From four-legged to two-legged life...

After a long silence on the blog, I can now let you know that life has taken a change...for the better :-)

In the autumn of 2011 - our long-awaited son, Martin was born to us. Since that time, the two-legged "puppy" has taken full precedence over the furry four-legs... With a bad conscience, I lent all my not-so-well-trained dogs to a friend who wanted to experience life with sleddogs.  He has had a a very active time, training and racing them in a 160km race - this from dogs that only trained for sprint! I know that they are having a good life, and now that the second year of being away from home, I have slowly come to realise that they will have a much better life with someone whom has the time for them!

So - I am now looking for permanent homes for all our lovely four-legs. I hope that they can still be active even if they may not race at the highest levels anymore. We shall see :-)

IFSS World Championship!

So.... In a few words - the winter season 2010/2011 has been fantastic! After running in two qualifying sprint races with a line-up of Phoebe, Niklas, Sven and Burka - off we went to the IFSS World Championship! Conveniently this year, it was held here in Norway, at the Hamar Dogsledding Arena.  Actually, it was a Championship in three parts - first the Femundløpet was the first ever official Long Distance Wrld.Ch. event in IFSS history! Next out was the Middle Distance and Sprint events at Hamar - which is where we competed... (Third session was Nordic and Sprint here in Oslo at the Holmenkollen ski arena. The Hamar racing was a chance to test the dogs in the 4-dogs Siberian Husky class (lumped into the "Nordic Breed" category) - 8 km * 3 days!  I can sum it up by saying - YEAH! 7th place out of 13 teams - best Norwegian team :-) Despite having two new dogs (Niklas and Sven came in December), one dog that was almost dead 9 months earlier (Burka had an immune reaction that made her lose all her red blood cells) - Phoebe was the only "known" entity of the team.. Brothers Niklas and Sven are hard-driving - Niklas showing more confidence, but Sven with a seemingly endless supply of "go-juice"! Of course, Phoebe is screaming to go and certainly a natural leader, but I felt it best to have the girls and boys teamed up - what a team! Gooooooood dogs...
I am VERY happy with a 7th place in the World Championship in the very first race season....! Still need one more dog to make a good 4-dog team, since Burka is not so hard-driving or long-legged; she is an extremely competent MD dog - all her siblings ran on Tore Hunskår's World Championship MD team :-) She is treal hero on my race team, but unfortunately not be used in breeding... Not so, Phoebe! She will be bred to Niklas this summer if everything goes to plan - 0% inbreeding and combining two proven Sprint lines will be interesting.....! Now time to enjoy the spring and coming summer...

Racing season...

The autumn and early winter has already passed, and I thought to update you on the racing season!
Since the summer we have had a mixed bag of dogs - one sick, one old, one puppy, and one eager healthy, crazy dog. Racing has therefore natually been limited to, well....limited events?!  During the autumn I participated in a 2*3km race with one dog (Phoebe) and bike.  This was really fun, so when I had the opportunity, I joined a dryland race on the Drammen Horseracing Circuit (Travbane):

Phoebe ran against the Norwegian (and European) elite Nordic disclipline dogs - i.e. her competitors were 40kg Vorsteh dogs and the guys on the bikes were top trained (since they ski with the dog in winter)... We had a GREAT race and after 1.6km only came in 30 seconds behind!  Had I been in shape I am sure we would have done better....! Good dog!

Last weekend we went to the Hamar Dog Musher Festival ( Hundekjørefestival) where we entered the sprint four-dog Nordic Breed class - the distance should have been 8km but due to prepping of trails for the upcoming World Championship, the circuit was 6.7km... In front, Phoebe and Sven, wheel dogs were Burka and Niklas. It was a miracle that we started the race - 6 months ago, Burka was almost dead, and she has not recovered fully - she is still thin and in need of conditioning.... However, there is nothing wrong with her enthusiasm, and she has a tendency to "dance around" with eager anticipation - the result of which was less than good!  5 seconds before the start, she had managed to "jump out" of her too-large harness..! With full stress adrenaline and nervouseness I tried to fix it... When we got away 1min 45 s after my race had started, it was still not correct... Anyway - we run along and were caught halfway by next team run by a friend.  She passes us, and our speed picks up as we trail her at a distance - result? Total tangle of Burka's harness - I stop twice and anchor up to fix it before it is finally done.. Day 1 we were therefore last, even if the dogs ran very well! Technical problems - "that's racing"!  Day 2 went like dream in comparison - borrowed harness and no tangles - we passed two teams on the trails - the Greenland dogs, no problem, but the Siberians of a German musher behaved like "mini crocodiles"... Ah well - we made good time - all in all a very good weekend!  HAPPY TRAILS!

Expanded family...

Just a quick post to update you on the dog status;
Since one week back, we have welcomed two new members to our pack of dogs; Trahimus Niklas and Trahimus Sven - two really sweet brothers that we picked up in Sweden. Our friends Sandra and Adam from Huskylyan kennel, where we bought Phoebe, are cutting down on their dog-life... It was with a sad heart that they let their dogs go.... The dogs are purebred racers (sprint-distance) and we will make every effort to give them a good home :-)

Trahimus Niklas in his new home

Trahimus Sven in his former home (picture courtesy of Sandra Olofsson)

Living a dogs life - in the moment!?

Yes, yes - I KNOW I have not written anything in my blog for ages......! Weird how time sometimes just flies by when we are living in the moment? Since late summer, we have been living a life full of dogs....! Our "little puppy" Joey is growing, growing, growing - in the the video here, taken late in the summer, he had a visit from his brother Sapian - of boy, did they play!

With a quartet of sick dog, old dog, puppy dog, and a full-of-energy dog (Phoebe), out training in the autumn as been less-than-ideal! We have run the Dyck cart on the local streets, up to 8km... In November, my wife and I had a late, late "summer" holiday - safari in Tanzania...!  On our return, weather turned very cold and seemed stuck in the -10 - 20 deg C barefrost mode for ever...!

It is now snowing and we are looking forward to training with the sled...

Growing in confidence...

The half-week that Joey has been in the house have been just wonderful :-) He is such a likeable, cute "little boy" - running around with his tail up, investigating, chasing the cat..... He has been several times down in the run-around kennel with the other dogs, but always under our supervision; Phoebe loves to play and interacts well with him, Burka can sometimes growl at him to put him in his place, and old dude Luke patiently corrects him :-) Just now, Phoebe and Joey and the cat Nexus are all together here on the floor enjoying a good nap after the running around...

The two boys enjoying a moment with Priscila :-)

Adding to the team...

We have for a couple of days now had the pleaseure to welcome "little Joey" into our expanding dog-family! "Little" Joey is almost 9 weeks young....but has already weighed in at 7.5kg!!! Judging by the size of his paws, he is set to become a BIG Siberian Husky when he grows up! :-)
His parents are both lead dogs from a Norwegian racing kennel, so we have hope for his future as a sled dog.... He has already had a chance to run around with the other three adult dogs in the big kennel space, as well as try to play chase our cat Nexus... Of course, being a baby he still sprinkles our wood floors with an ample dose of "angle water" pee..... Love him to bits! :-)