A home for retired sled dogs

Located deep in the woods of Ely, Minnesota lies a special kind of dog kennel, one made specifically for sled dogs.
“We have around 90 dogs here. They are age ranges in the mid to upper ages. This is an old folk’s home and so a lot of them will come here when they’re getting retired from racing,” said owner of Chilly Dogs, Jake Hway.
In 2025, Chilly Dogs celebrates its 20th anniversary, but Hway fell in love with dogsledding at a young age, soon enjoying not only racing, but the dogs themselves.
“It just sort of happened. I didn’t really, no one planned it, I think the dogs did, I mean for the ones who planned it and so I just sort of, we fell into that niche of doing, working with those older dogs and it really worked well for our program and we kind of developed a program around that and everything we do here is based around what’s best for the dogs and working with those older dogs ended up being what was best for everyone,” said Hway.
With so many residents at Chilly Dogs, each has their own stories to tell, many, champions of races including the Beargrease and Iditarod.
Now, after their early years of racing, each dog has a chance to live the rest of their lives with Hway and his family - dogsledding on a different level.
“They used to be racing mid to long distance races and they did that for the first half of their life for more and then they come here and hang out with us doing what we do here which we do shorter runs and do like half day trips,” said Hway.
Each dog spends the beginning of their lives training for dogsled races, and Chilly Dogs gives them a chance to continue doing what they love even when their racing days come to a close.
“They live here the rest of their life and so sometimes we’re getting dogs into the teens, mid-teens, sometimes upper teens and they live this lifestyle their whole life and have a blast doing it and it’s because they’re living their life and living their culture and their lifestyle that they’re living as long as they do,”