries have in recent years — from Food, Inc.

Enter your email address below to receive updates each time we publish new content. I have often wondered how these dogs are treated when I see pictures of them tied up out in the cold. These animals should be treated like all other pets and have the same rights to food and shelter. I hope that talks and investigations will continue and changes are made! I would encourage you to do some independent research. They can easily get over heated in temperatures as low as 40 degrees F.

Take a look at websites such as the site of Jeff King, a famous musher. There are two sides to every story and just like in the general population, there are some mushers who abuse their dogs — but all this community is asking is that people consider their side of the story as well. Also remember that these dogs have been bred for not just hundreds, but thousands of years to do this job — like so many other breeds, they are working dogs.

Documentaries are great, but they are nearly always very one sided as they are a reflection of their creators opinion. Liking cold weather has not much to do with being tethered year round by chain in all weather conditions. Thousands of years…check your facts.

These dogs possess the exact same DNA as domestic dogs and should be treated as such. Some with blood lines that can be traced back s of years. They were introduced first by the Inuit and Eskimo people of old who bred and trained there animals as work dogs.

During the winter months mine would rather be outside than in. I am a dog lover who in the past has made few distinctions between our two ladies and my own children. But one cannot deny these dogs dna. They were born to do what many of them are doing. They live for it. Still I have never seen any other breeds more loyal and loving of there pack. They should be treated with the same. I was horrified by this information on the cruelty behind dog sledding, but I read it with a growing fear that is gripping all of us who value free speech and free press—that soon in America we may not be able to fight ag gag and other laws that seek to threaten those who produce and follow documentaries and blogs like these.

The same people who commit and support such cruelty as reported here will be as ruthless in cutting out our tongues and gouging out our eyes so we cannot bear witness to any savage lack of compassion. Paula Kislak is totally correct that dogs are pushed to their limit in the Iditarod and Yukon Quest. He portrays the Iditarod as an event in which dogs get good veterinary care. In some cases, dogs who have been at checkpoints for hours have died soon after leaving.

Iditarod veterinarians allow sick and injured dogs to race. This type of broken toenail is extremely painful. But veterinarians allowed Mackey to continue to race him. Imagine the agony the dog was forced to endure. Strenuous exercise can cause lung damage, pneumonia and even death. To make matters worse, kennel cough is a highly contagious disease that normally lasts from 10 to 21 days. Nelson claimed that 30 percent of the dogs are dropped at checkpoints. In fact in several other countries around the world.

What happened on a science fiction series such as the Planet of the Apes may as well happento humans. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth! How you feel about her original website calling for a boycott of all commercial dog sledding operations and listing all North American operations. I cannot deny there aecthose that need to be dealt with in the industry as there are in all industries.

Like everything every where there are good people and bad people. As far as being pushed to limits of dogs—that is not all bad either. Wherever other animals are being used by people to attain some particular goal for themselves in this case, prizes, money, and some form of ego gratification , we will always find abuse of those animals. Thank you for writing about this excellent documentary!

This is a must-see film for anyone who cares about dogs. Along with Iditarod rookie Beall rejecting the advice of the veterinarian to drop his dog who was licking away bloody diarrhea , I cannot get out of my mind the fact that the dogs did not have any reaction to touch, as they normally do.

They were clearly tired and sore, and they still had to continue racing. They are treated as slaves at the ready to perform. The Iditarod as well as the Yukon Quest should end. Five dogs died this year. Four of the dogs due to the race, bringing the known total deaths to This averages about 3 dogs per year. It is morally unjustifiable to have an entertainment activity that is expected to kill dogs. Since it is logical to assume this trend will continue, one can only conclude that the organizers, mushers, and spectators care more about the entertainment, and are willing to look the other way when dogs are likely to die in every race — or they would stop doing it.

People should boycott these cruel, unnecessary races, and the sponsors should pull their sponsorship. Methinks the mushers have some unmet need to control others and excel at something. They are pathetic excuses for my species. I have 24 babies at home who yes, live on tethers.

