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! :-)

Extending the living space....!

In the heat of summer, the dogs generally enjoy a bit of shade and tend to relax...

However, despite the heat and to the detriment of my lower back, but to the gainment of the dogs....the new run-around kennel space is hereby declared as OPEN! :-)  Yes, yes - I have slaved away for a while this summer, making holes, driving poles...

So - now the kids can run around a bit, sniff, pee, dig....dig, dig, dig....! They really seem to enjoy the added space and look forward to the opportunity to stretch their legs! Phoebe in particular is full of energy, running back and forth, around and around.... Burka is content to sniff around and run just a little, dig just a little....then sit in the shade... :-)  Luke, however...is the DIGGER! He has found some exciting smells it seems, that he really, really, REALLY needs to dig for....hehehe! Enjoy the rest of summer!

Summertime swimming...

Polar dogs are often shy of water.... I guess naturally so, since getting wet in the freezing arctic cold is the most effective way to end your life....!  However, Siberian Huskies are almost "waterproof", and if they have a chance to roll in dry powder snow, they can quickly dry themselves off.... In summer, "water sports" is a great way to exercise despite the hot weather.. Phoebe enjoys swimming around when we go on a quick canoe trip on our local lake. Ahhhh - summer....

Oh....hard summer life...

The past week has been HOT! Everyone - four-legged and two-legged  seem to seek the shade or other ways of cooling down....like spending time in and on the lake!!  Next door we have a beautiful lake and since Phoebe has always enjoyed swimming, we decided to buy her a swim-vest so that she can be more comfortable in the water...

She also enjoys sitting in the canoe and watching life float by...literally :-)

On the home front, our chubby boy Nexus has decided he needs to sweat off some of the kitten-fat.... ;-)
He has simply found a perfect spot to rest his chin.... In the safety of daylight and before he has his dinner, we let him out a couple of times per week so that he can run around on the lawn and explore the neighborhood.... It doesn't seem he goes very far, but he clearly enjoys his wider horizons :-)

On the mushing front, we are in R&R mode.  The dogs spending lazy days on the top of dog houses, and us humans enjoying the hot summer weather with a barbeque amongst friends!

Winter seems faaaaar away.....

Puppies....

As you may have noticed, there have been no further news about Phoebe and her planned mating to Vargteam's Zordo.... This is simply because nothing happened!  When she arrived at Ole Dag's kennel, she was probably not fully into her cycle yet, and arriving amongst a bunch of hormone-pumped rather domninant bitches probably made her shut down the cycle....!  Phoebe is a happy-go-lucky girl, but she is not very dominant (whatever we mean by that....another dicussion altogether).  After scouting around we cane across a couple of alternative litters, both of which seem to be excellent!  Ulf and Kari Hope at Snørokk Kennel have a beautiful bunch of puppies after two of their main dogs: http://snorokk.wordpress.com/.  On the other hand, Trond and Siv have a litter of puppies (http://www.sh-hundespann.com/tuvas_valper_2010.htm), from which Johanne will pick a male... She gave us a tip, that ONE male was left - we talked to them and went down in the car yesterday (they live 1 hour away).... Forgot the camera at home, but I have stolen Johanne Sundby's photo and show it here below..  After seeing the mother and father as well as the puppies crawling all over, we have decided to get a puppy from the litter....!  It will be fun to have a small one running around at home... It will be up to Uncle Nexus to teach him how to hunt birds.....or not!?  Nexus has made the progression into a (partly) outdoors cat - on Saturday he spent the entire day running around chasing birds without success... It is fun to watch him stalking, and it seems his instincts are strong.... :-)

A Midsummer Night's Dream....

Phoebe letting everyone know she is excited to run!

Wooooo wooooo wooooo!

We have just passed Midsummer.... Here in the Oslo-area the days are remarkably long... Even if we are not above the Arctic Circle it is *almost* Midnight Sun here:  Sunrise around 04:00 - sunset around 23:00..!Since Pagan prehistoric times, the longest (and shortest) day has always been associated with a ritual - in our times that equates to a party!  Last weekend we went to the cabin of a friend - 4 humans and 20 dogs in total! We all had a real blast - dogs running short and fast in front of bicycles and ATVs - stopping to wade in streams, drink and cool down... The two-legged group all went to a big local party on the Saturday - real hillbilly style in the forest - rock band, barbeque, wine and beer, laughter, friendship....fun!

The dogs are enoying the summer - loosing their wool, digging cooling earth pits - sleeping on the doghouse roof... We are very happy with our three Siberian Huskies - Phoebe is now a little more than two years young(!), Burka will be two in July, and Luke is heading towards 10 in November....Burka showing her mangy coat :-)

Luke enjoying his cooling earth pit...

Burka has shown herself to be a very eager, well-built girl.  She is rather careful and timid with strangers, but is very sweet and loving to her family.  Of course, when Phoebe shows too much enthusiasm (read: barks and makes a spectacle of herself), Burka needs to tell her to calm down....! Burka's half-brother and two half-sisters were also at the cabin this weekend.  Here is a photo of Juluss - named after the valley where the cabin is situated (Julussdalen).  He is extremly eager to run and rather noisy... His sister Nenana is proving to be a possible new leader for Johanne.... :-)

Dogs, and more dogs....

