Katerina's Journal

Top 20

2012-02-10T10:54:00.002Z

I´ve been promising to keep everyone up-to-date on the main string dogs and our training progress. Time is ticking so fast! Now, exactly a week is left before our departure for the Tobacco Trail!

We have made our selections based on the dogs´ performances and interest, and the list of potential race dogs are down to top 20. Although I have a strong idea of 10 dogs I´d love to have on the Tobacco Trail 300 12 dog team, I still can´t decide on the last two. But I am not going to announce anything just yet! :)

So, let us introduce the Top 20 (in no particular order):

COMET (FLYING COMET Kipp d´Amundsen) - Buck x Babeli

5,5 years old, strong and big girl. Comet is sponsored by Katerina´s wonderful aunt Jana Haufova, who took over the role of Comet´s patron after our beloved grandma Vera, who supported and loved Comet for years, passed away.

FROSTIE (FROSTY av Vargevass)

9 years old, strong and endurant boy, super tough feet, never been injured. This will very likely be his last racing season before so much deserved retirement. Can lead if neceessary. Frostie is sponsored by Katerina´s mom and dad Ivana and Vlady Palecek.

GALENA (GALENA Kipp d´Amundsen) - Buck x Jee-Haw

5,5 years, THE MAIN LEADER. Super smart, fast, my prolonged brain, heart, soul and hand.

GOOSAK (GOOSAK Kipp dˇAmundsen) - Buck x Jee-Haw

5,5 years, brother of Galena. Can lead if necessary. Amazing dog. Super tough, very efficient and fast trotter. He´d do anything for "mom" :)

GRAYLING (GRAYLING Kipp d´Amundsen) - Buck x Jee-Haw

5,5 years. Another fabulous son of Buck and one of the great siblings from the "G" litter. He is one of the most amazing dogs in our kennel. Great drive, powerful, efficient, great attitude, always happy with a zest for life, always ready to go.

HAWKY (HUNTING HAWK Kipp d´Amundsen) - Ewok (Vargevass) x Magpie
3,5 years. This is Hawky´s first season in the main string. Driven and strong boy, maturing a tad slower than his siblings Runner and Rizey, but he´s getting there :)

CHILLI (SWEET CHILLI Kipp d´Amundsen) - Nugget x Comet

5 years. Our super dog. What he didn´t get in beauty, he got in muscles, what he didn´t get in brains, he got in an incredible work ethic and performance. This dog could run on a top alaskan husky team, and I am not exaggerating. His capacity and ability is above the level of any other dog in our team.

KRTEK (BLACK AVALANCHE Kipp d´Amundsen) - Canuck x Tazlina

5,5 years old charmer with a big drive and consistent performance. Fast and strong for her size. Good co-leader, positive and smiley personality and generally a very sweet dog with a great attitude. One of the kennel´s beauties and to me a perfect example of a multipurpose dog. Krtek has a lot of show results as well, and needs only one more point and a race result to become the Swedish show champion.
Krtek is sponsored by Jachym´s cousin Bara Hudcova.

MAGNETO (Carmack´s MAGNETO) - Herman x Roary (North Wapiti)

6 years. Magneto has come a long way - this shy and very sweet boy has gained a lot of confidence since he came to live with us, and has worked his way up to the top in the team. This season he surprises us with keeping up speed-wise with the faster, lighter built dogs. His desire to please and honest approach to work has secured his spot in the top 20. Great feet, great appetite under any situation and great metabolism! He´s got distance racing experience from his past home in USA too.
Magneto is sponsored by our friends - the Leitl family: Adela, Helena, Petr, Robin and Bliss.

MAGPIE (NorthWapiti´s MAGPIE) - CH.Smiley x Jumper (North Wapiti/Anadyr)

7,5 years, one of the leaders. Fast, hard working girl, amazing for her tiny size. Sweet and super friendly attitude, huge heart and will to please. She´s been on every race we´ve done so far. Mom of Hawky, Runner and Rizey. Magpie is sponsored by Katerina´s mom and dad Ivana and Vlady Palecek.

and a big hugger! :)

MISA (Fun Run MISA MI) - Pontiac x Fassette (Fun Run/Vox Celesta)

5,5 years old goof ball. Misa is the most funny and crazy dog we have. Huge drive, fast. Not a very efficient trotter, but keeps up at all times, good eater, good metabolism and functions as the team´s cheer leader. Can run as trail leader if necessary.
Misa is sponsored by Jachym´s mom Eva Lukesova.

NUGGET (GOLD NUGGET Kipp d´Amundsen) - Buck x Jee-Haw

Another fantastic dog and a great sibling to Galena, Grayling and Goosak from the "G" litter. Great trotter, huge desire to please, always there for me. Mamma´s boy :)

RAPID (Kelim´s RAPID FIRE of Carmacks) - Skor x Kluane (North Wapiti)

5,5 years old. One of our top three leaders. Amazing girl with drive, speed and consistent performance. Very endurant, ready to march thousands of miles for the ones she loves. A great heart beats under her timid and humble appearance. Just love this dog!

RIZEY (HORIZON HUNTER Kipp d´Amundsen) - Ewok (Vargevass) x Magpie

3,5 years old girl, sister of Hawky and Runner. Very smooth, fast runner, great feet. First season on the main string and she´d doing fabulous job. Humble and shy dog with a huge heart for running, desire please and affectionate nature to those she trusts.

RUNNER (HARD RUNNER Kipp d´Amundsen) - Ewok (Vargevass) x Magpie

3,5 years, the best from the "H" litter siblings. Was the only 2 year old on the race team last year. His perfomance, speed and endurance is amazing. A very positive, happy-go-lucky boy, affectionate, smart and driven. Needs more experience, but does already very well in lead.
Runner is sponsored by Jachym´s cousin Bara Hudcova.

SKITTLES (NorthWapiti´s SKITTLES) - CH.Crunchie x Olena (North Wapiti/Anadyr)
4,5 years, leader. Fast and hard driven girl with a super charming character and appearance. Nicknamed "The Charm Troll". Very intelligent, sweet dog with huge zest for life and desire to please.

SNOWY (DRIFTING SNOWFLAKE Kipp d´Amundsen) - Canuck x Tazlina
5,5 years, sister of Krtek. One of the most athletic, fast and strong females on the race team. Has been to all races last season. Small girl with huge muscles, intelligent and driven. Positive attitude under any circumstances, always happy-go-lucky, huge zest for life. If you´re grumpy or tired, just look at Snowy and she´ll give you the energy you lack. Great appetite, good leader. Crazy dog :)

SPARKY (EVENING SPARK Kipp d´Amundsen) - Buck x Brandy

8 years, leader. Very special dog, smart, strong and hard driving. A bit heavier built, which gives him disadvantage, but he makes up for it with his attitude and will to please and works very hard to keep his spot in the main string. We have a very special relationship. Great attitude and approach to life. Another dog "of my life". Sparky is sponsored by our friend Aris Pipis from Cyprus.

STAR (FLAMING STAR Kipp d´Amundsen) - Buck x Babeli

5,5 years, leader. The strongest girl in our kennel. Huge work ethic, you almost never see her tired. Stubborn and smart, breathes and lives life to the fullest.

TAZLINA (NorthWapiti´s TAZLINA) - Sqeaky x Olena (North Wapiti/Anadyr)
7 years, one of the top three leaders, constantly competing with Galena for THE MAIN LEADER. A super dog, irreplaceable. Gives the team juice and speed, super fast, super driven. Can be a pain the butt, but all the great ones are :) Her desire to please and ability to read my mind is scary. Female counterpart of Chilli. Love, love this dog!

and ZIGGI (A´Teb´s ZIGGI of WOLF) - Wolf x Kalinka (Nay-La-Chee/Anadyr/)

8,5 years old. This might be likely Ziggi´s last racing season, but she is doing great so far! Little, shy dog with a big heart and work ethic. Not among the fastest, but very consistent, efficient trotter, smart, driven, keeps going under any conditions. Also a good leader. Has been on all our races up to date.

Ziggi is sponsored by Jachym´s mom Eva Lukesova.

So these are the magnificent Top 20 canine athletes of our kennel at this point. We will be choosing the twelve racers for Tobacco Trail in the last two runs prior the race and will of course let everyone know!

Thank you to all those of you who have stepped in and sponsor one of the kids, your support is hugely appreciated. Some of the dogs are still looking for their sponsor and we are in a need of finances to cover travel and logistics costs for the main race of the season - Finnmarkslopet 500, so if you would like to help the team to the starting line, you can have a look here for sponsorship and team support options. Thank you very much in advance!

Happy Trails and Stay Safe!

Partnership with ZERO DC and Their Revolutionary Harnesses

2012-01-05T19:32:00.003Z

If feels like Christmas - a huge box arrived from Czech Republic! It contained 12 brand new ZERO DC harnesses of the model, called FASTER.

These revolutionary, very unique harnesses are actually nothing new to us and our huskies - we´ve been using them regularly for the third season in a row.

As every musher in the learning and growing process, I have learned, that there is no one single harness design that would fit perfectly to every single sled dog in the whole wide world, and I have learned about the necessity of circulating different designs of harnesses with different materials and different pressure points, when training with the intensity and volume that long distance racing requires.

In the twenty plus years of mushing, I have tried many different harness makes and learned about a few that fit perfectly my dogs, are of a top quality material and make, do the least harm when used frequently and long term, are light, water resistant and highly reflective even after a lot of wear and heavy use in mud, water, ice and snow. There are four such harness labels (designs), that answer these demands and take to all that kind of abuse, that we have tested and that we use regularly the entire year and throughout the whole training season.

Zero DC FASTER harness is one of them. In fact, the idea to try it came from the constant problems with developing harness rubs on the dogs´ armpits in the middle of intense fall training.

So three years ago I called Dagmar Nesnerova, successful Czech sprint musher and the lady who invented the FASTER harnesses. She readily agreed to send some samples and we´ve been using FASTERS ever since. As a matter of fact, this is our third season in a row and we are still using the very first ones Dagmar sent us! They are all beat up, but they still do the job!

Last year we also became authorized distributors of FASTER harnesses and other ZERO DC sortiment for Sweden. If you want to try these harnesses, please send us a message, we will be glad to help you with information and to find the right size for your dog, and we can redirect you to your respective distributor in your country, if you are not from Sweden. You can find them in our internet sled dog shop.

So, what makes these harnesses so special?

First of all, it is the unique anatomy of the harness itself. The design doesn´t allow the side straps to go right up the armpits, instead, the arched "bow" is attached to the side strap, which pulls rather downwords and straight instead of up.

Secondly, the entire harness is made to allow the dog to completely lean into it in the most natural and comfortable position, while pulling. It gives the dog a huge support on the breast and generally helps the dog to ease his pulling job.

The back on this harness is open. Similarly to the H-back Taiga harness, the FASTER harness has no straps across the back, leaving the dog´s back and spine untied, allowing it´s free movement and better development of back muscles. This prevents the dog from various back muscle injuries and soreness.

The weight of this harness is extremely light, it is water resistant and highly reflective on majority of areas - around the neck, side and back straps.

Last but not least, the materials used and the cleanness of sewing is highly comfortable, soft and supportive for the dog, not causing any unnecessary pressure points and spots that would rub against the dog´s body parts.

We learned that among our dogs, the most used sizes are SL (a half size between XS and S), S, M, L and XL. But Dagmar is kind and very willing to even custom make them to fit any dog.

After three years of hard and heavy use, it became obvious that our huskies deserve new ones and Dagmar with her husband Jiri, were so kind that they decided to help us with our race season and sponsored us with a whole new batch of FASTER harnesses for the racing team! Not only are they in our team blue color, but as you have noticed, they have Czech and Swedish flags embroidered so we can represent in style!

Among the harnesses, we also found two great sports hats and a bunch of stylish ZERO DC patches, which are gradually being sown on to our jackets, hats, sled bags and other gear.

Huge THANK YOU Dagmar and Jirka of ZERO DC for your wonderful support!

Handsome Jack

2012-01-03T19:03:00.002Z

Every grandparent knows the feeling when their grand kids come visit. I am not sure how every breeder feels when they see a puppy from their kennel after a while, and not every puppy gets to see their birth kennel again.

But what I know is that for Jachym and me, it is certainly a priority to be in touch with the new families of our "kids". In such case, we become the "grandparents" :)

And with Jörgen and Maria with their family and dogs visiting us over the New Year´s holidays, we got to spend some time with Jack (JACK DANIELS Kipp d´Amunsen, out of Galena x Nitro).

Time went by so fast that we unfortunately didn´t get a chance for family reunion with his siblings Jameson, Johnnie, JB and Jamie.

Jack is lovely! He so much resembles his mom Galena, in looks and mostly in behavior, it´s really cool!

Kisses to "grandma"

and snuggles with grandpa

IT was so good to see you, Jacky-boy!

New Year´s Eve Mushing

2012-01-01T15:49:00.001Z

As I wrote in the previous post, the last day of 2011 was food for the soul. Sunny, temperatures dropped down to twenty below, and the two and four legged ones had a blast.

Add good food and great company and nothing else can hardly top that.

Before his night run with the main string, Jachym was in the role of a trail breaker (while our snowmobile was still "alive") and photographer. And here´s how he captured the day:

Krtek performing her famous before run dance.