The love we share with them and the bond on the trail.. They love to pull! They love to run! Just pull out a harness and everyone go nuts! We feed them the highest quality food, better food then you probably EVER purchased for your dog. So about 3 to maybe a gallon a day. You make NO profit from racing, even with winning in 1st. Go to a kennel, experience it first hand before making these assumptions.

What deterred me from this dream were the cruelties and brutalities that I witnessed in our sport, not only at top competition kennels — people who are supposed to be industry leaders — but also at smaller touring and recreation kennels.

They are working dogs with a higher drive and purpose, yes, but they are no less sentient nor deserving of human kindness and family inclusion. However, it does require more time and commitment on behalf of the musher to accommodate dogs in this way. All it does it allow a musher to more easily warehouse a larger number of dogs to field a larger competitive team.

Numerous states, municipalities, and provinces are outlawing the practice altogether. If mushers wish to ensure the survival of our sport, it is time to abandon old and outdated methods of husbandry that are detrimental to the dogs.

If you love your dogs, as you claim, bring them into your home and throw the chains away! If you have too many dogs to do this, then that is a signal to you that you have too many to properly care for and need to rehome some. As for the part about making money — plenty of the kennels that practice mass chain warehousing and factory farming as shown in the documentary, which I imagine you have not seen are FOR-PROFIT tourism kennels.

All they do is make money off the dogs. Other kennels — such as the Seavey kennel shown in the documentary — not only make money giving tours, but from racing as well. Race purses are publicized on all the websites and by ISDRA — pretending there is no money to be made in dog mushing does nothing but make you look foolish and like you have something to hide.

Otherwise, it will cease to exist, driven into the ground by the very mushers who claimed to love it so. I get what you are saying about these dogs loving to pull. Yes, they are working dogs and they need jobs. I worked in animal medicine for 15 years and saw pet huskies and malamutes that were overly hyper and aggressive because they had too much pent up energy and were never excercised.

But to tether them outdoors all day until you are ready to sled them is not acceptable either. And I can imagine if you have 24 dogs they are never sleeping in the warmth of your home! Most people love their dogs and would never try to hurt them. I have worked and competed in this sport for years, in all aspects.

I am not stretching the truth when I say I have more and varied experience than anyone in the sport. I am reading some crap from both sides in these comments. Find the middle ground and look for solutions, not blame. I can find extreme fault in house dog situations as well as in working dog kennels. Pointing fingers and abusive rhetoric will only accomplish opposition. The Iditarod race forces dogs to run a thousand miles in bitterly cold temperatures.

The filmmaker decided to exclude this information from the film. In still another case, an HIV-positive mother addicted to drugs asked filmmakers not to reveal where she lives. The felt power differential also led them to protect their subjects when they believed they were vulnerable—not, however, at the expense of preserving their own artistic options. Most kept filming and postponed the decision of whether or not to use the footage. For a film involving high school students, filmmaker Stanley Nelson asked which students smoked marijuana.

We felt it was better not to use that scene. They were minors, and might have problems with their families or with the law. We consulted with [an] immigration attorney. This protective attitude was dropped when filmmakers found an act ethically repugnant, often seeing their job as exposing malfeasance. In one extreme case, for instance, the filmmaker did not protect a subject who implied that he had committed a murder.

Filmmakers also try to prevent material featuring their subjects from being reused by other filmmakers in ways that might misrepresent them in new contexts. Twenty years later some people making a film about abortion wanted to use some of our footage to set the historical context of the times. However, filmmakers balanced this concern with the need to resell their footage to make a living and considered appropriate decision making part of maintaining their professional reputations.

Who is it and how they are using it is also important, because as a small independent [filmmaker] you are personally accountable. The awareness of a power differential also leads filmmakers sometimes to volunteer to share decision-making power with some subjects.

