Bees off snow

We normally don’t participate on off snow races, because our goal is on longer distances, and off snow races don’t fit our training programs. This year however we made an exception, because we found a brave musher to drive our dogs: Erkki Byrkland from kennel Lumikiisan. He volunteered to drive our team in two races, Ohkola and Jämi. Neither me nor Suvi are brave enough to drive our wild strong bunch off snow without a sturdy heavy fourwheeler.

We made no changes to our training, even with the race plans. I’m driving the 11 dog team with long distance races in mind, so training kilometers are longer and slower than those in Ohkola and Jämi. Erkki drove his own team in 8 dogs class on both races, and then drove our dogs on 4 dog class afterwards. On both occations our team was the two B-litter’s, Benny and Beck in lead with Pimu and Putte in wheel. Erkki had met our dogs once, when we visited kennel Lumikiisan a couple of weeks before the first race in Ohkola. He drove the dogs once then to see them in action. And then there was the races.

Ohkola race was held in September 29th – 30th. There were 6 teams on 4 dog class, five of which were Siberians, driving 2 x 4,1km distance. Antti Mäkiaho from kennelMcAhon, drove his own first racing team, being the fastest Siberians. He shared the 1st position with a team of hound mixes, having the exact same finishing time. Teemu Kaivola drove Antti’s second team and was second in the race. Erkki with our team did quite well, finishing fourth, with the average speed of 28,17km/h. Full results of the race can be read on L-SVU website.

Jämi race, held in October 13th -14th, was the Finnish Championship race of the Finnish Sleddog Sport Federation. The race being a championship race, there were more teams participating this time, 19 altogether. I hadn’t prepared the dogs for the race, I had to train them normally the whole week. They got a free Friday, but on Tuesday and Thursday I had trained quite hard with 20km runs on both days on a four wheeler. I was a bit afraid I had trained them too heavily, for them to run smoothly and fast enough. But the B-bunch had recovered well from the training and had a nice relaxed run. Erkki and Bs finished 6th on the race, but being the fastest Siberian team. On the 2 x 4,2km distance, the average speed was 28,88km/h. Full results for the race can be read also on L-SVU website.

Thanks to our visiting musher for the nice results! We hadn’t had any official Siberian results for Finnish kennel club for some years, because usually our Siberians run together with Alaskans. Now the Bs got REK1 from Jämi. 

Start on Saturday. Photo by Jutta Venhola.

-Kati-

Autumn has arrived

Time flies. Since the last update, there’s been several things happening in our kennels. Like Koff giving birth to Nordysak F-litter. The 7 weeks old, two boys and two girls run around happily in puppy pen. Looks like the boys will travel to Sweden while girls stay at home to be our future stars.

Kilju and white Vodka

Koff and little Sahti

We attended to the Siberian Husky Speciality show last weekend (September 15th -16th). A few dogs from our pack participated on the show, of them Esko getting the highest award. He was the best junior male. He was after all the furriest of our pack on that day. All other dogs still haven’t grown their winter coat on, and are very light coated.

Altogether we had a nice weekend, although a bit tired one. We were travelling on our motorcaravan, with the dogs sleeping in brand new boxes built on a trailer. We’re glad our youngsters behaved really well in stakeout. And it was nice seeing other people’s Siberians on the show ring. I’m sure we’ll meet again in winter in races.

We started autumn training a few weeks ago. I have a team of 11 dogs (Beck, Benny, Putte, Pimu, Uule, Muru, Keke, Hottis, Kajsa, Mimmi and Bambi) and Suvi’s started with 6 dogs (Altti, Jojo, Wilma, Iiris, Koff and Bea). The weather’s been good for training. Remembering past years with September temperatures well above 15^oC. This morning we had the first frost, and it’s been a real luxury to be able to train the dogs during day time with temperature under 10 ^oC.

The E-boys have also started training. So far they’ve had just one run, with grannies Zigi and Dooris in lead. All youngster did quite well, and looked really happy after the run. It’s a nice start for them all.

Euro, Esko, Enzo and Egil

We’re having quite funny races coming up. I’m planning on training for long distance for winter races, and Suvi’s heading for mid distance, but now in autumn our dogs will participate on two off snow sprint races, Ohkola and Jämi. It’s a bit silly thing really, because we don’t let them run that fast, but it’s nice practice for races. Neither of us will be doing the driving. We’ve “hired” a musher to do it for us. 