Frostie alias Mr.Hababah

Sparky shows what he thinks about us not taking him for a run with the main string

Not sure what to think of Rapid´s expression...!

And here she goes again - Krtek dancing the "let´s run" dance

Frostie one more time. This photo needed to be posted."Can everyone here me now?! I - want - to - run!"

Young Sherwood, sad he didn´t get to go. Soon, Sherwood, soon, buddy! Once the races are over, we´ll have a blast together, mushing in the spring sun. Promise!

Grayling with his wise expression.

Runner with his not-so-wise expression.

Jörgen in the role of a handler, Denise learning the skills to become a musher one day?

"Auntie Rebecca, can you be faster?!" - Nugget and Grayling being obnoxious as usual on the start.

The otherwise calm and cool dog, Grayling has his "moment" at the start.

Our dogs are friendly. Really.

Really friendly and also very beautiful. Wait a minute! Who sneaked a ware wolf in my team?!!

Finally! The main string is out the gate. The dog yard falls into silence almost instantly.

Galena and Tazlina in lead, Snowy and Rapid in point, Krtek with Magpie, Rizey, Runner, Nugget, Grayling in team, Goosak and Frostie in wheel.

"Why didn ´t I get to go??!" Comet is not a happy camper.

Jörgen and Maria´s lead dogs Moltas (red) and Hero. Molta´s dady is Magneto and mom is Icey (out of Tazlina x Canuck), and Hero´s dad is Balto. Nice to see our dogs´ "kids and grandkids" working well in other teams!

Misa was her name. And she was (just a little bit) insane! :)

HuggyBear. The dancing runs in the family!

Kipp d´Amundsen 2011/12 super handler crew (aka Rebecca and Steve) in action!

Jörgen´s last instructions before his run. "My last will is in the second top drawer" or something like that. Magneto and Sparky gave a helping paw in wheel of his team.

"Ok, dad, let´s go, shell we?!" -- one of Jörgen´s team dogs, Biscuit, eager to run.

The moon shows up clearly and early on a cold and bright day like this one.

Sun setting upon Steve´s and Jörgen´s teams.

Love, love this series of pictures from the guys´ run.

Modra did an excellent job once again, this time in lead of the "B" team with experienced Ziggi. One of the most exciting dogs from the yearling group.

Happily back home, with grins on their faces

Jörgen´s team arrives.

Now, who says new year´s celebrations are all about drinking and eating??! :)

Happy Trails and Stay Safe!

Food For The Soul

2012-01-01T13:23:00.003Z

The very last day of the year. Many people spend it thinking about the year that just went by, and what was accomplished, what should be improved, and turn their hopes to the very next day as the symbolic new start of the new year, of the new accomplishments, improvements and pursuits.

I did spend it in the form and fashion of someone, getting ready for a bunch of long distance races. Keeping to my training schedule. While it may sound boring or difficult to you, don ´t get me wrong!

I was in my right element, I was totally happy to be out with 12 best friends and in what kind of a day!

After months of darkness and weeks of heavy snowfall and warm temperatures, this is how the last day of 2011 looked like - Food for the soul!

Just about to cross a creek. Full speed forward :)

Sorry, this one´s blurry. But I just couldn´t get enough of the sun!

On the official snowmobile trail

Taking a short break during a long climb. Galena (left) and Tazy in lead.

The Svannavattnet lake valley and next range below us, on another climb, this time home-bound. These hilly trails are great for getting the dogs in shape.

After a 50km run in perfect winter weather, we gave the kids a four hour rest, while we had New Year´s dinner with our good friends Jörgen and Maria with their family, and our super handler couple Steve and Rebecca, before we sent the team out for another 3 hour run with Jachym.

They disappeared into the starry night enthusiastically and arrived back half hour before midnight - just in time to light a bonfire, drink hot wine and welcome the New Year.

Just a perfect day, memory of which will be the food for my soul for a long, long time!

Happy New Year to you all and Happy Trails!

Video Trail Report - Finally From Snowy Trails!

2011-12-22T12:58:00.001Z

Speeding Into the Winter (with an Awesome New Leader)

2011-12-22T00:27:00.001Z

So, yesterday, we headed out for the third run in a row, and since the past two runs were all about trailbreaking and hard physical workout, we did all we could to ensure an easy, fun, recovery run.

And oh, boy, did the guys ever fly!

Ok, step by step.

First we took out the 50 pound kibble bags from the sleds.

Then I added two more dogs to my team and shifted the guys around a bit, to have a stronger front and let the smallest and lightest girls "rest" in the middle of the team. You see, the structure (or the anatomy) of a dog team is not a random thing. In fact, it is a key to a productive run. The smaller, lighter girls are usually running in the front of the team, as they are speedy. But when trail conditions change, it´s time for the bigger, stronger dogs, to shine in the front. And so I though, that Runner would be an excellent choice and match for powerful, super fast and driven Tazlina.

And was I ever happy about that choice! :)

We´ve tried Runner in lead towards the end of last season and I knew he had some leader potential. I promised him to spend more time with his leader training this year and this run was a real test and challenge for him. Never before had he led the team from start to finish, a fast, twelve dog team, making decisions, having to keep the lines tight when his teammates boogied down the trail, breaking parts of blown over trail and lining the team up at start and breaks. He did all that, and with what a gusto and confidence! Actually, it was Runner, who gave the team juice, speed and drive. He dictated the speed! I was amazed to see how much energy he put into the team in the role of a leader. All I had to do was stand on the drag brake and tell him he was a good boy :)

Jachym´s team led by Galena and Ziggi.

Before the run, some of the dogs were pretty tired after the previous two tough trainings, but once on the trail, they had no problem adjusting to Runner´s speed and joining in the cheerful mood that spread throughout the team. They were all happy, focused and driven. They recovered during the run and sprinted up and down the trail. I was very impressed with everyone´s performance. I plain love my dogs! :)

Happy Trails and Happy Winter Solstice to all our friends, family and fans!

Heavy Trails and 20 Amazing Dogs

2011-12-20T22:45:00.000Z

I´ve been waiting for the opportunity to take and share pictures of the team running on white trails, pulling a sled, for what seems as an eternity. They are not the greatest pics and as we are right in the darkest and shortest days of the year, not the sunniest, either, but to me they are perfect! :)

Such dark day, full of snowfall and blown over trails and moose zigzagging over the tracks the huskies tirelessly break every day, was yesterday. With an extra load in the sled, the ten dogs Jachym and I each ran, had a tough job with the trail breaking.

Jachym´s team was led by Magpie and Snowy, while I chose for the trail breaking team an unusual couple - Ziggi and Rapid. None of these girls have experience leading while trail breaking, and on blown over trails, where the leaders´ extra responsibility is to find the packed trail underneath.

Up into the hills, the amazing twenty dogs pulled us tirelessly with a lot of enthusiasm. And both Ziggi and Rapid did a great job. Although I have to pick Rapid as the main star of the day. I ran her in lead for second day in row and she did a fantastic job with both gee and haw, and on-by on invisible trail, as well as kept pushing forward in the new 40cm of snow. I am so proud of my wonderful girl!

I helped the team as much as I could, kicking and sometimes running in the longest, steepest uphills, where the trails were really heavy. A great workout for the musher! At least I don´t have to feel bad about not having much time for exercising properly every day :)

At the end of the 3,5 hour tough run, some of the dogs were tired, but devoured their chicken snacks and soup, as well as wagged their tails happily. As for the mushers, we don´t even remember how we got to bed as we must have fallen asleep the second we touched the pillow :)

Happy Trails!

Trail Breaking and the Last ATV Run of the Season

2011-12-20T21:58:00.001Z

The white gold we´ve all been waiting for impatiently as rain and freeze have turned our trails into ice glazed hell, has finally arrived!

One day, it just started snowing and blowing, the wind picked on intensity and before we knew it, a blizzard was in the making.

The next day, it was time to head out for a training run and I once again listened to my gut feeling when I took Jachym along. We got stuck. We turned onto forest road that seemed to be plowed only to find out after several hundred meters that the car that broke the trail got stuck and had to back up. The brave half sisters in lead Tazlina and Skittles did a great job and on my "on-by" jumped out of the open trail into neck deep snow. They hesitated, turned their heads at me and gave me both the look of "mom, what now? do you want us to continue?" No, I didn´t. I had no desire to ask my team to do this and then only get stuck later on with the heavy ATV and two people on it. They are great, honest and hard working dogs. They´d do just about anything we´d ask them. And that is why I turned them around, and we headed out for a fast, "fun" fun alongside the main road.

We had fun driving through the neighboring village of Renan, watching all the Christmas decorations and charming lights people put around their houses. Now, with all around covered in white, the coziness of these christmas lights in the windows, and lit up christmas trees became much more obvious.

We also managed to unwilingly "visit" one of the houses, when the girls suddenly decided to enter someone´s driveway, but thankfully we managed to get them pointed the right direction again :)

The neighbors´s dogs were surprised at the 16 curly tails passing by and our guys were amazed at seeing other dogs after a long time (yeah, here´s why we´re called the "Vedjeön Hillbiliies" :))

The dogs did an awesome job today and we had a great run after all. And I hope I can now pronounce the ATV season as officially finished! Bring on the snow and the sleds!

The trail breaking team, led by Taz and Skittles

Rolling down the swamp and Lillsjön creek on the way home.

Happy Trails!

Testing

2011-12-12T09:26:00.001Z

The Finnmarkslopet race, which we are signed up for, has a rule, that if you wanna use smaller scale maps, you must use the GPS along with it. You have to keep it operating at all times - and, of course you must know how to use it.

Since I´ve always been the map and compass kind of person (those who know me know I am the opposite of my partner - I´d happily change anything electronic for simple, natural way), I found myself not remembering how to operate the GPS on the level, where I could depend on it (I still wouldn´t depend on it fully, I just don´t trust electronic stuff).

So last week I went through a short, but intensive lecture on the using of the GPS (thank you Steve and Jachym!). Luckily for me, our handler Steve is an outdoor school teacher (imagine - in Great Britain they actually have outdoor schools!!! how cool is that?!) so he not only knows how to use or do things, he also knows how to patiently explain and as a proper teacher - he gives assignments and homework! :)

My first assignment was to use the gloves and mitts I race in, to press the buttons.

My homework was to take it out, record a track and play with different functions, and then report it.

So, the same evening I found myself heading into the darkness in a decent snowstorm with the GPS.

And while I was at it, I also tested my new wind proof anorak.

I survived.

The GPS survived.

The anorak survived.

The first testing was successful! :)

To Our Seniors And Specials, With Love

2011-12-10T11:37:00.003Z

Most of my blog posts are about training of the main string or about the puppies, the future stars of our kennel. So I´ve decided to write a post today, dedicated lovingly to our CSC´s (aka Canine Senior Citizens) and the dogs retired from mushing career for one reason or another.

Music retired from his sled dog life at age 5 due to laryngeal paralysis. He now enjoys his daily walks and hikes and playing in the yard with the oldies and puppies.

I´ve always been a firm believer of taking the best possible care of one´s dogs. But that does not mean just providing top notch dog food and pampering the canine athletes at their prime, or spending hours of socializing, cuddling, snuggling and playing with the puppies.

Granite on a hike with Martyna to the top of Vedjeöberget. He is a solid leader of the yearling/puppy team, super obedient dog and the next in line adept for becoming our house dog :)

There is one more stage in the life of sled dogs, often not given much attention. The getting old. The losing of ability to keep up with the ever-improving racing team. Health issues and difficulties that forbid the huskies, once in their prime, to do what they were bred to and love to do. Some dogs get to spend their sled dog retirement with their humans. Some are found a great, loving home with a sofa and adequate activity level. Unfortunately, not all are respected and loved this much and very often I come across the information, that these dogs are put to sleep.

14,5 years old Buck - the patriarch of the kennel, aka "The Daddy", on the Vedjeö island. Buck is Granite´s daddy.

With the growing dog population in our kennel, we have many generations here. And the group of geriatrics and dogs retired from the main team got larger as well. In fact, it got to the point, where we felt we are not going to be able to provide them what we have committed ourselves to provide - besides love and special food, supplements and medication for their individual needs, also plenty of attention and activity, especially during the training and racing season.

13 years old Delia on a walk to the island.

Besides finding great homes for a couple of these guys (such as the family of our former handler Adela, who spoil rotten one of our retired best leaders Bliss aka the "professor of leading", or my parents who lovingly and tirelessly open their home and hearts to couple of the Oldies all the time), we knew we needed to find a permanent solution for our geriatric residents and "specials".

Cooper the Mal, aka the team mascot. Known also as "the Uncle", being always the first adult dog our puppies are introduced to.

The answer came in form of some really dedicated dog handlers, who took the responsibility to feed, medically treat, let out to play and take for walks all our CSCs:

Misa gave special attention to details such as washing their dishes twice a day and distributing all the special supplements and meds properly. Adela would let them out to play in the yard in summer every day. Kristyna showed us tirelessly the importance of stimulating their brains by introducing the clicker training. By the way, it is amazing, how the 14 year olds react to the clicker! She got Babeli and Delia (both 13 at the time) into better condition just within a few weeks. Sandra took over and would walk and hike with the dogs on daily basis, playing with the clicker and using her veterinary technician skills for the medical care.