Notably, this attitude does not extend to celebrities, whom filmmakers found to be aggressive and powerful in controlling their image. Most subjects signed releases allowing the makers complete editorial control and ownership of the footage for every use early on during the production process. The terms of these releases are usually dictated by insurers, whose insurance is required for most television airing and theatrical distribution.

Perhaps because the terms of these releases were not their own, filmmakers often provided more leeway to their subjects than the strict terms provided in them. Filmmakers often felt that subjects had a right to change their minds although the filmmakers found this deeply unpleasant or to see the material involving them or even the whole film in advance of public screenings. The informal basis upon which they operated also reflects the ambivalence they have about ceding control and their wish to preserve their own creative interests.

The ongoing effort to strike a balance, and the negotiated nature of the relationship, was registered by Gordon Quinn:. Our code of ethics is very different. We will show the film before it is finished.

I want you to sign the release, but we will really listen to you. But ultimately it has to be our decision. Some also believed that seeing material in advance helped make their subjects more comfortable with the exposure they would encounter, thus avoiding problems in the future.

We discussed it with her, and then she felt comfortable. We showed her the piece first. Then she was OK. In one case, a subject who had signed a release asked Stanley Nelson not to use an interview. The interview was important for the film, Nelson said, and he believed the request was motivated by desire to control the film. I felt that my obligation was fulfilled. Some filmmakers, however, did give subjects the right to decide whether or not their material should be included in the film.

We make the films we make because of these relationships we build. In some cases filmmakers wanted to share the responsibility and often showed a concern to maintain good relationships.

One filmmaker recalled omitting a section on request. I was making a film about someone who was not loved. I wanted to learn more about why she did the awful things.

I changed it. They were much happier, I was much happier, and the film was better because of it. Another recalled a prolonged negotiation. When the filmmaker showed a scene of a handcuffed minor in juvenile hall—a crucial and pivotal scene—to the family, in spite of having releases, the mother objected. At the end of the day, it became a mother-son deal and they worked it out.

The decision to share material in advance with subjects was, typically, an informal decision. A substantial minority of filmmakers argued that they would never allow a subject to see the film until it was finished. Their common reasoning was that doing so in any one case would set a precedent, delegitimize the film, and jeopardize the independent vision of the film.

Another filmmaker said that while she would not show subjects the current work, she would show previous films she had made, as a way of gaining their trust. Filmmakers who thought of themselves as journalists resisted even the idea of payment. In journalistic practice, payment is usually forbidden for fear of tainting the information garnered. Jon Else said:. For years I never paid anyone for an interview. There is a huge danger that paying for talk will undermine the honesty of the talk, and that it will poison the river for the next filmmaker.

Would you believe an interview with Dick Cheney if you knew he was paid a hefty honorarium? Many filmmakers believed that payment was not only acceptable but a reasonable way to address the power differential, even though payment often sufficed only to cover costs of participation.

What is the difference? Here this guy worked for five days and they get no glory, they go back to their regular jobs. But this is an excuse to keep the budget down. At the same time, filmmakers sought to assess situations informally on a case-by-case basis.

It was awkward for them but I did not want to set a precedent. Occasionally filmmakers even shared film profits with the subjects, although not as a contractual matter from the start.

After Hoop Dreams became wildly successful, noted Gordon Quinn, Kartemquin Films shared profits based on screen time with everyone who had a speaking role in the film. Not everyone who paid did so in recognition of social inequality. One filmmaker sometimes paid because it was the easiest way to get the work done. Some filmmakers acknowledged that they occasionally would resort to bad faith and outright deception, both with subjects and with gatekeepers who kept them from subjects.

In both situations, they used deception to keep someone with the power to stop the project from doing so, and they regarded it as entirely ethical because of an ends-justifies-the-means argument. Hopefully you do it in a way that ultimately, with the finished product that I had a clear conscience. I may get in by a sneaky way but hold up standards in the final product. I had to do it. They had fewer qualms about lying to public officials or to representatives of institutions than about lying to subjects.