Housemice, Rina and dauhger Muru

Girls enjoying their dinner, Bea, Muru, Pimu, Wilma and Rina

Three generations, granny Dooris, mother Pimu (on the background) and Pertti, Dallas, Dexter and Rinsessa

Keke, Putte, Benny and Beck's neck

And then some portraits:

Bambi

Dooris

Uule

Putte

Keke

Beck

Egil

Enzo

Jojo

Iiris and Kajsa

Lovely girls posing, Suvi & Iiris

Zigi

-Kati-

Welcome Good Mushing D-litter... And a couple of other returners

Time flies. Pimu had a successful date with Fugitive's Riven back in March, and of their brief, although action filled, meeting, blossomed five little puppies. The litter was born in early May, and here they are, the Good Mushing D-litter:

Dexter

Pertti

Dallas

DeeDee

Rinsessa

Two older dogs have arrived to our pack as well. Bea being the first of them returning home. Zigi was second to come. She's an old old lady already, but with Jade gone, we've no one to teach the yearlings how to behave in harness. So Zigi once again moved to our pack from her home-kennel Amysah. In the 10 year-old lady burns a heart of a young sled dog, although she's gotten a bit out of shape lately... (She does have a great appetite.) The Nordysak E-boys couldn't have a better teacher.

-Amppa

Spring time!

The racing season was really short for the dogs this year. The races we indented to participate on were only a few. There was too many cancelled races, like Ruuhirod and later the mid distance race in Metsäkartano as well. Äkry was our last race of the season, and it was just a sprint where we Hottis and Muru were learning race behavior.

We weren’t informed on Metsäkartano being cancelled in time. We’d travelled all the way to Vaajakoski, when we met the Nikmo team with their Alaskan Malamutes on a gas station. They told us that the mid distance race’s cancelled, but the sprint race will be held. Suvi phoned the organizer and was told that our team was signed in for the sprint race. Suvi checked her sent emails to see if she’d made a mistake, but we had indeed signed in for the mid distance race. All in all, it was a lucky meeting with the Nikmos. Otherwise we’d travelled all the way to Rautavaara for nothing.

Then came Ruunaa Race. At the time of the race we didn’t have enough snow left here in south, so the roads were on sand and training on sled was impossible. The dogs had got in quite bad shape already, because training was possible only on an ATV, so they weren’t fast enough to race.

Even without races to look forward to, we’ve been training the dogs for fun. And to keep them from getting too wild. And to keep them in shape obviously. There’s been some changes in our pack and I’ve been using the spring time to group a team for next season training. The Nordysak C litter has joined in my first team and my C litter dogs have left it. Actually two of the Good Mushing C dogs have moved into new homes.

Another very sad departure was Jade passing away. She didn’t give us a warning, she was in good shape and a happy dog, but unfortunately we discovered she’s got a tumor and she won’t live long with it. We had to make the decision to put her down, because we didn’t want her to suffer. She’ll be greatly missed. When younger, Jade was the big heart in our racing team and as she got older, she ran in front of yearlings teaching them working routines.

We had plans for breeding Jade for the last time, but unfortunately the time wasn’t right for it earlier and now she’s no longer with us. We have another litter coming up though. Pimu visited Sweden a few weeks ago to meet a nice boy called Fugitive’s Riven. Breeding was a success and signs show that she most likely will get puppies in May.

A few photos from last weekend. First of all, Suvi drove the dogs on Saturday. The team being Beck, Mimmi, Pimu, Kajsa, Putte, Bambi, Keke and Hottis

And we drove them together yesterday, with Pimu and Muru switching teams:

Beck, leader

Mimmi, leader

Bambi, swing

Kajsa, swing

Muru, team

Putte, team

Keke, wheel

Hottis, wheel

-Kati

Busy winter

The time flies when you’ve got lots to do. Now that there’s snow and real winter, it feels the dogs take all my time. Still, there’s always time to follow big races like Yukon Quest and Iditarod in Northern America and of course Finnmarksløpet 500 and 1000 in Norway.

Anyway, some old news. Of the 5 puppy boys we had 4 still lives with us, because Eko moved to Norway to kennel Huskyville’s on January. I’m hoping he’ll grow up to be as happy dog as he was as a puppy, and in future will run in Line Løw’s racing team.

Line spent a weekend with us, which was nice. We had time to drive the dogs with her, though it was only a quick run. I trained my team and Line followed with a team of 5 dogs, including Uule, who’s a Huskyville dog.

The first race of this season was held in Lieksa on January 27th to 29th. I was supposed to drive the long distance race, but I was able to train the dogs on sled only two weeks before the race, so no chance to train for long distance. All in all, we weren’t expecting the dogs run fast, because of so short “speed period”. With injuries in our pack (Kikka hurting her foot before race, and Uule taking her place in the team), we weren’t able to put together two equal teams for the race, so we decided that Suvi’ll drive the 3 x 31km Eastpoint Open race.

