Great Falls dentist Brett Bruggeman returns to town, looks ahead to next Iditarod

Great Falls dentist Brett Bruggeman returned home Monday after completing the famed Iditarod 10 pounds lighter and 1,000 times more determined to follow his racing dogs.

“Absolutely,” he said. “I can’t wait to get back, actually.”

Bruggeman was greeted at the Great Falls International Airport by his wife, Suzette, and a dozen or more supporters in celebration of his 39th-place showing late last week at the famed 1,000-mile sled dog race from Anchorage to Nome.

His stated pre-race goal was to finish the event, a difficult proposition at best for a rookie Iditarod musher barely five years into his sled-dog career. The weather did not help.

The ordeal certainly tested the former BYU football player, who owns Bruggeman Endodontics in Great Falls.

“It was more difficult (than he thought it would be), probably because of the storms,” Bruggeman said. “In talking to the veteran mushers that had been there before, they said it was probably one of the toughest Iditarods in the last 10 years. The first day we had nice weather. After that it was pretty much a constant blizzard.”

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He said the grueling event meant for just two or three hours sleep per night and he dozed a bit at times when the dogs were racing.

The worst moment?

“When my team got sick,” he said. “They got an intestinal bug. That’s tough on the dogs, when they don’t want to eat. They need to eat to keep the calories going to run like that. I knew it would be extra difficult to get to the finish line. So we changed our schedule and did a lot of hand-feeding for the dogs. It was a lot more time-consuming.

“I lost weight, the dogs lost weight. Everybody lost weight,” he grinned. “They’re doing great now.”

In fact, everyone is at Skinny Leg Sled Dogs, the kennel Bruggeman started near Great Falls a half-dozen years ago with his son, Spencer, whose football career was curtailed by a genetic birth defect that prevented muscle growth in one of his legs.

Spencer, a 17-year-old student at C.M. Russell High, was in Anchorage two weeks ago to see his father off. The family has three boys. Spencer is the youngest.

“It’s something they can all do together,” Suzette said. “And it taught my boys to work like men. (Sunday night) was the first time Spencer got to talk to his dad on the phone. As a mother, to watch him talk to his dad and his eyes glow while he talked to him … and see that excitement was just a treasure, so sweet. It was so precious.”

The dogs were flown from Nome back to Anchorage. They will be trucked home from there and should be back at their home kennel near Great Falls in five days or so.

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All 67 teams began the race with 16 dogs. A total of 15 teams dropped out along the way for various reasons. Bruggeman finished with 14 dogs, a fact of which he’s particularly proud.

“We got more across the (finish) line than any other musher this year,” he smiled. “That was good. Especially with them getting sick. There were a few people telling us we wouldn’t make it because of that. And we did.”

The two lead dogs, “Scabs” and “Browning,” performed especially well.

“They were amazing in the storms,” Bruggeman said. “We had some blizzards that shut a few other teams down, but they charged charge in and found the trail and we got through it.”

Suzette wrote a blog on her “Skinny Leg Sled Dog” Facebook page. It had 320 followers prior to the start of the Iditarod two weeks ago. Now there are more than 4,300 followers.

“People from all over the world have jumped on board and followed this story, with Spencer’s skinny leg and Brett being a dentist and doing this so quickly,” Suzette said. “It’s amazing to run the Iditarod just five years into the sport.”

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Bruggeman smiled when asked what mushing means to his family.

“I had no idea that this would be part of our lives, but it’s definitely brought us closer together,” Bruggeman said. “It’s made life pretty interesting.”

The Iditarod was controversial this year, because of a doping scandal that plagued past events and continued criticism from animal-rights activists. Bruggeman, though, is an unabashed advocate of the famed race.

He said the event does not involve mistreatment of dogs in any way.

“The bad publicity really comes from people who are misinformed,” Bruggeman said. “They say we don’t take care of the dogs, when in actuality, these dogs are better cared-for than most animals around. They truly are our best friends and our support. If you don’t take care of them they won’t take care of you.

“It’s really just misinformation. I really don’t know what you can do about that.”

Bruggeman has automatically qualified for the 2019 Iditarod next March.

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“I think next year we’re also looking forward to doing the Yukon Quest, the other 1,000-mile race,” he said of the February race. “We’ll see some different terrain.”

On Monday, he proudly displayed a belt buckle that all Iditarod finishers received. The slender former linebacker was easy to pick out in the airport crowd, for he still wore his official racing mukluks. His grizzled face and hardened features were softened by smiles that carried an unmistakable hint of satisfaction

“It was a little tougher,” he grinned, “than football practice.”

Suzette does an abundance of volunteer work in Great Falls and is very involved in the high school food pantry. She smiled easily and often while her husband greeted well-wishers.

“I’m incredibly proud,” Suzette said. “Brett the type of guy who’s super determined and driven. I knew he’d get to the end of that finish line. But when his dogs got sick I was really worried there were things beyond his control that would derail him and that really worried me. But he persevered through it.

“I’m just incredibly and honored that I can share this adventure with him.”

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