Maya - too slow for the main team, she often finds herself in the role of harness breaking team member. And she loves hiking, playing in the yard and sleeping on the sofa. We´ve actually promised her to find her the perfect home, as our house is full with three house dogs and three cats.

The solution is obvious. It takes one or two extra handlers in the kennel, who love dogs and love spending time with dogs. Going for a nice walk every day, keeping fit, taking pictures and spending time in the beautiful nature as your job. It takes of course more than that. There is the following of multiple and detailed feeding and medical treatment instructions. The special care such as checking and changing their straw beds more often, supplying fresh water every day, regardless the weather. Simply everything it takes to give them all they deserve for the years of their loyalty. For the hard work in the team, unconditional and uncomplicated love, inspiration and enthusiasm they give us. This is the least we can do.

Thanks Martyna for all the great pictures of some of the "specials"! :)

It´s Official!

2011-12-06T11:29:00.004Z

We are Finnmarkslopet 2012 bound!

Katerina and The Team are signed up for the 500km Finnmarkslopet 2012, starting March 10.

This is the shorter version of the world´s northernmost race and is limited to only 8 dogs to start with.

We realize it is a huge commitment to enter and complete such race, but we have been working hard towards this goal and towards fulfilling our long time dream of long distance racing with our Siberian huskies that we breed and raise by ourselves.

We are quite confident that our dogs can withstand the test of distance racing and we realize that the limiting factor to our success is Katerina´s long term battle with health issues and our complete depending on financial support from sponsors and friends.

If you would like to help us, you can join our team by either purchasing various items such as Katerina´s handcrafts, sponsor one of the dogs, advertise with us or donate. You can find all sponsoring options and information here. Every little purchase, every small donation or the simplest advertising banner will get us one step closer to our dream - of completing Europe´s biggest race, with a happy, healthy dog team, pampered on the level of care we are so proud of. Thank you!

This is the official Finnmarkslopet race map. The yellow marked trail is the one of the 500km race that our team will hopefully compete in.

Go to Finnmarkslopet´s official website at www.finnmarkslopet.no to read the race program, see all the entrants and get more info about the world´s northernmost and Europe´s longest sled dog race.

The countdown has begun! :)

Into The Night : Diary Entry

2011-11-25T00:07:00.000Z

It´s 21:15 and the thermometer shows zero degrees Celsius. I am taking out my nordic walking gear and putting reflex bands over the sleeves. Ice cleats are a necessity tonight as well.

Turning on the headlamp and in company of Chemical Brothers and other trance music, a bit spooky for the occasion, I head out into the darkness.

The few street lights of tiny, sleepy Vedjeön throw shadows on the glittering icy surface of the street and a gentle breeze, too warm for this time of the year, blows through my hair.

My thoughts immediately turn to the upcoming race season. To my condition. To the dogs´s condition.

Today I sent out our first two entries, which is like putting a stamp or signature on a contract.

The dogs are great, they come back from every run happy and before we take off their booties and praise them, their breath looks as if they were just waking up from a sleep. They are so ready for an upgrade to the next level of training. They want more. More miles, more hours of running. Instead, we´ve had to stop training for a few days due to this darn ice.

But what about me? Why am I walking in the dark? Am I worried about my condition? Am I trying to make up for the gaps in my own training and workout program? Of course I am. I have the vision of a long, tiring run in the middle of darkness on an unknown trail at one of the races. The dark lake and black windows of our neighbors´s houses I am passing help to envision this perfectly. A physically and mentally tired musher with a weakness of metabolism disorder and severe overweight will suffer. I am aware of that and of course I am asking myself, why haven´t I trained myself harder. Tomorrow I need to do this again.

I am counting the months, weeks and days left before the main race. The big race I´ve dreamed about for a long, long time, still being afraid to speak it´s name loud in connection with me. I know my dogs can do it and I painfully know that I am the weakest part of the team.

I have come a long way since my diagnosis, I have lost over 20kg and gotten in shape. But I can´t stop. In fact, I must work harder and these nordic walking sessions are here to remind me of that. Putting the words in a written form also help immensely.

I am approaching the dark curve at the end of the village, leaving the last street light behind me. Heading into the dark with just my headlamp beam, then reaching the half way point and turning around. I walk against the wind, back towards the safety and warmth of home. I hear the dogs howling their after dinner song. Something makes me turn around and I can almost see the other me standing behind in the darkness. She looks at me with faith. "You can do it", she whispers.

Mud and Ice Everywhere...

2011-11-24T18:05:00.000Z

Unless you´re a musher from Alaska or basically anywhere in the USA or Canada (those guys just stole our cold weather! :)), you know painfully well what this post title means.

But I am not going to complain here about not enough mileage on the dogs, warm and very humid weather, muddy training runs or the cursed recent ice that forced us to retreat by the fireplace.

Ok, I will complain a little, but it will not bring us snow nor below zero temps, and most certainly will not put a smile on my face. I know that fellow mushers throughout Scandinavia suffer the same.

Anyway, I thought to keep you all up to date on the latest happenings here at Kipp d´Amundsen Kennels.

Sandra as a happy camper with the puppy team

The major downer is the leaving of Sandra, our very reliable and overall great handler. Sandra´s mom underwent an extremely complicated and painful surgery and Sandra is back home, helping take care of her. We all hope for her return whenever it´s possible and wish her mom a speedy recovery!

On the positive note we were fortunate enough to find temporary help rather quickly. Martyna Szczykutowicz is an experienced dog handler, husky lover and a passionate rescue and re-homing volunteer from Poland. And thank to that, all the special needs dogs at the kennel are being exercised on a daily basis and chores are done much quicker.

While the weather is testing us like this the past few days, we have decided it was a perfect opportunity to work in detail on plans for this year´s racing season, the 2012 sponsoring program and -- our new website.

First of all, let me introduce new sponsor and partner of Kipp d´Amundsen Team - Blomyard.Se Kreativ Reklam.

This Strömsund based small business has a huge and flexible offer of advertising services, they print posters, prints, cards, stickers, business cards, brochures, design websites, etc. They will be giving a "face" to our dog truck and a proper presentation of our main sponsors on it :) Thank you so much Ylwa and team!

While we have updated the SPONSOR A DOG program, made actualization of the popular ADVERTISING and other sponsoring and support possibilities, we would also like to proudly announce, that we have teamed up with THE ANIMAL RESCUE SITE (partners of The Petfinder.Com) and HUSKY ADOPCJE (read this blog post) and while fundraising for our upcoming season, we´ll be as well fundraising and donating to these two great organisations to help animals in need.

We are very excited about these partnerships.

If you would like to see how you can help both - The Kipp d´Amundsen Team and dogs and cats in shelters, needing surgeries and medical treatments, while forever homes for them are being sought, please take a look here.

All this brings me to the final and one of the most exciting news - our new official website has been finally launched! A project we´ve been working on for the past year and never seemed to be able to finish it. A huge and grateful thank you to Martyna for the great and patient help (not only making great banners and other graphic work, but also for the care taking of the dogs while we slept after our 4:00 bed times the past three days)!!!

Jachym is still tweaking some details, but with no further due, here it is, the loved and hated final product, which I hope will serve you well in providing information about our dogs, kennel and happenings:

www.kippdamundsen.com

Please, also note not only the new website address, but also new email address, which you will find in the "contact" section.

Please be patient with us as we still have to develop couple of pages and some of the dogs´s presentations, which is fairly difficult with the heavy training underway.

Hoping to go out for a few longer runs in the upcoming days (the weather forecast promises some rain showers - aaaah, so "motivating"!)

Anyway, hope everyone´s safe and sound and here´s to all my fellow co-sufferers - Let´s all think SNOW!

Happy Trails!www.blomyard.se

World´s Toughest Athletes

2011-11-24T15:32:00.002Z

Run Naked...

Sleep on Snow...

Eat Raw Meat...

.... and LOVE the Sofa!!!

Have a great day, everyone and Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends!

Time to Give, Love and Share

2011-11-22T23:23:00.002Z

With the time of Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, it is naturally time to open hearts, to give and share and to think about the others.

As you may know from following us on Facebook, we happened to get into needing a temporary handler for several weeks. We were fortunate to get an experienced dog handler, dog person and a husky lover Martyna from Poland. And with her, we learned about the rescue and re-homing organisation for huskies, malamutes and other nordic breeds and their crosses, that she tirelessly and passionately devotes majority of her free time to.

In the modern world, there are more and more rescue and adoption organisations and it is great to see the efforts in many European countries getting more and more professional and successful in helping and re-homing siberian huskies and other sled dog breeds and their crosses.

But I must say I am impressed about the work of HUSKY ADOPCJE, that Martyna have helped to develop over the past four years.

They have strict rules about adoption families, whom they also visit and check after adoptions have been made. They have a number of foster homes (Martyna being one of them) and if they can´t find a foster home for a dog in need, they put strong efforts into financing a dog-hotel for the given dog, rather than keeping him or her in an over crowded shelter or in a bad life situation.

Besides rescue, fostering and adoption services, HUSKY ADOPCJE also works hard on educating the public about the specifics of nordic breeds and sled dogs. They have a public discussion forum and even their own team at sled dog races. One of the adoptive families just won several different classes at a local race with her rescued sibes this past weekend!

As any other rescue organisation, they of course do all kinds of fundraising projects and depend on virtual adoptions and sponsors.

I learned that in the past two yearsHUSKY ADOPCJE found forever homes to around 200 huskies and their crosses, some of which were besides Poland also in Germany, Italy or for example Norway.

In my family, we were brought up to help animals in need and always supported honest rescue efforts in one or other way.

Those who met Jachym and me know, that we are not afraid to say out loud our opinion of poor animal care or disrespect.

Jachym and I have personally started Siberian Husky Rescue in Czech Republic before we moved to Sweden. We have occasionally helped place siberians, malamutes and alaskans and our lives have been blessed by several great dogs from puppy mill breeders, abusive homes and even from the street, over the years. (in loving thoughts and memories to to Jerry, Danny, Adelaide and Holci). We know we all can always do more.

For us, this is a natural way of the heart and we can strongly recommend to everyone considering getting a perfect, loving, four-legged companion, to get a rescued/shelter or a stray dog!

I once came across a great quote, and I couldn´t agree with it more. It´s message is very clear:

If you breed - rescue. If you don´t breed - rescue anyway!

And if you can´t have a furry bundle of love at home for some reason, you can always help them by supporting a good, ethical and hard working rescue group!

I am so glad we found one like that in HUSKY ADOPCJE, and we look forward to supporting their efforts.

While we are raising funds for our 2012 race season, we will donate 10:-Swedish crowns (1EUR or 1,5USD) from each sold item from my Kipp d´Amundsen Art & Design collection of original hand painted ceramics, porcelain and cards.

Please visit Husky Adopcje´s website and learn how you can help (you can get the website translated to English via Google Translate). You can do as little as placing their banner on your website, you can virtually adopt one of the huskies waiting for the right home or help raise funds for medical care for those in need. Or perhaps you would like to give a loving, forever home to a furry friend, who would sweep you off your feet with his or her unconditional love...

Happy Thanksgiving and stay safe!

All photos in this article courtesy of www.huskyadopcje.pl

Recovery Day

2011-11-02T10:12:00.003Z

You probably wonder what this topic hides. There has been no injury for anyone of us at the kennel, that would require a recovery, so no worries!

What we reffer to as Recovery Day here at Kipp d´Amundsen Kennels is something we have developed for our dogs and us, based on certain needs and mostly philosophy.

It is a day off from hooking up and running. No mushing day. Now you will think why making such a deal out of it – simply a day off is a day off, right? Not really. Actually, the Recovery Day is something very far from not doing anything with the dogs and letting them just sleep and stay in their kennels and houses.

All the dogs get to run, stretch, play and socialize in the play yard, as usual, under our or our handlers´ supervision.

Our handler Sandra playing ball with the pack.

The main string, which this year counts 31 canine athletes for the time being gets to spend several hours with me and Jachym, while we play and run around with them, with every single action having a deeper meaning (stretching, checking overall condition, checking for harness rubs and sores, loosening muscles, socializing and strenghtening our bond, to name a few).

Here Dasher gets an overall check up, with a "bend for cookie" diagnostic method, as taught by sled dog specialist Jerry Vanek, DVM.

Each one of the dogs gets a thoroughfull check up, rehabilitation excercice of back and legs (what I call the „balance excercise“), stretching and brief massage of back and neck areas. This allows us to see if the dogs need any aditional treatments (such as thoroughul massage, performed inside, in warmth, Reiki healing, etc.) or adjustments (by a professional chiropractor).

Cuddle and stretch with Star.

Massaging Joey´s back and thies. His expression speaks for itself :)

When necessary, we take a dog into the dog kitchen to do massages and stretching in calmer and warmer environment. On the picture above, Grayling gets a thorough full massage of the back muscles, while on the picture below, we do the "balance excercise".

The next thing, and as popular among the furry athletes, as the massages and stretching, is what I call „trick-for-treating“ – doing tricks for treats, using the clicker training method, and teaching the dogs new tricks, upon their interest. This is something new at our kennel, that we have introduced this summer in cooperation with our former handler and very skilled dog trainer Kristyna. I already see some amazing changes and results on the dogs only after a few sessions and very basic work. But that will be a topic for another blog post some other day.

