Our story:
We have been truly mushing since 2001. Our family has always had dogs and so it was natural for
me to become involved in them. As a child (1997), I remember rigging a harness out of an old halter and spare collars
and attaching our Rotti cross to a sled or wagon filled with dog food, blankets and a caged chicken. This was how we played
house, and we'd set off into the forest on our farm and build a fort. The dog food was for our lunch and the chicken was a
pet. Eventually I realized I was dogsledding, but I knew nothing about the sport, so I began to research huskies. My first
actually sleddogs were two Siberian X Great Pyrenees puppies names Cyber and Spot. They were nothing like the huskies
I’d seen in the pictures, but I trained them to pull heavy weights (trees for firewood and such). They were never fast,
but honest workers.
I got my first official Siberian a year after I’d gotten Cyber. While at the
pet store, I saw an ad for a female red Siberian, and I absolutely had to have her. She was by no means sleddog material;
she was a pampered house dog who’d been spoiled with table scraps. Nevertheless, I took her home and added her to the
team. Laser ran all the time, but was scared to pull because of the leash training she’d received (Still a problem
today). Cyber, though, was glad to have an enthusiastic partner, and so for once, I was sledding at a pace faster than a walk.
I had a hard time stopping too, because the child's sled I was using had no brake, and I was getting a LOT of power now.
By this time, I had begun to realize that my makeshift harnesses were not working overly well,
and so I made a sledding harness from the pictures of sleddogs I cut out of touring magazines. It was a crude thing without
padding, but I tried it on and it worked better than halters. (Now that I look at it, I am proud that I was able to fashion
it only from pictures) Still, I was not satisfied.
This is when I really began researching dog sledding. I learned all the commands, and read about
all the equipment. I learned about training pups, and most important, how to let the dogs have fun. It was cruel to take them
out more than once a day. It was cruel to expect them to plough a trail in deep snow for miles on end when they were barely
conditioned, and only three to a team, in bad harnesses. It was okay if they jumped around and were excited. This was all
foreign to me and went against everything I had taught my dogs. I went on-line and ordered harnesses and when I tried them
on the dogs, it was amazing. There were less tangles, and more power. Everyone was happier, although I had a challenge trying
to figure out how to make ganglines. I had always thought that there was a line on either side of the dogs, like the old fashion
single file teams.
I became smarter as I gained experience. Laser taught me all about Huskies and their stubbornness.
I learned how to really work with the dogs. About a year later, I went to the pound and got Sabaka, my wolf-dog. If anyone
is single minded, it is him. Paired beside Laser, they were a perfect team. He was super fast and pulled like a truck. Laser
showed him which way to go, and he took us there. Even now, he is the best leader I have ever owned. After a couple of winters,
he was competent enough at commands that I trusted him to single lead.
Over time, I got more dogs and proper sledding equipment. The team grew and each new member
brought something new to the kennel and team. Although I was wokring with a variety of breeds, I decided to go solely
into Siberian breeding and mushing. I had fallen in loved with the breed. It is my passion today. Sledding is something
that came naturally for me and I hope to get more into the showing side as well once I am out of school. It is still
a learning experience and I think it always will be.
More recently, we have expanded our interests into racing and showing. Because we're still in
school, we find our time limited and so we only show and race locally (in Alberta).
I do hope to attend a few bigger races in the future. We have also tried ski-joring, backpacking, conformation, canicross
and limited obidience as well as having experience with working with other nordic breeds in general.
