If you’re feeling bored or even in the dumps, Denali National Park has a solution for you.
On Friday, the park launched its annual live puppy cam, which can be viewed on the park’s website 24/7.
This year, viewers can watch five puppies wrestle, play with toys and eat in the kennel they share with their mom, Merlyn.
Why does Denali National Park have a puppy cam?
Sled dogs have been a part of Denali National Park for more than 100 years. Rangers use the dogs to patrol the park during the winter, and mushing has existed in Alaska for thousands of years, according to the park.
Each year, Denali National Park retires its 9-year-old sled dogs, who then carry out the rest of their lives in a private home with a new family.
To replace the retiring dogs, the park raises a litter of puppies each year, which consists of one to six pups.
The puppies in the litter are named based on the theme for that year.
Previous themes include “Denali 100″ for the park’s centennial and “Alaska Youth,” which consisted of names submitted by Alaskan school kids.
Photos of the puppies from the 2017-2023 litters — now all grown up — can be viewed on the park’s website.
The 2025 Denali National Park puppies
This year’s litter of puppies were born on May 3 to Merlyn and were named using a weather theme in honor of last year’s 100-year anniversary of sled dogs helping mushing rangers collect weather data at the park.
The two female pups are named Squall and Storm, and the three males are Graupel, Dew and Fog.
The puppies’ mother, Merlyn, was born in 2021 as part of the litter that celebrated the search and rescue dogs from 9/11 in honor of its 20th anniversary.
The sled dog pups are bred “for qualities suitable for the challenges and responsibilities of a Denali sled dog,” according to the park. Some of those physical traits include long legs for traversing the snow, “sturdy coats” and “compact paws to resist build up of ice between toes.”
The kennel managers look to breed dogs with character traits such as “tenacity, an unbridled love to pull and run as part of a team, and social skills that tolerate attention of many thousands of admirers to visit the kennels each summer,” the park says.
Visitors to Denali National Park can stop at the kennels that house the dogs year-round.
During the fall and winter, the dogs are often training or patrolling the park and may not be at the kennels, per the park. But the dogs can likely be found at the kennels in the summer.
If you want to plan a visit to the kennels, more info can be found on the Denali National Park website.