Sparky doing the "gimme-five" trick, while Magneto is watching.

The Recovery Days are a wonderful way for us to spend time with our beloved dogs in a totally different way than running them in team and working hard. It allows us to see them as individual beings, and mainly it allows them to BE JUST DOGS.

The oportunity of creating and enriching the bond between us is huge and nothing makes me smile more than seeing my happy dogs bouncing around in a harmony with each other, the sparks in their eyes and their doggy way of smiling at us, comming for a hug and belly rub or just to sit on the bench with us.

In the beginning of October we attended the sled dog symposium in Kiruna (which is also on my list of things to write about) and I was beyond happy to hear the speeches of Finnmarkslopet veteran and champion Roger Dahl and Yukon Quest/Iditarod veteran (YQ champion) Hans Gatt. Their lectures on dog care, relationship, respect and love of dogs not only made my day, and confirmed my philosophy of sled dog care, but inspired and motivated me and deepened the commitment of myself and our kennel to never stop reaching further and further in terms of care and devotion to our dogs.

There is always more we all can do for our dogs, folks!

Happy Trails!

Where did September go?

2011-09-27T22:15:00.000+01:00

Oh my, so much have happened in the past ten days, since my last blog post! Where to begin?! Let's use this entry to summarize the entire month a bit.

The Spices II are growing like weeds, they are sweet, cudly, noisy, cute and did I mention sweet? :)

We will be taking their weekly pictures today as it is their three weeks 'birthday'.

You can watch them grow, play and get sweeter and sweeter on the Kipp d'Amundsen PuppyCam, which my brilliant man Jachym installed on the occassion of their birth.

Although it's been an unusually warm September, we've been doing our best to stick to the schedulle and train the dogs as much as we can. We have full hands with 31 dogs currently in the main string and a bunch of yearlings and 'puppy coaches' in the so called puppy team. With several events undergo, where we are and will be attending with a sales booth of our sled dog internet shop, the entire human crew is super busy.

Thank goodness for a good kennel help and dog handler Kristyna, who helps with all possible chores as well as gives an extra attention to the retirees, known as the Kipp d'Amundsen Canine Senior Citizens, by letting them out to play in the dog yard every day and taking them for walks in the colorful autumn woods whenever chance arises. Unfortunately, her stay is closing on and she will be leaving in two weeks.

The Whiskies are a super lovely bunch, very affectionate, communicative and smart. They are now playing in the main dog yard regularly and the big dogs are getting used to them. Occassionally, the pups' favorite 'uncle' Cooper or other dogs play and socialize with them.
Unfortunately, our plans for more clicker and agility training have crashed with lack of time. Why aren't days 36 hours long??

Because of our head-over-feet situation, I have cancelled my planned trip with Jachym last week to the Swedish Siberian Husky Breed Specalty and then to Czech Republic in order to keep running dogs, taking care of the pups, garden, household and focus on some of the upcomming events.

Well, to say it as nicely as possilbe - things didn't quite go the way they should have... But that is a theme by itself for the next blog post...

And that about sums it up. Puppy pics and few more updates are on their way! Stay tuned and thanks for checking with us!

Happy Trails!

May I Present to You....

2011-09-18T13:03:00.001+01:00

THE SPICES II

The Spices II Puppy Name Challenge has it´s results finally!! We got a huge response from friends all over the world, sending in name suggestions and voting in the puppy name challenge poll. Huge thank you for all the lovely name ideas!

So, with no further due, let me present to you (in our traditional way of presenting - in order as they were born):

SUGAR Kipp d´Amundsen

JUNIPER Kipp d´Amundsen

PEPPER Kipp d´Amundsen

SAGE Kipp d´Amundsen

Sugar, Juni, Pepper and Sagey, as they are now known, have all opened their eyes by now and start exploring the world around them through other senses than just their super sensitive noses :)

They will celebrate their two-weeks birthday tomorrow night and have their "eyes open" pictures taken.

Thank you all once again for joining the Kipp d´Amunsen team in the very important task of puppy naming!

Happy Trails!

Puppy Name Challenge

2011-09-10T12:15:00.004+01:00

We are announcing the Puppy Name Challenge for our friends and fans!

But before I get to the rules, etc., let me explain a bit about the theme, chosen for Ginger and Iceman´s puppies.

This is litter was a semi surprise. The breeding between Ginger and Iceman happened in the begging of July and sine then, a lot of thoughts went through our minds. Thoughts like this is a cool linebreeding on our kennel´s foundation dog Buck and his wonderful son Nugget. And thoughts like but the breeding was very short and perhaps too early in Ginger´s heat. But as days and weeks went by and Ginger showed absolutely no signs of being pregnant, we felt that was it. So no wonder it came to us as a surprise, when, then about ten days before the delivery, her belly just looked larger one morning. And she ate like crazy.

Now getting into the core of this all is the fact that Ginger comes from a surprise litter we called the "Spice of Life". There were only two puppies there - Ginger and her brother Chilli, one of (if not the most) the most amaziing athletes of our kennel and my racing team.

And so it occured to us as a good idea, to follow in the footsteps of the surprise and create Spices II litter with Ginger x Iceman´s puppies now. After all, there are zillions of great spices out there and that will be up to you guys, to step in and help us find the best ones to name the little future sled dog athletes after them!

THE SPICES II NAME CHALLENGE
(poll will be posted on the sidebar as soon as we get name suggestions from you )
Rule nr.1. No Ginger or Chilli (we already have them)
Rule nr.2 Send your suggestions as a comment on this blog post and we´ll add them into the poll.
Rule nr.3 Click on the names on the poll, which you like the most (you can chose multiple names)
Rule nr.4 The four most popular names win!

Easy, right? Let´s have fun!

Live Broadcast from the Whelping Box

2011-09-10T11:53:00.001+01:00

I got a great birthday gift from Jachym this year. A webcam. And so we decided to make it a present for all our friends and fans of the Kipp d´Amundsen Siberian Huskies by installing it my office where Ginger and her her puppies reside.

From some reactions and interactions on Facebook, we can see you guys really enjoy it and it makes us happy to be able to share the growing of these little miracles, as they transform slowly into little future sled dogs.

So let us present to you the Kipp d´Amundsen Puppy Cam. Enjoy!

The Miracle of Life

2011-09-10T11:37:00.000+01:00

Our kennel had witnessed the miracle of life once again this year - during the night between Monday and Tuesday Sept.5-6th, Ginger gave birth to her first litter.

The first born was a girl, followed two hours later by a bit tough delivery of an unfortunately dead boy.
From then on, all went a lot smoother and another girl, then boy and finally a gril again were born without much trouble.

The second boy gave Jachym and I quite the chuckle, when he came out hind legs first - as soon as his tiny legs were out of his mom (while the rest of his body was still inside), he gave some seriuos kicking and even touching the ground, really helping as much as he could to get out and into the world! Quite thrilling and cool to witness.

The last girl was even funnier as she came head first. We first saw her little pink nose. Then half of her head was out and she was making all kinds of puppy sounds, not really screaming, but letting everyone aware of her presence. So cute!

So mom and all four babies are doing great and enjoying their first days of family life.

First born girl.. Cute as a button.

This is the second girl, the darkest one of the litter. She was rattling a bit the first day, as she had some water on her lungs, but we gave her a very close monitoring and made sure she´s warm and feeding all the tme and by the following night her breath was clear. She is doing well and gaining weight nicely.

This is the little guy who knows how and what to use his legs for :)

And puppy nr.4 - the girl who announced her arrival :)

And here´s the proud mama.

Tired, but happy and proud.

I just love the way the mama dogs instincitvely take everything under control. It gives a huge respect for my animals and all the living creatures.

And she sure knows how to look cute! :)

...and enjoy her motherhood.

Stay tuned and don´t forget to come back for updates! Happy Trails!

Agility and Clicker Training - aka The Adventures of Little Whiskies Continued.

2011-09-09T17:07:00.000+01:00

The summer has passed so quickly that one day we just noticed leafs turning yellow on trees. It was a good and intense, busy summer and we got a lot of things done and checked off the always long list.

We had lots of very nice guests and visitors from different countries and our last summer´s handler Adela came again to join the team.

I will try to make a post with photos and summary of the most important happenings.

I will also post some older news about the Whiskies (aka Galena x Nitro´s puppies) and pictures, which we have hundreds of and want to share them all with you!

And speaking of the Whiskies, let´s get to my today´s post!

So we got this new dog handler. Her name is Kristyna and happends to be a young, very talented dog trainer, using combined positive training methods. We are so fortunate to have her here (the only down part is that she could come only for a month and a half) and that she agreed to show us some training methods and working with the Whiskies a bit.

First we started off with clicker training. We got so far only to four lessons, but given the terrible rainy weather and the fact that we are already in the full swing of fall training, it´s actually not that bad. Especially when seeing such progress on the puppies!

And yesterday, while the sun was finally shining for a while, we took out the agility hurdles finally!

The puppies had a blast and during one session that took us a bit over an hour, they all learned to go through the tunnel, follow us to and from it and got introduced to the slalom. And just because "why not" we also tought them to lay down, come and other little things.

The Whiskies are in heaven, they already learned to watch for us comming with the treat bucket and they already know fun is on it´s way!

They also start shaping up real nicely and watching them react to the clicker, learning obedience and agility basics, I get a more whole picture of their little personlities. It´s actually fun, as those things I thought about each one of them, also show up and confirm while Kristina or I work with them.

I am so happy we got to finally start working with the dogs on another level, which I´ve been wanting, talking about and aiming for, for a long time!

Stay tuned for more adventures and progress of the Whiskies! And since it is exactly four months since they were born, today, Happy Birthday to you - little, special guys!

JB grabs the octopuss all time favorite toy as she passes through the tunnel.

JB getting familiar with the slalom.

JB sits patiently. She can do also "stay" and "down".

JB follows Kristyna to the tunnel

Playful Jim carries a toy through the tunnel.

Serious and foccused Johnnie learning the "tunnel" and comming on call, using the clicker method.

Dog Handler Wanted - Starting October 2011

2011-08-29T09:33:00.001+01:00

We are seeking kennel help/dog handler for this season, starting beginning of October.

For more information, please read our previous post about kennel help.

Want to learn what a life in the nordic wilderness, with a pack of 50 siberian huskies, looks like? Want to learn how to take care of mid/long distance racing sled dogs? Seek life in nature and tranquility?

Then this is an opportunity for you!

Conquering the Vattudalen (and Becomming a True Northerner)

2011-07-29T10:30:00.002+01:00

There are many things I have promissed myself to do and acomplish, from seemingly small tasks to meaningful goals and true challenges.

Swimming in the 140km long, 80m deep Vattudalen, that runs through highlands and mountain valleys, being born between the rocks of Frostviken mountains, was one of them.

Not that we never took a swim in it before, we actually go in on a number of occassions, mostly in the company of couple of our dogs, but then we are talking about the "ancle" or "knee" dive.

In 2008 our area experienced a heatwave, when the temperatures wouldn´t drop under +25 / 30°C for about two weeks and then we dared to sink in completely for couple of minutes.

Last summer Adela and I made a few walks with the dogs down to the Flakanässet lagoon and I enviously watched the huskies taking a swim and playing cheerfully in the water.

This year I decided it was my turn to have fun as well!

And since yesterday we all did (Jachym, Adela and I) and we swam and swam, and I realized that I don´t actually mind the cold water at all and that I want to be back again and again, I believe that it´s been a clear sign - we have become the real, true northerners finally! :)

Just look at those happy faces:

Jachym gave me a charming smile. (Ok, I don´t know if that´s because he finally was allowed to leave the water and was bound for his can of beer, but he smiled and posed for the camera, and that counts :))

Adela also! She was very brave and stayed in with me quite long. I guess the former aquabella swimmer calls even the cold water home :)

When we came down to the lake, we saw a fisherman in his boat. After watching us for a while, he aproached us and we realized it´s one of our very few permanent neighbours Kurt. He seemed to be smiling with an expression of aproval. Perhaps in his eyes, we are now finally accepted among the Northerners too! :)

He showed us a full load of his evening catch and insisted we take couple of the beautiful fish.

So today´s lunch will be fresh fish with butter and herbs, grilled on open fire, with potatoes and salad.

I love my life in the North!

So, since I love challenges and living my promises, I have already set another goal. I will swim in Vattudalen every summer, no matter what the weather.

And because I consider myself a Northerner, I have to keep living up to that honorable title. So next on the agenda: Take a Swim in Stor Ringsjön lake in the foothills of Frostviken mountains. And a bath in the Hellingsåfallet waterfall channel is in order too!

Happy Trails!

The Strength of Body and Mind

2011-07-27T09:57:00.005+01:00

I would like to dedicate this post to all those people in my life, who inspire me, believe in me and love me for who I am.

It is easy to motivate and inspire, when one feels great, both physically and mentally. But the true inspiration is when it comes from a tired body and mind.

Today is such a day. Today I feel the need to motivate and inspire myself more, than on a bright sunny day when everything seems to go your way smoothly.

I am writing this post in order to not just share a few experiences of mine, thinking it may hit the reader who will realize they are experiencing the same, but also to motivate and remind myself. And hoping to perhaps motivate someone else in need.

