Approximately a paw for every mile of the 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometre) Yukon Quest trail was examined over the weekend at the Quest's vet check in Whitehorse.

Four vets were on hand throughout Saturday and Sunday behind the Yukon Inn. They pored over 17 dog teams set to compete in the Yukon Quest sled dog race, which will start in Fairbanks on Feb. 14.

About 10 volunteers assisted with the vet check.

'There's quite a variety,' Rick Brown, a volunteer vet, said in an interview Saturday afternoon, of the size of the dogs coming in.

Each animal was weighed , with the average being approximately 50 lbs., he noted. Mushers brought in dogs that varied from approximately 40 lbs. to 80 lbs. throughout the two days.

'Generally speaking, it's a smaller dog who finishes these kind of races,' Brown said.

Each of the dogs received a full examination and was microchipped for identification where needed.

This marked Brown's first vet check for the Yukon Quest after doing past work for the Percy DeWolfe sled dog race in Dawson.

Brown and the other veterinarians looked at the dogs' bones, joints, teeth and eyes. They weighed them and took each dog's temperature to ensure the dog was in good enough condition to start and finish the race. They also look at injuries.

Many mushers used the vet check as an opportunity to bounce ideas off vets about caring for injuries and problems they might experience on the trail. Others were looking for past Quest records from vet checks.

Quest veteran Kyla Boivin asked for the weights recorded on her dogs at last year's vet check. Much of her 2004 team is comprised of the 2003 team that took her to the finish line in Fairbanks.

The race alternates its start and finish line each year from Whitehorse to Fairbanks.

The vet check gave another veteran a chance to see exactly how much larger dogs on his 2004 team will be compared to those in past years. Thomas Tetz will be racing Deborah Bicknell's team this year.

One of Bicknell's dogs is 31 lbs. larger than one of Tetz's dogs from the 2003 race. Bicknell's dog weighed in at 73 lbs. compared to Tetz's 42 lb.-dog which ran last year's race.

The 13 local mushers signed up for the Quest were joined by Crispin Studer of Erlach, Switzerland, Emil Inauen of Davos, Switzerland, Marcel Marin of Yellowknife and Tom Benson of Minneapolis, Minn. in getting their dogs examined at the Whitehorse vet check.

The Fairbanks vet check is scheduled for next weekend.

Although 14 dogs per team is the limit for the Quest, a number of mushers brought more for the examination.

Quest rookie Agata Franczak, of Dawson City, said she brought 18 dogs to the vet check just in case something happens to her team when she's running dogs over the next two weeks.

'Something could happen tomorrow and I don't know,' she said. 'It is why I brought 18.'