Veteran Iditarod Musher Mille Porsild posted a tribute to a dog on her team, Charley, who died five days ago just before the Elim checkpoint during this year’s race.

Through the multi-paragraph Facebook post, which was filled with a message from the heart describing the four-year-old sled dog, Porsild described Charley’s life and what she was like. She also explained how losing Charley impacted her.

“It broke me,” she wrote online of Charley’s death, saying the “crushing shock was instantly suffocating.”

“Pain and grief sunk me into a black hole. The shame in the days since, overwhelming,” she said.

She said her race was over the moment Charley died.

“An integral part of us was lost that left us non-functioning,” she said.

Porsild said it was her decision to scratch in Elim.

“I was not forced to scratch, I did not scratch because of a rule. I appreciate that some think it unfair that we could not continue on to the finishline because of Iditarod rules… but please know, of that I was simply not capable,” she said.

She said Charley was “light” and a beautiful soul, calling her “wonderfully quirky.”

Charley’s “mind moved in its own ways with a most often very singular purpose. And yes, this made her an absolutely incredible sled dog. It also made for her being shy and uneasy with ‘new.’ But once you gained her trust, two – or four legged, she was a bestie,” Porsild wrote.

She described Charley as a “streak of lightning” in harness, saying she was “an elite athlete with a fierce focus.”

“Charley was nothing short of an extraordinary athlete soaring to the top of her game: tremendously strong, mentally and physically, with a massive athletic heart–simply a spirit, body and mind forged to run the trails,” she said.

In her post, Porsild detailed the moment Charley was lost, saying she had been running next to her bestie, Lion.

“I took notice of a tail visible high in the air, hers — then, suddenly, no more. As I brought the team to a screeching stop, she laid facing me. I tried to bring her back, screamed her name into the darkness. What happened in those horrible moments, what took Charley away from us I do not know,” she wrote.

The Iditarod Trail Committee said earlier this week that the gross necropsy did not find any obvious evidence to explain why Charley died. It said there will be further lab testing to support a thorough investigation, and every effort will be made to determine cause of death.

“No physical trauma, clear lungs, great body condition, no nothing, no answer,” Porsild wrote. “For you, me or for Virag her owner. Virag who loves her so very much, who had such dreams and hopes for her and them together.

“Every fiber of me wishes I could change it all,” she wrote.

“I wish people love and celebrate Charley for who she was. For her love and utter joy,” she wrote. “This, our time together, her spirit, is in my heart. Charley is part of me forever.”

Full tribute message

“Our beloved Charley passed away a few minutes before we reached the Elim checkpoint in the Iditarod sled dog race. It broke me.

But in harness she was a streak of lightning–an elite athlete with a fierce focus. She was a titan in a small frame. Her gigantic drive was bottled into a small stature, agile and nimble as can be. She was observant and intelligent, capable of and loving to run anywhere in the team.

Charley was nothing short of an extraordinary athlete soaring to the top of her game: tremendously strong, mentally and physically, with a massive athletic heart–simply a spirit, body and mind forged to run the trails.