I could actually write loads of stories, or even a book on the subject of my life experience of the strength (and weakness) of my own body and mind.

I went from dreaming a dream, to following it, to getting off the path, to finding it again and holding onto it with all I´ve got. I also went from a happy, idealistic myself to a depressed, nerveous breakdown suffering and gaining over 100 pounds not a happy camper, who brought on herself a number of health issues, with a result of one permanent metabolism disorder.

I can talk of the deep dark corners of my mind and shadows over my fragile, optimistic soul, which kept sending the tiny voice to my heart and up my throat, whispering "you can do it".

Tell a body that has over 100 pounds of extra weight, consisting of cumulated stress and pain, to do the things the strong soul and heart tell it to do. It is nearly impossible, or, realisticly said, it is not possible at some moments.

And that´s where the strength of mind comes in. Without it, one won´t make that first step to move forward with one´s aching body. You are limited. But yet, the mind is limitless. You just have to engage it. And be very patient.

No matter how well trained the body is, without an engaged, strong mind, it will get you nowhere. That is a pure fact, which I am experiencing on a daily basis.

Let me tell you, nothing makes the body more tired, than a tired mind!
What to do? Actually, many things. One of them is to eliminate those, who make your mind tired, from your life. Sounds cruel? No, it isn´t. Not in my books. I have experienced so many downs, just because I let people drain me out of energy.

Keep surrounded by those who not only inspire you, but who want to be in your life, who apreciate and respect you. I used to think how hard it would be, but then one day, I realized that I have only one life and if I want to follow my dreams and reach the point where my body and mind will be equally strong, there is no time to waste, surrounded by those who pull you down.

Another thing I am experiencing is not as philosophical. If you can only push yourself over that feeling of exhaustion (which, as explained above, is often caused by tired mind), and actually do something physical, you will again feel that you´re back on track.

Purely biologically, it of course has a lot to do with the endorfine hormones (called the "hapiness hormones"), that get released after a physical workout. But I like to think that it is once again the strength of the mind (and soul) that wins over.

Just like the jin and jang, it seems to be a closed circle of dependance on each other. The body and the mind (and soul). Hand in hand.

And although it may evoke the question "what was first - chicken or egg?", I dare to say: Start with the mind. Find the strength of your mind first and the body will follow.

And I believe everyone can find it within themselves. You just need to look deep inside you and be true to yourself. Because if you are, you will set yourself on a journey to explore the other you, the inner you, and you´ll be surprised at that meeting!

And to be true to my words and myself, here´s what I did right after I wrote this post. Keep smiling (and moving)! :-)

Happy Trails!

Mind is a Mischievous Place

2011-07-20T13:33:00.001+01:00

In Loving Memory to You, Canuck, I Miss You So.

Today I did my morning workout, hoping to return to this daily routine again after a while. It´s been my first workout since we lost Canuck and I subconsciously feared the day I will return to this, once favorite routine. My subconsciousness was right that it will be hard.

I pulled out the mat, on which I´ve sweated for months without a single day off, Canuck laying by my side, sometimes "helping" me out by standing above my sweating body as I did push ups, sometimes poking me with his paw and sometimes just laying beside the mat, curled up, satisfied with just being near. As soon I was done with whatever excercises were done on the mat, he would open his eyes, take a good long yawn, stretch out and lay on the mat.

I used the mat also on his very last journey, to give him comfort in the car, during the mad night drive to the vet emergency in desperate try to save his life, while his heart was failing him.

I worked out hard today on that mat and listened to some of my favorite motivational songs, while sweatting my butt off. It was a good workout.

Somewhere in the middle of it, tears started to roll down my face and acompanied the sweat. I felt Canuck´s presence so strong that I found myself turning around to the carpet under the coffee table to check if I won´t see my boy curled up, his nose dove in his foxy tail, checking up on me with one eye open. He wasn´t there, but I could somehow see him clearly and remembered every little detail about him and I could feel the touch of his soft paw on my hand.

The mind is a mischievous place, let me tell you. It can make the soul dance, or shake with fear, or laugh or cry. Memories of all the tiny little details are stored in there somewhere, in it´s farthest corner, and then pop out once you lay your eyes on something, or do something that make the memory connection.

As I said, it was a good work out. It was probably one of my best so far. Although it brought emotional pain, which I was so long expecting and fearing (and avoiding).

And I will work out again tomorrow, and the day after. I will not fear my mischievous mind anymore and will store all the good memories. The daily morning workout will remain something that was and always will be "just ours". Moments that will help me reflect on how much I not only loved this little dog, but will remind me of how much I love all of my dogs, my life with them and why do I choose to sweat every day.

There are other things I feared and avoided, for the same reason, but I believe I am ready to face them now.

Acompanied with the spirit of my beloved dog, and the knowing that my aching heart and soul are now ready for the mischief of my mind, I am one step closer to moving on.

A Big Milestone

2011-07-10T18:48:00.001+01:00

When we were going on our annual trip to Czech Republic this past May, I was deciding what to pack and couldn´t find the right kind of wind and water proof, light jacket. My eyes spoted the favorite red, but... oh, well, that one I could last fit three years ago, before my health and condition took the final downward curve, leading me to changing a lot in my life.

Since many of you know, I have lost a considerable amount of weight since then, so baring that in mind, I dared to try the jacket on. Just in case. You know.

Imagine the feeling when I found out I could actually fit it on, meaning I can actually zip it. Ok, it was tight, but I could wear it and voala - problem what to pack against rain and wind was solved!

Fast forward to this past Wednesday.

I was in a need of wearing my favorite red jacket again. Knowing I can actually zip it, I felt happy and then! Well, then imagine the surprise when I found out I can not only zip it up, but it is lose around my body, both pockets easly zipped up too!!!

I jumped on the scale the very next morning (I always weigh myself at the same time) to find out another 7 pounds are down!

And that brings me to the title of this post. I have actually reached another milestone. With these seven pounds burned into muscles, energy or whatever else, but definitely gone from my fat reserves, I have crossed a round number of my weight the only right direction! :)

A number I can last remember being under more than five years ago Maybe six. I can´t even remember. A number I´ve been battling with for months, a number that was seemingly impossible to get under (and over with).

I know my weight still has quite a few of such round numbers to pass, but I know now that equipped with patience, determination and persistance, I will reach the next milestone. And then the next one. Until I reach my goal. And the victory will be sweet! It already feels great!

So if you´re battling similarly, I have a message for you. It is possible. It can be done. Just go ahead and do something. Be a doer. It´s so much worth it!

And here´s a little bit of whisdom and motivation for you:

Love, Hugs and Happy Trails!

Very Scary Things

2011-07-04T10:06:00.000+01:00

Maybe some of you remember the story of the pig ear. It isn´t on the blog, but in the news archive on our website.

The story of the spooky, suspicious pig ear, that haunted Krtek during her teen age became one of our "Halloween Classics".

Once in a while, we like to forget we live on a very tight budget and buy the dogs a bag of pig ears (thank goodness to whomever thought to pack the bags with exactly 50 pig ears! They must´ve had our kennel in mind!).

Anyway, one day we came home from shopping and brought the furries a bag of pig ears. They all went crazy, because they all love pig ears.

Well, all, but one. When I threw the pig ears into the pen where Krtek and Snowy lived, they jumped up in the air and backed out from those stinky, suspicious things. It was hilarious and I almost peed my pants laughing. They both carefully (and I mean really CAREFULLY) investigated around the laying pig ear, and very gently aproached it, just on their tipy-toes, ready any second to run for their lives, if that partially hairy, smelly thing decides to attack.

As the braver (and crazier) one, Snowy took charge and showed some real courage and character. She went on to "kill" that thing first, and when she made sure it´s really dead, she decided to eat it. I really nearly peed.

Krtek decided that day that it was too much for her and wouldn´t touch the offending intruder.

It took around couple of years before she finally decided to follow her sister´s example and any time she´d get a pig ear, she´d make sure that she killed it properly before she would eat it.

Only about a year ago, I finally saw her "going for it" and eating it right away, just like the other (normal) dogs.

This story reminds me of all the crazy antics the siberian huskies have and what I actually love about them so much. They have so much dignity and are real aristocrats among the sled dogs. But they have their craziness and character, so typical for their breed.

The story of the spooky pig ear is just one of dozens that we experience with our dogs, by sharing our lives with this big pack.

Once, when we still lived in Czech Republic, Darky went on to bark like crazy one late evening. We kept going to the kennel and couldn´t quite figure out what seemed to be the problem. We simply found nothing suspicious. Until we finally realized, she barked at a very suspicious piece of plastic foil, that was wrapped around some stuff to protect it from rain. It´s been there for ages and we couldn´t quite figure out why would Darky decide it was an "immediate danger" right that time. But she was convinced about it´s evilness and all we could do was to remove it, otherwise she´d wake up the whole neighbourhood.

I came to think of these stories today, when our handler Adela and I were doing some chores in the kennel, while all the dogs were running lose and playing in the yard. Suddenly, they all went into a frenzy. They barked with the typical suspicious tone, hysteria breaking out and fear with frustration going from one dog to another. I thought some stranger arrived at the gate, or a some big animal apeared. They were all staring towards the garden and house, so I went to check it. It was Jachym, carrying a big wooden latter. Yup, my brave, rough-tough sled dogs got freaked out by Jachym and a latter.

Silly dogs! Gotta love them all!

Of Rainbows and the Skies

2011-07-02T22:50:00.002+01:00

Couple of days ago, I got to see one of the most beautiful rainbows ever.

A full arch, double rainbow, where the top bow was lighter and somewhat "foggier", while the bottom one was incredibly strong, powerful, displaying all it´s colors fully, and with a tiny, tiny mini little rainbow right underneath is! It looked like it´s baby.

The pictures don´t do it any justice at all, but I am glad I was able to capture it at tall.

And minutes later, the golden sun rays sparked through the clouds, to tell the world it´s the end of another day.

There´s something about rainbows and skies.

It´s not just that I like rainbows, but they are magical and powerful and nostalgical too. They´ve alwys evoked the feeling of certain melancholy and sadness in me, but at the same time brought a smile to my face. Like a sad, true story movie with a good end. I know, sounds probably wierd. But I can´t describe it better.

One thing´s for sure. I do love rainbows. And sunsets. And watching the skies. It gives me feeling of belonging to this huge, wast universe, being a tiny little partical that belongs into this large, colorful mozaic called life.

And every time I watch the skies, no matter if for a rainbow, the silent snow flakes, a beautiful sunset, or the silver shiny stars on a black velvet of a winter night, I think of my dogs and close people present and past. And I feel the connection to them all at once. The connection of our spirits across the space, right here and right now.

Peace, Love and Happy Trails!

While It Lasts

2011-06-28T10:09:00.002+01:00

While the weather is cooperative and brings us some cool mornings, we enjoy taking the dogs out for a run almost every day.

Mixing the youngsters with the experienced is very nice and I can see how fast they are learning from the pros :) I also can see a bit more of their potential as they run in the big 16 dog team and experience different things on the trail. Spring mushing is definitely about the yearlings.

But while saying that, I would like to express what I feel when I work and communicate with the dogs that were the core of my racing team this past winter. It is very hard to explain, though. We became closer than ever. We experienced snowstorms and bad weather, and trailbreaking, moon lit runs, overflow, exhausting all day-all night lasting trips, camping out, I´ve massaged their sore wrists, half asleep at a camping spot, cooked soup for them by melting snow in the trail cooker, snuggled on a bunk bed of a cabin shelter. We experienced scratching from a race, and beating a few alaskan husky teams on another one, a forty bellow sprint to the finish line in second place, we helped other teams out in the mountains in a wind storm. The bond created becomes magical. And unbreakable. And I feel almost sad that this intesity has come to an end for this season.

All the dogs are mixed together in two different teams we take out for as long run as weather and their condition allows. And I keep thinking already of the next season. Because this kind of experience is one of the biggest wealth in my life.

But for now, it is around 30 furry kids to work with, to bond and prepare for the upcomming fall and winter.

So while the weather lasts, let´s rock and roll down the trails!

Rapid checking out how we prepare the after training drink.

Watering the team with our special after training drink upon arrival.

Good dogs!

Cooking Outside

2011-06-28T01:24:00.000+01:00

I love cooking outside! And whenever there is oportunity, I try to use it.

This was our Beltaine dinner and consisted of stir fried vegetable mix of fresh zuchini, yellow and red bell peppers, onions, potatoes and garlic. Lots of garlic! And of course of moose steaks, marinated in soy sauce, garlic, olive oil, red wine and some bbq sauce.

The secret to a good outdoors prepared meal is the temperature, not too high or too low flames underneath the pan and a good pan. We use the traditional Scandinavian outdoor pan called Muurikka.

Nothing tastes better than a moose steak with veggies made on open fire, eaten under the stars and in company of howling huskies.

Bon Apetit!

The Störsjön Lake

2011-06-28T00:50:00.002+01:00

A quiet place of tranquility, only half a mile from our door step. Jachym´s favorite pike fishing spot. Beautiful any time of the year.

Enjoy the silence and raw beauty of this little, hidden wilderness lake.

