Who is togo the dog and where is he now

Clearly, there was something to be said for these smaller, yet scrappy, Siberians as stellar sled dogs. As a puppy, Togo suffered from health problems, and Seppala saw no use for the undersized, seemingly unfit dog. However, after being given away to a neighbor, Togo flung himself through a glass window and escaped back home. It seemed to Seppala that he was stuck with the incorrigible pup. As Togo grew, he became captivated by the working sled dogs surrounding him.

His penchant for mischief led to a mauling when he ran up on a team of much larger Malamutes. Exasperated, Seppala decided to do what he did best with his dogs. He put a harness on the 8-month-old Togo and hooked him into the team. Togo ultimately ran 75 miles that day and worked his way up to lead on his first-ever time in a harness.

Unwittingly, Seppala had found himself the perfect lead dog for which he had always yearned. During this time, Seppala himself won the All-Alaska Sweepstakes in , , and By the time the diphtheria outbreak struck in , Togo was 12 years old and Seppala 47, both seemingly past their primes.

However, with the fate of Nome in the balance, locals knew the aging yet experienced duo was their last, best hope. As deaths from the disease mounted, the decision to act was made. A multi-team dog sled relay was arranged to deliver , units of serum, already en route to Nenana by rail, the remaining miles to Nome. On January 29th, Seppala and his 20 best Siberians set out from Nome with trusty Togo at the helm, to meet the westbound relay and retrieve the vital serum. Among those not selected by Seppala was Balto, whom the musher felt was yet unprepared to lead a team.

With temperatures hovering around degrees, Seppala and his dogs made incredible time in their mad dash east, covering over miles in just three days. All the while, the outbreak worsened back in Nome. Officials decided to add more teams to the relay, unbeknownst to Seppala. The two teams nearly missed each other on the trail, but, thanks in part to the dogs, the connection was made.

Seppala became interested in dog sledding during his first winter in Alaska when he became a sled dog driver for Lindeberg's company. In , he competed in the All Alaska Sweepstakes, a sled dog race. His career took off when he won the Sweepstakes the following year, beating experienced musher Scotty Allan by two hours. The victory is depicted as a flashback in the movie. Seppala also won the All Alaska Sweepstakes in and , before the race was canceled until In the winter of , a diphtheria epidemic was threatening the town of Nome, located on the southern Seward Peninsula on the northwestern coast of Alaska.

After four children took ill and died, the town's only doctor, Curtis Welch, eventually diagnosed diphtheria in three-year-old Billy Barnett, who died just two weeks after the onset of symptoms. The next day a seven-year-old girl was diagnosed and Welch tried to give her expired antitoxin all that was on hand in hopes that it would work, but she died several hours later. Welch had ordered more diphtheria antitoxin from the health commissioner in Juneau, but the port closed for the winter before the shipment arrived.

Desperate, he sent radiotelegrams to the other major towns in Alaska and one to the U. Public Health Service in Washington, D. His telegram is pictured below. Even with a quarantine in place, more than 20 people had been diagnosed with diphtheria and many more were at risk. The small amount of diphtheria antitoxin 8, units Welch had on hand had expired and had become ineffective.

Without a fresh batch of antitoxin, it was estimated that the disease would claim the area's entire population of approximately 10, souls. The exterior of Maynard Columbus Hospital in Nome between and top and in the movie bottom. The real-life hospital was a bit bigger than the hospital seen in the Disney film. Photo: University of Washington. Flying was relatively new at the time and winter flight was still largely untested. It was only in the previous February that the first airmail flight in Alaska took place.

Nome is clear across the state from Fairbanks, a flight distance of approximately miles. The only planes they had were water-cooled aircraft from World War I, which didn't perform well in cold weather.

Temperatures across the Interior were at year lows. The polar night also meant that there were limited hours of daylight to fly. Diphtheria is a bacterial infection caused by exposure to the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae, often by way of direct contact or through droplets in the air sneezing or coughing.

Symptoms usually begin two to five days after exposure and include a fever, sore throat and weakness. Diphtheria can attack healthy tissues in the respiratory system.

Dead tissue then builds up in the throat or nose, forming a thick, gray coating dubbed a "pseudomembrane". This membrane visible below over a patient's tonsils covers healthy tissues in the throat, nose, tonsils and voice box, causing a croup-like cough, as well as severe difficulty breathing and swallowing. This can lead to death from asphyxiation.

