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...!