Breath deeply. Feel the fresh air? Hear the fish splashing as they hunt early insects? I would´t change places and moments like this for anything. This is my wealth and my home.

Mastering the Baking Job

2011-06-28T00:19:00.001+01:00

As the days get longer and the racing season´s over, our attention turns to food. And to baking, to be more specific.

I love it how Jachym and my roles are devided in this matter. Not by a thought out decision, but strictly by our desire and interest.

I am usually the lunch/dinner master. Jachym takes care of the more "complicated" breakfasts. I do the baking of pies, cakes, muffins and other similar goodies. Jachym masters the breads and other salty delis.

Here´s an example of his one day´s impulse and inspiration:

These are salty sour dough bread sticks with caraway.

The "Farm House" breads with sunflower seeds.

And two loafs of rye sour dough.

I am a fortunate woman!

Happy Trails!

Frosty Morning

2011-06-27T23:53:00.000+01:00

April 23d. We´ve had lovely sunny days lately and even some pretty warm mornings. But not today. Just have a look!

This is what I found on the ATV this morning, before going to run dogs. It was nice and cold!

So today´s team was another blend of veteran dogs with some rookies and yearlings. Actually, we had a lot of young dogs on this team. Good thing I tend to follow my gut feeling and took Jachym along.

Actually, the mostly young team of 16 dogs ran pretty smoothly and nicely lined up. Here we are, buzzing through Vedjeon. We even met a few folks, standing outside their houses, waving at us. They came for the Easter holidays and it was nice and warming as usual, to meet our neighbours, only if they are here just a few days here and there. We waved our good mornings to them as the young team passed neatly by.

We stopped for our obligatory ditch drink and bath. Here are Joey and Granite, taking a sip.

Today´s leaders were Ziggi and Skittles and they did a real nice job.

Up in the woods by Flykojan cabin, most of the puddles and ditches had a layer of ice, which looked really beautiful in the morning sun.

The Flykojan creek can be heared when you get near, but this time it was a roaring, rushing stream, which was very tempting to take pictures of, so we used this spot for one of the watering breaks today.

We hopped over the fallen spruce again, and the yearlings didn´t make any fuss about it.

Up by the Spjutviken lake cabin, which is the halfway point of this 13km loop, was still a lot of snow. Wet and mushy, it was a perfect spot for the dogs´ favorite cool off roll. We stayed for a few minutes to praize each dog thoroughully and to catch a few sun rays and get some color in our faces. What a nice difference this is from busy race training.

Boogie down the hill is my team´s favorite entertainment. This piece of forrest is just 500m from the kennel and the speed the dogs develop over here, even against a pretty low gear, is amazing.

And commin´ home!

It was a good run, although a bit warm toward the end.

Off to have some lunch.

Happy Trails!

The Easter Bunny Cookie Idea

2011-06-27T21:11:00.002+01:00

The Easter Bunny Cookie idea came with our urge to bake something typical for the Easter holidays. Something that would be simple and we had no desire to look for new recipes.

This brilliant idea is actually Jachym´s, so all credits to him. It´s always the idea, that counts.

What he did was the simpliest thing - he used the recipe for traditional christmas cookies and cut them with a bunny cookie cutter. I know, nothing to win a nobel prize, but a fast, tasty and decorative.

I even hung a few on the birch branches that I decorate the house with every spring.

Wtih a cup of nice hot tea, eaten outside while the sun is shining, they were extra good!

And we even made a chocolate version, by adding a few spoons of coacoa in the batter. Yummy!

Let me know if you´d like to have the recipe, I can post it if anyone´s interested.

Happy Trails...,erh...I mean Happy Easter!

When You Say: Spring Clean Up

2011-06-27T17:29:00.000+01:00

The weather has been good lately, sun and wind helping with the drying of all the melted snow. Just perfect time for spring clean up.

Our spring cleaning is far, far from washing windows and throwing away old stuff and such things. We are kind of "beyond" that. Around here, everything pretty much evolves around the dogs.

Anyway, what have we been up to lately. Let me think. Yes, I got sick. Actually, Jachym got sick and I got sicker. It turned out to be a nasty stomach bug. No pictures of that. Hope you are glad about that. You should be!

So while I was sick, suffering in my bed and watching Desperate Housewives and the last season of my favorite Cold Case, the guys (Misa, Jachym and Nardo) did the first portion of the kennel spring clean up.

Which involves also high preassure water cleaning of the kennels. (See up).

Jachym and Nardo also built the last three new roofs in the puppy kennels and we just have to wait for some real nice sunny and windy day and find the time to paint all nice and red.

I am not sure if Magpie was supervising or just being in the way, but she sure got her attention and ended up with Misa´s hat. She looks like a Russian czarevna. Not Misa, Magpie.

Nope, this is not a new doggy swimming pool we´ve been building. This is a huge, deep, enormous puddle of melted snow, which is there because this is the lowest spot in the dog yard and water runs in that spot every time we have a heavy rain or spring breakup.

We raked gazillions of straw from the dog lots and kennels and collect it all on this pile, which creates a cute little island in the middle of the puddle. Now, isn´t that pretty? No, it´s not, actually!

We also finally started working on the dog kitchen again. The guys insulated the ceiling in the freezer room (hallelujah!) and now we are waiting for the floor mat guy, who typically has no time for us for the next century or so.

Speaking of the dog kitchen, it´s comming along real well, don´t you think?

I am not sure what to read from Nardo´s expression here, but sure thing is that he did build some shelfs in there and it all looks real nice. Gotta take some pictures of it later.

This is me, cutting some floor mat. Let me tell you, I wouldn´t wanna be putting that mat in the entire room. We´ll really have to wait another century for the floor guy!

See? I wasn´t kidding. Nardo did make some nice shelves in the dog kitchen, inspected by Misa :)

Oops. Don´t know how this got here. It shows the hard life of a dog handler and dog musher and anyone who lives remote in the woods and has to work hard to earn one´s bread.

Hey, we gotta practice shooting to be able to protect the household from bears and such! Ok, you didn´t buy that, did you?.

And finally, the real messanger of spring - the Bucket Day!

Bucket Day means a lot of things and to us, it´s like an official day that we think should definitely be consdered to be put in the calendar. It would be called something like "International Bucket Day".

Bucket Day (you see, I even write it with capital letters!) is a day that ends the early morning feeding slavery and brings color to the dog yard. It also brings aditional work of refilling the dogs´ water and socializing with the dogs in a different way.

So this is roughly the idea of a typical spring clean up over here.

Be safe and happy trails!

My Sixteen Mates, Face to Face

2011-06-27T15:32:00.002+01:00

People post pictures of their dog teams and that is what you will most often get, when you visit a dog musher´s blog.

But I like to show the guys not just in action, but sort of "face to face", so you can see their happy faces, either during a break on the trail, or once we´ve arrived home.

For certain reason, you won´t see many individual shots of the dogs prior a run. It´s simple. You won´t most likely even recognize their faces. It would look somewhat like those of Bravo in this post.

So, let´s meet face to face with my today´s team:

Leaders. Tazlina and Rapid, grinning from ear to ear. Even if they are standing in a huge puddle of melted snow. Or maybe because of that :)

Just grinning.

On today´s run, I combined some of the main string racing dogs, with some more and less experienced dogs. Here is Huggy Bear (right) with Lucky, who is a yearling.

Say hi: Runner (right) and Nitro. Two happy-go-lucky boys.

Half brothers Sparky (left) and Nugget. I know, Nugget is not playing the face to face game. Sorry about that.

Chilli (right) and Goosak. Goosak is a sibling of Nugget and as you can see, whatever his bro is up to, he can´t stay behind. So much for the face to face intro. It´s really not that easy with these guys, they have their own (and very strong) minds. True personalities.

Hawky (left) and Frostie. I have to defend good ole Frostie here. The sun was shining into his eyes. Right, Frostie?!

Misa (the scary lookin´ dog on the left) and Star. No wonder Star turned her head away. I would too.

Mommy´s smiley girl! Meet Snowy. And to her right is one of the yearling stars Chisana. Look for big things from her in the future. I am not kidding this time.

Rizing superstar Rapid. Another sweet, smiley dog and such an incredible character. Not mentioning her working abilities.

And that´s about it for today. Sorry I don´t have any crazy or scary or heroic stories to share. Just the love of dogs.

Happy Trails!

Our Kennel in Dog Media

2011-06-27T01:25:00.002+01:00

Sometime in the middle of the race season I received an interesting email.

We were aproached by the chief editor of a new Czech canine magazine called DOGS Magazin.

They wanted to do a presentation of our kennel in their spring issue, where the Siberian Husky breed was featured.

We felt very honored and agreed to write a bit about our dogs, our working and breeding philosophy and send a few pictures to chose from.

How nicely surprised we were, when couple months later we received not just the latest issue, but we found out a whole 2 full pages were dedicated to our kennel and dogs and all our pictures were published!

Even a code with a link to our You Tube channel was there! Wow!

I have to say I was really surprised also by the beautiful graphic design and modern features of the whole magazine. Very professionally done and good reading!

Make sure to check your news stand for the DOGS Magazin!

Just Sixteen of My Best Friends and I

2011-06-27T00:28:00.001+01:00

This is an older post from April 18, 2011, which I had no time to upload until now. Enjoy!

When you see pictures like this on my blog, you can be certain of one thing. The snow season is over.

But no regrets or nostalgy; the temps are cool in the mornings and the dogs are always up to some fun, no matter if it´s on snow or in mud!

It was a beautiful, sunny day and my sixteen buddies and I had a great time and a great run.

Here they are, my heroes, marching up the main road through the tiny village of Vedjeön.

Having a little drink from the ditch alongside the road, to cool off, and then Tazlina and Rapid took the team back up the road on my command.

When we got to the Spjutviken bridge and connection to the forrest road, I had a little surprise waiting for the dogs -- snow on the trail! They loved it and we had a little break there so everybody could roll in the fast dissapearing white gold they all love so much.

Taz and Rapid NEVER look the same way when I take pictures. What kind of silly game is that, girls?!

And up into the wilderness by the Spjutviken lake cabin.

Taking a 90 degree angle quite nicely.

Rollin´ down the hill towards home, after turning at the halfway point.

Oops, a fallen dead black spruce on the trail. No problem, the girls took the team around it nicely.

Here the team is crossing by half gone road. The spring breakup was so strong that it created a powerful stream of snow, melting and rushing down the mountains, taking half of the forrest road with it.

Good job, guys! The dogs didn´t even blink once, just passed by without fuss. What huge difference I see on the team over the past few years. They became confident, tough and brave dogs with nerves of steel. I am so proud of them.

Little bit of soft, muddy surface is good for the feet.

Arriving home after a great 10 mile run. Good dogs!

Jack and his Mom

2011-06-26T22:16:00.001+01:00

Jack, the tiniest of the Whiskies, is an agile little buddy. He was one of the first, to brave and master the latter and the "scary" hight of the dog house entrance. With his mama by his side, everything goes with a smile!

The Storm

2011-06-26T21:22:00.002+01:00

Here is the story why we were out of contact with the world for several days, some of you´ve been wanting to hear:

It started out as a nice, sunny day.

We moved the Whiskies out to start living their outdoor life in the kennel.

The past few days we´ve been experiencing tropical heat of temperatures reaching up to 31°C in the shade and although it was great for all my gardening projects and plans, it´s been tiring, making us unable to work very hard physically. It even chased Jachym and Ake out of the woods, where they were cutting wood for this winter.

So it was one of those hot days. But something wasn´t right. The mosquitos were extra agressive and the sun was pinching a lot. A sign of weather change.

And soon enough, we spoted heavy dark clouds moving fast over the lake.

We´ve learned from experience of living in the woods that when clouds like this hang over the mighty Vattudalen lake, it can mean anything. It can just pass by, but it can also come and stay right here, above our property. In such cases, we are stuck, because the weather won´t change as the lake holds it above it´s waters and the mountains to the west will not let it leave the valley. That would be the worst scenario and a reason why often, when we get bad weather, it stays for a while.

But these fast moving steel gray clouds did not look good. The thunders, echoing over the lake, got louder and louder and we could see very frequent lightnings. Whatever storm was comming our way, it was going to be a big one.

I am really glad we live our life as self sufficiently as possible and I am happy we´ve learned to take care of ourselves pretty decently, living the rugget outdoor lifestyle so remote and far from civilization, we do. Because what came needed to be treated calmly and wisely.

First the rain came. Since it was large, heavy drops, I knew it was not going to be a nice summer rain.

First I called out Jachym and Misa to come help me pick up all the puppies and Galena, because there was no way these guys are going to stay outside in this kind of storm. It took just couple minutes. We managed to get the last two puppies in, in a heavy rain. Within minutes of the rain pouring in what looked like heavy chains, we heard the drumming of something a lot harder. Hail!

Jachym ran out and I shouted at him to get back in. He said he was going to hide the most fragile flowers and plants. Brave man, he did save them indeed!

As soon as he got in, I told everyone to gather water in canisters and buckets, and started cooking lunch, hoping the electricity won´t go off before we eat something warm.

By this time the thunders roared above our heads and it was pitch black outside, only with the occassional flash of a lightning and as soon as the food was done, the electricity went off. It jumped back on immediately and we saw the lights blinking.

