Is husky sledding ethical? The law, the research and what you can check

What the law actually says

Norway’s Animal Welfare Act, Act No. 97 of 2009, is not decorative. Section 3 states that animals have intrinsic value irrespective of their usable value to humans, and shall be treated well and protected from unnecessary stress and strain. That phrasing does real work: it means a dog is not merely equipment that has to keep functioning.

Section 23 requires an environment that gives good welfare, including stimulating activity, movement and rest, plus suitable shelter. Section 24 requires supervision, care, adequate feed and water, and protection from injury and disease. Section 6 says a guardian may not let children under 16 take independent responsibility for animals.

Section 26 is the one that bites on sledding. Animals used in training and competition must be capable of the activity without becoming exhausted or injured, and must not be intentionally subjected to fear, injury or unnecessary strain. A tourist team pulling two adults at roughly 10 km/h for under an hour is a long way from that line. A dog run past its condition is not.

What the regulator asks of a kennel

Mattilsynet, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority, publishes guidance on outdoor kennels. A 12 m² kennel normally covers one dog’s space needs; more dogs need more space so that all of them can move at once. A maximum of four adult dogs may share a kennel without supervision. Groups have to be composed so that fighting, fear and stress are avoided, and a nursing mother needs a kennel of her own.

Note what that is and is not. It is guidance backed by an inspectorate with powers. It is not an audited accreditation that a kennel displays on its website. I want to be blunt about this, because the phrase “certified husky kennel” turns up in marketing and means nothing here: there is no Troms-specific or Norwegian mandatory certification scheme for husky kennels or sledding operators. What exists is the Act, Mattilsynet guidance and inspections, and voluntary destination labels — Tromsø holds Innovation Norway’s national Sustainable Destination label, first awarded in 2019 and renewed in October 2023, and Visit Tromsø-Region is Eco-Lighthouse certified. Neither of those is an animal welfare audit of any individual kennel.

What Norway’s own scientists found

In March 2017 the Norwegian Scientific Committee for Food Safety published a risk assessment on sled dog welfare, Report 2017:8, commissioned by Mattilsynet the previous March. Its findings are not a clean bill of health, and I am not going to summarise them as one.

The committee found a high risk of gastrointestinal problems, lameness and insufficient rest in long-distance racing dogs. It found that year-round outdoor housing and marathon racing can be burdensome for the animals. It also noted that mixed performance types such as the Alaskan husky can lack the coat insulation of true polar breeds, which is worth holding in mind the next time someone tells you these dogs are built for anything. And it said plainly that the scientific literature in this area is limited, which cuts both ways: the evidence base for reassurance is thin as well.

Two things are worth separating. The report’s sharpest findings concern long-distance racing, not a 45-minute tourist run with five to seven dogs on a groomed trail. Many kennels selling tours also race, or breed and train for racing, so the findings are not irrelevant to a tour kennel either. VKM’s own risk-reduction recommendations were insulated kennels with clean dry bedding and weather protection, daily socialisation and stimulation, hygiene, frequent oversight, adequate space and stable social groups. Mattilsynet used the report as the basis for a national inspection campaign on outdoor kennels and dog races in 2018.

Whistler, 2010 — and why it happened in Canada

The fear almost everyone arrives with traces back to one event. On 21 and 23 April 2010, after a post-Olympics collapse in bookings, sled dogs were killed at a company in Whistler, British Columbia. A veterinarian had refused to euthanise healthy animals. Fifty-six dogs were recovered during the later excavation. It only came to light because the employee who did the killing filed a workplace claim for post-traumatic stress.

What followed: British Columbia amended its animal cruelty laws on 11 May 2011, required annual inspections of sled dog companies operating on Crown land from October 2011, and on 22 November 2012 the employee was sentenced to three years’ probation.

This happened in Canada. It did not happen in Norway, and there is no Norwegian equivalent that I know of or that anyone has documented. I am not raising it to reassure you by geography. I am raising it because the story circulates without its country attached, and because the conditions behind it — a business downturn meeting a yard full of dogs that still had to be fed — are structural rather than Canadian. Best-practice guidance holds that euthanasia should only be performed by a licensed vet, for incurable disease or severe unrelenting pain, and never for financial reasons, lack of space or poor performance. That is the standard to judge any kennel against, anywhere.

What you can check on the day

You get perhaps four hours at a kennel and you are not an inspector. You can still see more than you think, and asking is not rude — every handler I know would rather answer than be quietly judged.

• The dogs themselves. Energetic, interested in their surroundings, approaching people without fear. Dogs that shrink from a hand or ignore everything are telling you something.
• Water. Plentiful, clean, in clean buckets. Snow is not adequate hydration for a working dog and a kennel that offers it instead has made a choice.
• Bedding and shelter. Clean, dry, with real weather protection. This is the first thing VKM listed under risk reduction.
• Housing. Group or free-run pens rather than every dog on a permanent chain. Research shows group housing reduces repetitive behaviour such as fast pacing compared with tethering, and permanent tethering is condemned by the USDA, the CVMA, the BCSPCA and the MSPCA.
• Veterinary care. Ask how often a vet sees the team. At least one annual check is the floor, not the ceiling.
• The answer you get. Ask what happens to a dog that can no longer run. A kennel with a good answer gives it immediately.

What I cannot verify from outside

Plenty. I cannot tell you what any given kennel does with a dog that stops performing. I cannot tell you their breeding numbers, their culling policy if they have one, or what the yard looks like in October when no guests are there. I cannot tell you whether the team you drive has run three tours already that day. Inspection outcomes for individual kennels are not something I can hand you. Anyone writing a page like this one is working from the same outside position, and a site that reassures you anyway is selling you something.

What I will say from eight winters of it: the dogs in these yards are noisy, pushy and extremely keen to be harnessed, and a dog that does not want to run is straightforward to spot because it simply does not pull. That is an observation, not proof of anything systemic.

The no-sledding option

The puppy-training day takes around 200 Alaskan huskies’ worth of kennel and lets you work with the young dogs, including a one to one-and-a-half hour hike with exercises matched to their age. No sled, no weight limit, no minimum age beyond adult supervision. Feeding the dogs is not allowed, which is a welfare rule rather than a fussy one.

If you want the background on what these animals actually are — and why “Alaskan husky” is not a breed — read the dogs. For what the working day looks like from the guest side, see what to expect.

Frequently asked questions