In advanced cases, diphtheria can also cause the neck to swell, in part due to swollen lymph nodes, resulting in a condition nicknamed "bull neck" visible below. Left: A membrane of dead tissue covers a diphtheria patient's tonsils.

Right: A swollen neck also referred to as bull neck is visible in a child with severe diphtheria. Diphtheria can affect other organs if the toxin spreads through the blood. This can result in deadly complications of the heart, kidneys and nervous system.

In researching the Togo true story, we learned that in real life Leonhard and his wife Constance had a daughter named Sigrid, who was eight years old at the time of the Serum Run to Nome. The dangers were considerable. A day-saving shortcut across the frozen sound was the most hazardous section of the trip, beset with high winds and unstable ice floes that were razor-sharp underfoot.

But even this was a tall order: Togo by this point was 12 years old. Seppala set off on January 27 th. Additional mushers and teams were added to relieve the strain and speed up the transit of the vital medication — ampules, wrapped in fur padding, and sealed in a metal container — as the Nome outbreak worsened.

The relay from Nenana progressed faster than expected. By chance Seppala intercepted the serum from a musher named Henry Ivanoff outside Shahtoolik — and turned back for Nome in worsening conditions. Temperatures were in the region of C, with wind-chill a murderous C. Due to total exhaustion of both he and his dogs, Seppala was forced to stop at Golovin — with 78 miles left to go to Nome.

Since leaving the disease-stricken town, by this point his team had by that point covered a total of miles — including two crossings of Norton Sound on sketchy ice. A musher named Charlie Olsen then ferried the antitoxin to within around 50 miles of Nome, where Gunner Kaasen was waiting with a team of 13 dogs — led by Balto. The resulting fame of Balto, along with musher Kaasen was an unfortunate, though unwitting, outcome.

The mile transit of the antitoxin took five and a half days — a world record, and one watched by a public on tenterhooks.

This was emphasised by the recent adoption of the radio by middle America, all of which made the story of the serum run a dipatch-by-distance phenomenon. In Nome, as few as five or as many as seven died — though numbers of Native Alaskans outside the town were not recorded, and probably numbered far higher. Nonetheless, it was clear a far greater toll had been miraculously and slenderly avoided.

The story became a sensation — and so did its heroes. Balto was the dog that led the final leg to Nome and allowed Kaasen to actually deliver the antitoxin, on February 2. A simple look at the mileage would have put any misplaced credit into context: Balto and Fox, with Kaasen, covered either 50, 53 or 55 miles — sources vary — whereas Seppala, with Togo, carried the serum for 91 miles over much more technical and hazardous ground. In total, door-to-door Togo ran miles; Balto, just over Gunnar Kaasen with Balto, the lead dog for the final mile transit of the diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, in As the final couriers who delivered the serum, both became celebrities — with Balto inspiring a statue, a number of books, a dramatised documentary and an animated film below.

Theirs were the images that graced the front pages of the newspapers , and their names that passed into legend — somewhat eclipsing not only Togo and Seppela, but the 18 other people and some dogs who played a part on the relay, and some dogs.

At one point his sled flipped — necessitating a bare-hands search in the snow for the antitoxin package, for which Kaasen suffered frostbite. With no mention of Togo at all, the rest of the brief report was dedicated to the supposed whereabouts of Balto. The latter had recently taken a cruel turn. Following the serum run, in addition to his Central Park statue , amongst much else Balto was presented with the key shaped like a bone to the city of Los Angeles, starred in a film, and toured the lower US states to an adoring public.

Here he endured poor treatment until a fundraising effort secured care for the dog at Cleveland Zoo , where he lived out the remainder of his life. While diminutive, the statue of Togo in Seward Park, New York, gives the dog a presence in the same city that is home to the much grander statue of Balto. Given Balto's name has enjoyed fame, books, statues and an animated feature film — in which the dog was voiced by Kevin Bacon — Alaskan historian David Reamer is pleased to see the new film go some way to set the record straight.

The serum run also inspired the most celebrated dog sled race in the world, the Iditarod — which covers a similar route between Nome and Nenana, before continuing south to Anchorage. See vintage photos of sled dogs. In addition, the run itself had another legacy — one that undoubtedly saved many thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of lives in the ensuing generation.