Filmmakers also asserted a primary relationship to viewers, which they phrased as a professional one: an ethical obligation to deliver accurate and honestly told stories. This relationship was, however, much more abstract than the one with their subjects. This second relationship became primary in the postfilming part of the production process. Filmmakers expected to shift allegiances from subject to viewer in the course of the film, in order to complete the project. Although the result was unintentional, he also felt no remorse.

That was really helpful to me. Filmmakers accepted significant manipulation of the situation in filming without regarding it as a betrayal of viewer expectations.

His promotion of the term has been criticized, by scholar Brian Winston, among others, for allowing ethical choices to go unexamined. For Grierson, who incessantly strategized to garner government resources for documentary film, the phrase had strategic advantages.

It appears to justify the overall goal of communicating the important themes, processes, or messages within the required entertaining narrative frame, while still permitting the necessary distortions to fit within that frame and the flexibility to deal with production exigencies. Following were situations that called forth filmmaker concern about ethical relationships with the audience.

Filmmakers were acutely aware of the implications of telling a story one way rather than another. She pushed for inclusion.

We are a respected educational program provider, [and] we would have looked bad, disgraced by it. Filmmakers expected to get to truth via the vehicle of a story and held themselves responsible for its implications.

Narrative structure sometimes mandates manipulation, which they often but not always found uncomfortable. We want to build him up as a hero and show the fall.

The process of film editing—collapsing actual time into screen time while shaping a film story—involves choices that filmmakers often consider in ethical terms. Steven Ascher said:. You could argue that cutaways in a scene filmed with one camera are a distortion—you cut from a person talking to a reaction shot, condensing or reshuffling dialogue before you cut back to the person.

But those kinds of distortions are often necessary to tell the story or to compress ideas that would otherwise take too long. Especially on a historical documentary, I keep to the facts. But if you want to really explore it, you have to shape and bend. It depends on the project. For instance, filmmakers also regularly used re-creations re-staging of events that have already occurred, whether in the recent or distant past , although they widely believed that it was important that audiences be made aware somehow that the footage is recreated.

You have to be In general, documentary filmmakers tended to volunteer few comments about audio elements. Treatment of archival materials especially still and motion photographic materials was widely recognized as a site of ethical challenges, but there was a wide range of responses. Filmmakers repeatedly referenced problems with using historical materials, which document specific people, places, and times, as generic references or in service to a particular and perhaps unrelated point.

Some filmmakers were adamant that only precisely accurate images should be used. One filmmaker said that she tries to be as authentic as possible, down to the year and the place. Someone else will be culling footage from your film. The film becomes a historical document. So to use archival footage. And you want to be honorable. Jon Else noted that he once changed a shot that appeared on a TV set in Sing Faster because it involved a Major League Baseball game, and he had determined that he could not license the footage.

I feel like I approached the subject differently. One struggles enough in making a good film. Ken Burns recalled having to decide between two photographs to illustrate the point that Huey Long was often surrounded by bodyguards.

One featured his typical bodyguards, in street clothes. Another featured uniformed guards—a one-time, exceptional moment. After discussion with his team and with professional historians, he decided for the atypical shot, because it communicated his point that Long used bodyguards more rapidly.

But did I? The reason we still talk about [this] is because it was a perfect ethical conundrum. It spoke to the possibilities as well. It made the film better. It did not compromise an ultimate truth. This report reveals profound ethical conflicts informing the daily work of documentarians.

The ethical conflicts they face loom large precisely because nonfiction filmmakers believe that they carry large responsibilities. They portray themselves as storytellers who tell important truths in a world where the truths they want to tell are often ignored or hidden.

They believe that they come into a situation where their subjects, whether people or animals, are relatively powerless and they—as media makers—hold some power. They believe that their viewers are dependent on their ethical choices.