Jachym and I looked at each other and we simultaneously said: "let´s turn the computers off".

And then it happened. Misa and I stood in the kitchen and we saw this cracking light. It was like staring into the sun, or as if a bulb on a lamp explodes, acompanied by a loud explosive sound. Baaaang!

Right by the kitchen table. We jumped into the air.

But the lights were still on, although they were suspiciously blinking.

My inner sense took over and I told Jachym to immediately turn off the main fuse box for the whole household. All went silent and dark and we lit a candle in the kitchen, were we all stayed with Galena and the puppies.

The lightnings had a parade right above our house and I prayed they won´t decide to come down the tall larch tree by our kitchen window or the huge spruce by the dog lot.

I told Misa about our emergency evacuation plan. If the storm would cause a fire, all the dogs would need to be loaded into the dog truck and trailer and evacuated from here.

We also prepared the fire extinguisher and I gave instructions to not use water in case of fire from the electric cables. We´ve never been in such situation before, but I sure was glad to be prepared, knowing what the system and steps would be.

Things calmed down for some minutes so we decided to eat our meal. But as we set down by the table, the same light, this time looking like a round ball, showed up right by the table and banged even louder than the first time.

"It´s in the phone line!" I shouted. Since there was no signs of fire starting around the phone, Jachym carefully disconnected it from the plug. We immediately smelled the burned plastic. The phone was fried. Jachym checked also the modem and the router, which were switched off, but connected to the phone. Also fried. The lightning found it´s way through our phone line connection to the house and smashed into the phone, destroying everything that was connected to it. Imagine if we were trying to call someone in that time!!!

We were also closely monitoring the kennels and dog yard. Almost all the dogs were in their houses. Only a few were so stressed that they ran in and out, and Comet refused to go inside her house, after the biggest thunder shook the whole property. She was soken wet, her tail between her legs.

As soon as the storm seemed to be over, Jachym went out and put her in one of the kennels, protected by roof. She still refused to go inside the dog house, but at least wasn´t getting even more wet.

As I predicted, the storm stayed in the valley, forced by the mountains from one side and the lake from the other side. It literally hung over our heads for 2 hours.

When it was finally over, we went out to check the dogs again and called our neighbours to see if their land lines were also dead. But their lines were fine! It was just our own connection line that got hit!

I´ve experienced some huge thunderstorms in my life and generally am not afraid of them, but this one was the scariest of all!

Hope everyone´s safe, whatever part of the world you live in. Stay safe and happy trails!

P.S. For obvious reasons, there are no photos to acompany this blog post :)

Moving Outside

2011-06-26T20:04:00.003+01:00

The Whiskies moved out into their puppy kennel today.

I asked them what they thought about it and because they are smart puppies, they told me to take pictures of them for you to see their expressions.

What smart puppies we have. It turned out to be a great idea and I think you can tell all from their happy little faces.

This is what Jamie thinks.

and what Jameson thinks.

Little Jack says: "Iz good with mom"

This is what Galena has to say. She was honestly the happiest camper of all, about going back to her outdoor life.

Jack: "like I sayz, iz good, man!"

Honestly, I never see him complain about anything.

Jamie said: "When I can have my toys and my shells and my flowers, AND my Moomin, I´m fine".

Just kidding. She didn´t say that. She doesn´t know who Moomin is. And she doesn´t collect shells. It´s just too tempting, seeing her expression. I think I saw too much Moomin episodes. Sorry about that.

Jack: "Izzzzz gooooood, mon!!!"

Happy campers.

Sleepy, happy campers...

Just look at those cute, tiny puppy feet! Hard to imagine those same feet will cover miles and miles of wilderness trails some day.

Johnnie Boy: "Yup, iz good!"

After playin´ hard session, drinking session, photo session and an afternoon snack, the Whiskies have aproved of their new home. No complaints whatsoever.

Happy Trails!

Exploring the Outdoors

2011-06-26T19:23:00.001+01:00

The weather had been quite bad lately. Rainy and stormy and we always made an excuse to not move the puppies out permanenty because of that.

So we let them out for their outdoor experience as weather and time allows.

Misa is trying to soak in as much puppy energy and sweetness before she´s leaving in a few days. She´s sure gonna miss her favorite baby princess as she calls JB. And we will surely miss her!

So what you see below is little Jack, just beating Mr.Platypuss to the cup of my morning coffee. Or at least he thinks that he beat him to it, because he doesn´t know that Mr.Platypuss is plush and plush platypusses don´t drink coffee. Not even from the magic cup that reads "Iditarod - Alaska".

Jack believes that drinking from the magic cup will make him grow up big and strong and become Iditarod sled dog one day. Hey, gotta dream big, right, little fella?!!

Little JB is not only pretty and cute and cheaky, but fearless, curious and fast. Gotta have at least one like that in every litter! :)

On an expanded exploring mission the gang opted to follow the leader (and in this case also their mother). Smart little puppies!

And of course, snuggling with their human "dad" isn´t bad either. Aaaah, and what do I see? Dady´s girls JB and Jamie. What´s it with girls and dads anyway? I sure don´t know, I am too busy with my boys..

See? This is a devoted dog handler!! Anyone who wants to work at our kennel - see this! You might have to be doing all kinds of chores, such as - making dandylion wreaths to put around the puppies heads and necks.

Little Jack actually not only looks good in it, but seems to like it too. He´s such a happy-go-lucky boy. Just look at his omnipresent smile!

Jamie reminds me so much of Moomin´s girlfriend Snorkmaiden on this picture. "Look, Moomin, look how pretty I look with my dandylion necklace!".

Naughty Johnnie

2011-06-26T15:06:00.001+01:00

Johnnie-Johnnie, Little John, Johnny Boy! There are many names little Johnnie Walker (aka the Lion-Fox Baby) gets to be called by.

Let me tell you, he´s one heck of a handfull! A funny, cheaky, smart little puppy. Naaaaughty!

It took some wild playin´ before we could even think about fitting him into the plastic tray of the scale we use to weigh the puppies. He looks like an angel, doesn´t he?

Then we went on to the process of deworming him. Unlike his siblings, he actually was quite ok, if stubborn spitting out of the deworming paste and pretending to swollow it, followed by spitting out, can be counted as "ok".

No, I have no pictures of the process. You can imagine why.

But this is what he did after the deworming cure.

Sweet, huh? Little monster. I see tiny little devil horns sticking out right by his ears. And judging from the twinkles in his eyes, I know what the little brat thought.

Something along these lines: "You force me do somethin´ - You pay!".

Yeah, adorable naughty little brat. Gotta love ´em!

The Art of Sleeping

2011-06-26T12:00:00.011+01:00

There is one thing the puppies are masters at. Well, actually there are more things that puppies master, but one thing they do really great is sleep.

While they can play hard, they can also sleep hard. They can go from the motor mouse mode right into the deep sleep.

Just like that. Click. I guess so many people would wish to master at least partially this ability.

Play hard, chow down food, explore and then pass out, right on spot. In any imaginable or less imaginable possition.

Our puppies often chose the "frog" possition, as you can see. So much for "hip displasia", I´d say! LOL

And if you think that little husky puppies need a cozy nice soft doggy bed, you´re totally wrong. They love to scatter around the kitchen or kennel floor. Or pile on top of each other.

The Whiskies are masters at sleeping on the cold kitchen floor right from the beginning.

Very often just by themselves, like the lone wolves :)

Doesn´t watching them make you sleepy at least tiny bit?! If these pictures don´t help, then I recommend you to read Dr.Brues´s (aka the Sleep Doctor) The Insomnia Blog and his great new book: The Sleep Doctor´s Diet Plan: Lose Weight through Better Sleep.
Seriously, I love Dr.Brues´s tips for good sleep, good health and even weight loss!

Nighty, night!

Introducing the Whiskies

2011-06-26T00:19:00.006+01:00

Naming puppies is always a BIG DEAL around here.

Those of you who know our kennel know, that we follow the alphabet with majority of our litters, unless special circumstances tell us otherwise.

This is something that used to be obligatory for us, when we still lived in Czech Republic and bred our dogs under the Czech Kennel Club. A breeder had to follow the alphabet when naming litters, (logically) starting with "A".

And since we started doing this, we thought it could be good to continue, to have a certain systemm. It is also much easier to find relatives of dogs when you search pedigrees.

Yes, it is a practical thing, but to us, things should always be at least a bit of fun and challenge too.

So while finding names starting with "J" for Galena x Nitro´s puppies, we also had to find them a suitable theme. A theme, that would all start with letter "J". And of course, that would be suitable for future sled dogs (read: tough, hardy, good lookin´ too,...).

Now you see why naming puppies is a great deal here.

This time we had two more brains to engage and it took Jachym, our handlers Misa and Nardo, and myself good two weeks to tweak the theme and names.

I had already some in mind and Jachym and I joked often how much fun it would be naming a litter one day after whisky brands.

And so it turned out, that Galena x Nitro´s Kipp d´Amundsen "J" litter was perfectly suitable to become the Whiskies.

Finding names like Johnnie Walker and Jim Beam is a piece of cake. But Finding actually good sounding female whisky names took a lot of googling.

At the end, we became the experts in single malts, and blended sorts and Irish versus Scottish, we even learnd how different destilleries got established and read some quite cool stories.

So let me introduce you to our little Whiskies, in order of apereance (as usual):

Puppy 1

Puppy 2

Puppy 3

Puppy 4

Puppy 5

Puppy 6

Recognize them? Not?! Ok, here they are, in a different form:

Jamie Stuart

Jim Beam

Jack Daniels

Jameson

Johnnie Walker

Hope they´ll keep us warm on the trail! :)

Four Weeks and First Time Out

2011-06-25T22:11:00.005+01:00

Finally the day came to let the puppies experience the great outdoors of our garden.

At first, they all ran to nanny Katerina (aka me) to hide in the safety of my wings, erh, I mean arms.

But soon they smelled whatever it is the wild and free spirits of mini little future sled dogs smell in the air, and started to explore.

Unfortunatelly, the clouds came down and the wind blew in some rain and thunder, so we had to hurry with the photo-sessions, marking the "J" aka "Whisky" litter´s 4 weeks birthday.

In order of apereance (and as they were born) :

Jamie

Jim

Jack

Jameson

and finally the lion-fox baby, aka Johnnie.

The Story of Six Puppies, One Platypuss and First Solid Food

2011-06-25T20:27:00.003+01:00

We just arrived from our annual trip to Czech Republic. One of the first things we did (besides saying hi to every single dog individually, as everyone was having a heart attack seeing us back home and alive - wonder what did Misa and Nardo tell them??! :)), was of course hugging, snuggling, squeezing and cuddling the puppies.

Don´t think even for a second that it stayed at that. Of course, we brought everyone a present. And the puppies got, of course, most of them.

So the very first thing they got was this soft plush ball from Ikea (yes, from the Swedish store Ikea, in Prague. I know..)

But the hit of course became the purple, totally silly looking platypuss. When I saw that platypuss in the store in Prague, I knew that he is going to be the main guy for this litter.

You see, we usually have a main toy for each litter, which is a combination of something very cool and special and something the puppies of that litter think themselves as cool and special. (Yes, the zombie chicken is a very good example of that!).

Anyway, Mr.Platypuss really became the hit around the kitchen. Not sure though, who was more excited about him at first, as Galena immediately stole him. See?

"Mine!", she says.

The next successful thing was the introduction of real, solid food. We brought a stock of Troll Elite Canned Food with us. Perfect for switching the puppies to solid food.

As you can see, the puppies chowed it down without a blink of an eye.

After being introduced to Mr. Platypuss, the ball and the food, they naturally passed out. I wonder what they dreamed of.

And this was their second meal from a larger dish, as they couldn´t fit to the first one I gave them. They dove into it like experienced dogs.

Now that they are 3,5 weeks old and powered by more energy food, we expect them to start playin´ hard. Let the fun begin!

Playin' Favorites Already?!

2011-06-25T19:56:00.003+01:00

I don´t know what this is. Dogs are supposed to be unpartial and dog mothers are thought to be fair, free of playing favorites, unlike their human likes.

But this is what I found in the whelping box this morning...

See for yourself. These pictures are a proof.

Galena actually couldn´t care less of what I thought of it. She gave me an annoyed look that made me think of all the unfair things human mothers do.

She´s such a wise dog. I admire her. She can run through snowstorms and lead her teammates through snow drifts so deep, she has to jump like a deer. If she thinks that little Mr.Spot is special, then I guess he is.

She even won´t let us lift him. We can do that with "the other" puppies. I guess I better trust my most intelligent and responsible leader. I´ll just leave it up to her!

The Spot Factor

2011-06-25T17:24:00.007+01:00

Here comes a blog post I´ve been meaning to publish six weeks ago. Since the information in it has not "timed out", I dare to share it now. I am ashamed. Enjoy!

If you´re expecting a serious scientific study and analysis of the siberian husky color genetics, then don´t! Although, I am not saying there is nothing to learn from this post. :)

So last night (May 8, 2011), I did some serious calculating. Naturally, I´ve been looking at Galena a lot lately, as the upcomming mom she´s had a lot of extra attention.

She is a wolf gray colored siberian, as the whole "G" litter she comes from. Her mom Jee-Haw was colored the same, and so is her dady, the patriarch of our kennel - Buck.