The first day 8 dogs started in our team: Mimmi and Bambi in lead, Pimu and Kajsa swing, Koff and Putte in team and Beck and Uule in wheel. The weather was cold, around -30c. The trail was partly a bit soft on the first day, but it got harder each day. Koff hurt her wrist on the first day, and though she didn’t show it at first, she couldn’t run properly the whole 31km.

On the first day our team had a companion dog along the whole trip. The person starting after Suvi lost his lead dog, because he was chewed free from his tugline by his leader friend. Luckily the free running dog didn’t mess in the team, he was just running alongside of the sled, like a well trained dog. Suvi enjoyed his company, but our dogs probably didn’t even notice him. Usually they don’t mind anything happening around them. Time for the first day was 1h 23min 35sec.

I’ve had interesting cases of interruptions on trainings. Once a Hovawart was free running in a forest where I train. His owner tried to call him away from my dogs, but he barked and tried to chase after the team. The whole thing ended up with the Hovawart on my sled, but my dogs just ran. None of them even turned their ear. After a couple of hundred metres the Hovawart jumped off the sled and looked like “what the hell did just happen”. Another time Suvi’s hunting dog the Nordic Spitz, Vili, was running free alongside with my team. He was just a youngster back then, and I thought he wouldn’t disappear anywhere, but all of a sudden he ran into the forest. I thought he’ll come back soon and continued with the training. Well, Vili did come back rather soon and he’d brought a friend with him: he chased a moose on the road where I was driving! Well, the moose and Vili ran back to forest soon enough. Again none of my dogs were interrupted with the incident. I really like dogs that do their job, and just run and run and run.

Anyway, on the second day of Eastpoint Open race, Koff couldn’t run because of the injury. We had a team of 7 dogs starting. This time it was Uule, who simply couldn’t run fast enough. It wasn’t surprise, because he hasn’t ran in my team for the whole season. After the first 10km he had given his all, and was really tired. He travelled back to finish in the sled and didn’t start on the last day. Time for the second day was 1h 26min 06sec.

So, more unfortunates: Pimu didn’t start on the last day. We harnessed her and she even ran to the start line, but her left shoulder was a little sore, so she didn’t run because no more passangers on the sled wanted. Suvi started with 5 dogs, but the dogs did a good run. Time for the last day was 1h 23min 52sec.

There are some videos from the race you can watch on the races’ official website on racinghusky.com. There’s also photogalleries from the race. And of course the results from the race. A big thank you for the voluntary workers who make the whole race happen! It’s always a pleasure to participate on races in Lieksa, because everything’s so well organized.

The second race for the winter was held in Ohkola. It’s a sprint race, and obviously we haven’t trained the dogs for sprint. We participated on the race with yearling team, as a race practice for them. At home all they see is familiar forests and passing horses, so we thought it’s time for them to see other dog teams. Kikka and Wilma were the leaders in our team, Iiris and Muru ran in team and Jojo and Hottis were the wheel boys.

Wilma giving birth to puppies only 3 months ago, she wasn’t in a real shape for running, although she’s been running in trainings since late December. She’s obviously not fast at the moment, so Suvi – who was our musher again – had to slow the team the whole way, so Wilma could show the way. Suvi’s opinion of the run was that the whole thing was a bit messy. Still we’re happy Muru, Iiris and Hottis got their first race start.

Unfortunately we couldn’t finish the race, because after the first day we had two limping dogs. Again! We need to do some thinking because of this matter. So anyway, we didn’t go back to Ohkola the second day.

Another race, Ruuhirod, was supposed to be held this weekend, but unfortunately they’ve had problems with trail. The race was cancelled, which is a shame, because it’s always been one of our favourites. On the race you’ve got 21h time to run a 20km trail 4 times. Hopefully it’ll be held again next year.

Next race for us is Äkry, a short sprint, where youngsters will train race behavior again. So, we’re participating only for training reasons, not so much for competition. After that there’s Metsäkartano Sprint. Even though the name is sprint, there’s also a middistance race held and that’s where we’ll participate. And then Ruunaa Race will be the last race for us this season in mid March. Really looking forward to all the upcoming two middistance races.

And then some photos of morning-dogs. They were just getting up when I surprised them with a camera this morning.

Enzo

Egil

Euro

Esko

Putte

Beck and Hottis

Simo and Benny

Keke

Jade and Dana

Pimu

Muru, Iiris and Kikka

Koff

Uule

Bambi

Kajsa

Mimmi

-Kati