(Photo from Ole Dag Løvold)

Long time since the last update! We have been busy finishing an excellent winter season - more than 1 meter of sno on our doorstep!  Since we have a 3-dog team the pulling power is enough to enjoy sledding, which we can do just next door.  We took a long deserved holiday in Brazil at Easter time (see my wife's blog at http://naterradobacaiau.blogspot.com/) This long absence was followed by a business trip or two, ending with the total flight paralysis due to the Islandic volcano exploding.... I was of course stuck a few extra days in London...  You bet the dogs (and our cat) were sorely missed!!! Thanks to some of our very good friends, they had a pampered holiday!  With spring comes many natural changes - the birds return and start to sing, the leaves start to come out....and the doggy hormones start to flow! Phoebe has finally entered into her overdue period of "heat"...! And this means she will be bred to Vargteam't Zordo - we plan to keep at least two puppies so we can start to build up our small team :-) Phoebe is an intense, slightly overheated dog in the harness, prefering to gallop along like her Swedish-bred sprint parents.... Her dad ran on last year's winning dryland Siberian 4-dog team, and her mother comes from a long-established sprint line, Team Amarox. Zordo on the other hand is a well-shaped, cool and collected long distance lead-dog with all the genes and experience from Ole Dag Løvold's Vargteam kennel.  We are both looking forward to seeing the results of this cross....if it "takes"!

New member(s) of the pack :-)

The last few weeks have been fun!  When some of our friends went to India, we looked after three of their Siberian Huskies..... They integrated very well with Luke and Phoebe, and enabled us to enjoy the local trails with the sled :-) A 5-dog team of relatively eager dogs are strong enough to pull our sled with one of us inside as a passenger!  We even had a chance to please two families with three kids in total - giving them rides in turn and letting the older ones and adults stand on the runners...

In the past weekend, we went to the Norwegian Siberian Husky meeting where we participated in the informal "recruitment class" race - this was an easy 10km trail. We entered with 5 dogs in the 6-dog class and beat the only other competitor - a young girl running someone else's team of Alaska Huskies :-)

On the way home, we loaded up the car with another sweet girl - Burka. After returning the three dogs we borrowed, we now have Burka on loan to find out if she suits us and the others - so far, very good! She is a careful, super-sweet girl :-) She is of similar build and size to Phoebe, but more "calm and collected" so we hope they will form a dymaic/thinking duo of front-runners for our small team of dogs!

Dog massage!

Today we all went off to the first day of our Beginner Class in Dog Massage....! Two full days of initiation - arriving at the registration with our two furry Siberian Husky friends, we find ourselves together with a Bichon Frise, English Setter and an Aussie Cattledog! Really nice! Only minor problem was that Phoebe was so agitated and needing to run around and investigate.... She wouldn't calm down, let alone shut up! Oh well - we sent her back to the cage in the car and let good old Luke steal the show.... He just ADORES to be touched! Massage, massage, massage....belly up, ears back :-) Coming home, we went straight off to run with the Kickspark on the lake - a nice 8 km run at a good tempo - around 24 km/h outbound and 15 km/h homewards.... Relaxed, injure free dogs! Happy trails!

Breakdown....

Went for a nice run on Langen Lake with the two dogs in front of the Kickspark - around 5.5 km at around 22 km/h on the outwards leg and 18 km/h on the return - Phoebe keeps a good pace! The only problem was that the nuts and bolts keeping one strut attached to the Kickspark ski had come loose! We kind of "limped" back to the car - luckily the trail was easy :-)

"Two Mouse Run or Hunting With the Pack"

Have you read the book called "Winterdance" by Gary Poulson!?  He has a hilarious description of training in the autumn and encountering skunks with his team...:!  A "battle" ensues and his dogs come away the worse.....smelling like....well, a rotten skunk!  Tonight we went for a really good run with the Kicksled with Phoebe and Luke in front - about 6.5km in total in the dark.  We turned back after a snack of "fat sausage" from Kjøttnils.  Energy restored we headed homewards - when we were on the way, Phoebe suddenly JUMPED into the deep powder snow on the side of the trail....!  What!?  A small black, scurrying mouse! She caught it - killed it - and in the confusion, Luke had the front part chewed off and down his throat!  Phoebe chewed up the rest.....Back on the trail, we were back at the car in no time, when Phoebe AGAIN pulled off to the side....ANOTHER MOUSE! This time, Luke had his bit, but Phoebe just sniffed it....licked it....and decided to ROLL ON IT!..... Smelly camouflage...?! Thank god it was not a two skunk-run, only a two MOUSE-run! Happy Trails!

Scared of heights...

The other day when Phoebe and Luke came to the office with me, I noticed a major difference between them...  Phoebe is always ready to go - little or no hesitation - into the glass-wall lift/elevator. Cross the "skywalk" into to our offices - no problems!  Riding the lift down, Luke actually had to lay down on the floor! I guess this is alot to do with practicing from a young age - Phoebe has been coming to the office - on and off - since she was 10 weeks old! She went in a lift at 9 weeks' age... What IS funny, is that she is quite scared of shadows in the dark! She went barking scared at seeing some balloons some months back....funny girl...!

Out and about...

We have had a looooong period of -20 deg C or thereabouts.  Our Siberian Husky friends, however, are genetically adapted to survive the extreme cold of Siberia... Phoebe was an "indoor dog" until only very recently, but when Luke arrived we housed them both outsied in the kennel.  This has gone very well except their incessant war, trying to claim the big house... Phoebe has an attitude of "It is mine, then mine, and if anything is left over, it is mine", that applies to food, toys, dog houses, attention....
Since Luke and Phoebe came back from their Xmas and New Year holiday in the mountains, we have paid extra attention to Luke especially, aiming to form stronger bonds with him.  He just LOVES to be scratched on the belly :-) A couple of days ago he even took the initiative to play with a toy ball - really good sign that he is relaxing! The last couple of nights, they have also slept indoors with us and yesterday they came with me to the office (see picture).  Well behaved, charming everyone there! MjauVoof!?

New toy!

During the holidays, we took delivery of a new toy... a "kickbike"!  Attached the two dogs to it tonight and went for a quick run....! A bit scary without a break - will install a "scootermat" sledbreak...

Fun, fun, fun!