Nitro (as the father of Galena´s litter) is, surprise, surprise, colored exactly the same.

Natually, we´ve been having wolfgray, sable, aguti and gray puppies in mind. In fact, we expected them as one expects that 1 + 1 = 2.

But yesterday, it suddenly occured to me and I remembered that Nitro´s grandmother is black and white. Ang Galena´s too. And then I remembered some more stuff...

So last night, I did some serious calculating. Thank goodnes for picture pedigrees.

Because my instinct was telling me something. Something exciting.

This is Nitro´s mom North Wapiti´s See Spot Run:

(BTW, isn´t she pretty?! Thanks Rob for letting me use her picture!)

And this is Galena´s great-grandmother Serping:

Drum rolls, please........

Yes, ladies and gentlemen - my gut feeling was right!

Here he is, Mr.Spot aka Galena x Nitro´s son!

As a responsible siberian husky sled dog breeder, I should remind you: Colour of the coat doesn´t run. It doesn´t make a dog a better sled dog. It isn´t important.

But I have to admit, I am totally in love with piebalds!!!!

Happy Trails!

Galena and Nitro´s Babies Are Born!

2011-06-25T17:09:00.004+01:00

Ok, for those of you who follow us on Facebook or who are actually waiting for the news for quite some time, this is a very old news. Yup, it´s been six weeks already. I am sorry about that. But better later, than never, right? :) So with no further due, here comes the litter announcement:

Here they are! Tired, but happy mamma Galena, and her six babies! Welcome to the world, little ones!

Galena and Nitro herewith proudly announce the arrival of their 4 sons and 2 daughters, aka the Kipp d´Amundsen "J" litter.

All went well, although poor little Galena was in labour for a pretty long time and the two of us spent quite an early morning together, before her first born daughter entered the world on May 9, 2011.

More later!

Dandylion Cure

2011-06-25T13:06:00.008+01:00

Yes, this is the common dandylion (taraxacum-subalpinum), the weed and every gardener´s nightmare.

But also a powerful herb and remedy, used in natural and even the traditional medicine for centuries.

Before I post some of it´s most important features, here´s what we actually do during summer.

We feed it to our dogs, or, better said, we use it as a supplement that we mix into their food.

Some of you know that I am an animal nutritional consultant and dog nutrition specifically is my great passion. And I am a whole-health, holistic-natural aproach (to nutrition and health) freak.

So, here´s what we do, about once a week - once in ten days:

On a sunny day (this is important with many herbs) we pick a bowl of dandylion fully blooming flowers.

Then we sort them out and cut out the "butts", or the bottoms of the flowers.

The result should look somewhat like this. The reason for this is, that the butts that we throw away are bitter and we don´t want the soup taste bitter as some of our spoiled dogs might not eat it.

Once this is done, we toss the flowers into the feed buckets, evenly.

A tip for you: toss in the dandylions after you have already put meat and other ingredients into the soup, so they don´t get stuck to the bottom of the bucket.

I should have posted a picture of the beasts eating the dandylion soup, but didn´t think of it. But you can rest assured that they licked their dishes clean as usual! :)

Now, here´s why we do this:

Dandylions (taraxacum-subalpinum) :

contain a significant amount of inulin, vitamin C, manganese and potassium
help to produce more enzymes, which are essential for proper metabolism and boost the immune system
promote digestion and metabolism generally
help to clean and promote function of liver
have light diurrhetic effect

After a full season of working hard in harness (in our case August - May) and eating a heavy nutrition consisting of high protein, high fat dry kibble, and loads of meat and fat, the dogs are ready not only for lighter nutrition during the summer time, but, just like us, a detoxification cure that promotes the organs and digestive tract.

Dandylions grow everywhere - just pick them and you get a perfect, 100% natural remedy for your dogs!

Next time I will feature a few more herbs suitable for supplementation of the dogs´ diet, AND I have a great and simple recipe for an all natural repelent against mosquitos, wood ticks and other nasty insects.

Stay tuned and -- Happy Trails!

Dog Handler/Kennel Help Needed for 2011/12 Season

2011-06-16T13:08:00.006+01:00

Pro informace v cestine kliknete prosim ZDE.

We are looking for a dog handler for the upcomming season 2011/12.

We prefer someone to come either for the whole season (Sept-March/April) or for the autumn (September - November/December) or winter (December - March/April).

Work includes taking care of our 50 siberian husky sled dogs, poop scooping, feeding, puppy walks, assisting with training with possibility to drive your own team (depending on your skills and experience), help with basic house and garden chores, kennel and dog equipment repair, maintenance work, keeping dog kitchen facility in order, help with stacking of dog food, straw, wood, occassional help with guests of our Outdoor Tour Programs, etc.

In return we offer a very nice cozy accommodation in your own cabin or room, with your own bathroom (might be shared with guests at times), good food and company, plus the unforgetable experience of the Scandinavian North, a small stipend and mainly the lifetime oportunity to work with siberian huskies and to learn about their character, training, care, nutrition and racing.

It is sometimes a tiring, demanding physical work, but as many of our former dog handlers say, it is very rewarding in the form of unconditional dog love, unique experiences and learning of new skills.

You need to be at least a bit physically fit, like dogs and animals, have sense of humor and responsibility, and good attitude. Non smoker. Drivers license and a refference/letter of recommendation is highly apreciated.

Wanna try to live in the pristine wilderness on a remote farm and accept the challenge of caretaking of 50 canine athletes?

To get an idea of what this job is about, we highly recommend you to read the blog of our former handler Nardo Drouven.

You can also read his experience from working at our kennel.

If you would like to get more information or have any questions, please feel free to contact us at kippsiberians@kokeshnet.com.

You can learn more about our kennel, dogs and us on our kennel website or at our outdoor adventure company website, or just browse through the blog! :)

Please share/repost to your friends and folks you think might be interested (and suitable :) Thanks!

Pro informace v cestine kliknete prosim ZDE.

My Kipp d'Amundsen experience

2011-06-06T18:53:00.010+01:00

"I was just realising how much I appreciate being around these guys and caring for them, and then..... someone decided to piss on my pants! Tough love! A real test of faith out there in the kennel: 'I'm happy when you arrive, I'm happy when you bring me food, I'm happy when you come and stroke me, I'm very happy when you give me attention and affection and..... I don't respect your pants one bit'.... BUT!! 'I'm happy when I piss on you!' :-p.

Well .... does this make me love them the slightest bit less?? Hell no! Coming to think of it, they are the sweetest pissers in the world, and I guess I'll gladly accept that bit of dogness from them." (June 3 2011)

I would like to share a few thoughts about my experience as a dog handler at Kipp d'Amundsen kennels.

We (my girlfriend and I) came here in March to work as dog handlers for three months, a quite long period of time, but that gives the opportunity to get to know both the dogs and the people well. We had been dog handlers before, for little over a month, though not with exclusively Siberian huskies. Therefore, I was glad I had plenty of time to get to know all these pointy-eared furries... To a newcomer, most Siberians look similar and it took me about three weeks to get to know and properly distinguish all the individual dogs. By now, I know and love them all so well! I now am surprised how I could have had trouble telling the difference between them in the beginning...nice how one grows in these things :-)

Another thing that amazes me is the incredibly kind and affectionate character of the Kipp d'Amundsen dogs. None of them is bad tempered or grumpy, they are all happy, friendly and wanting to be stroked and played with. I find this a very special to witness! Credits and respect to Katerina&Jachym for raising them this way! It is of course partly due to their own nature which is cute, but keeping them happy and in such good shape (both physically and emotionally) is a task that needs a lot of love, care and devotion, and that is exactly what they get here. This truly is a great thing to experience and to be a part of! An expression of this love and care is the way they get fed and the attention that is given to the health and happiness of each individual dog. When it comes to the feeding, the dogs get a very complex and balanced mix of food and supplements, which changes with the season and their performance. For those who need it, even an individual food-plan is made by Katerina.

In treating the dogs according to their individual needs, Katerina&Jachym realise that each dog is worth the best treatment the owner can offer, and that is a heartwarming thing! Especially when you consider it's not just a housedog to take care of, but a whole kennel of almost 50 adult dogs and 6 newborn pups!

Seeing this level of care and devotion makes you want to follow the example and pay attention to the dogs' conditions and learn about their individual needs. This takes extra time, but it gives the experience so much more depth and meaning. It creates a feeling of bonding with every single dog, which is immensely rewarding. I have really come to love these cuties so much and I will miss them, as well as their owners, very much indeed when I leave.... but well... that is life, and I knew this before I even started... the hard thing is only to accept it again now that I am almost leaving....

One of the greatest things of kennel-life, is that you learn to love even the process of poop-scooping, just because of being with the dogs. Of course I do not like the poop itself, but while you go among the dogs, for scooping, you get the chance to play with them, and they with you. Doing this every day, creates a great sense of attachment and affection/love between you and the dogs and vice versa, which is now very dear to me.

Living in Sweden as a dog handler is part of a bigger journey in my life and it is so grand to get to know such great people and animals along the way! Katerina&Jachym are awesome people and I am honoured and pleased to have been given this chance to share their lives and share my life with them.

I am so very happy and grateful to have become a part of both the kennel-life and human life here :-)

***

Nardo Drouven

Vedjeön, 6 June 2011

Ode to the Snow

2011-05-09T11:59:00.008+01:00

This is an Ode to the Snow. And to the Dogs. And Sledding. And a definite good bye to the 2010/11 Mushing Season.

While these pictures were taken during our epic white hell run, we actually had no idea then, that they will also become the pictures of our last sledding trip of the season.

Enjoy them. Carefully, slowly, like a precious candy that melts in your mouth too fast to your liking. It will be long before the next ones.

I´ll miss the togetherness with the main string team, the bond we created, while crossing the country with two teams almost every single day.

I´ll miss the perfect lineup of 12 of my best friends infront of me, their silent focuss and the swishing sound of sled runners.

I´ll miss the thrills and challenges of the trail.

and the dramatic skies.

And the sunshine and long shadows on the snow.

The little cabins and little lakes, accessable only by dog sled.

The snackbreaks, when the dogs would look back to check with me if all was ok.

The afternoon sunsets

And the thrill of trying out new leading talents.

The perfectly groomed snowmachine trails and the blown over plaines.

I´ll miss it all, but I bet it´ll be back before we know it!

-- Till next year, ode to the snow!

Sunny hookup

2011-05-04T23:07:00.000+01:00

by Nardo Drouven

Yesterday evening Katerina decided she wanted to do a training run with the dogs this morning. Training runs this time a year are done with the ATV and 16 dogs, quite the adrenaline boost during hookup, as well as during the run itself, I'm sure :-)

The thing we do as handlers is take the board with the names that Katerina wrote, bring it outside to the dogyard and put the selected lucky ones to the stakeout to harness them. When the dogs spot you walking with the board though, they all go ballistic! They all get over excited, bark their vocal chords out and run like mad around their houses or kennels.... then, the fun part starts.. Our job is to collect the dogs on the list and chain them to the stakeout (the stakeout is the chain where the dogs wait until they are being harnessed and put to the line of the sled of atv). This is a very exciting and adrenaline-sport like job, probably the most tiring and energetic one at the farm.

The ideal situation is as follows: you struggle your way toward target dog (much like a celebrity going through a busy street full of fans who want to shake your hand or take your picture), then you unhook them from their chain (which is a skill in itself, for the dog pulls at full strength so the chain is usually tight), bring them to the stakeout, which means struggling through all the other dogs that want to be taken too, or fight the dog at the end of your arm, and hook them to the stakeout chain. In case it is a kennel dog (some dogs are in kennels, some are in the yard at their houses) the procedure is slightly different, but no less challenging: you go to the kennel, which holds two to three eager-for-action beasts, go into the kennel without letting the dogs out just jet (also an skill!) grab the one you need and take it out without letting the other(s) escape. Since we are two, it is slightly easier, for one of us can go into the kennel,hold all dogs that live there and hand target dog to the other person. This complete process is repeated until all required dogs are on the stakeout. Then there is a time of relative peace and just noise, when the harnesses are sorted, and then the rush begins anew... When Katerina assigned each dog their harness, we all four harness the dogs, this again is rather a struggle, for the dogs are so excited the hardly can't bear to stand still, still, we harness them all together pretty fast.... today Katerina remarked it would be fun to have a contest...

When the harnessing is finished, it is time to actually hook them up, which means putting them to the pulling line in front of the sled or atv. This too is a bit of a struggle, but the dogs always help you go fast in the right direction :-p. When all the dogs are hooked up, the team is off, and every time, we are struck by the sudden silence as those tails wave away in the distance :-p

Today was an extremely nice morning, with sun and little wind, so I was sweating my ass off in my warm overalls which I wore, since I expected it to be colder :-p A beautiful morning and an adrenaline filled hookup! The rest of the day was filled with the usual husky-farm tasks, feeding, poopscooping, today we changed the water in all their buckets, and we learned a new skill, to split logs with a wood-splitter! Never did it before, but it is very easy, and a very safe machine... although I was struck by the brutality of it, it does not actually cut the wood, like I am used to, it slowly pushes the wood to a metal axe-like blade and pushes so hard that the wood splits.... it seems clean and easy and gives little noise but the brutal force was demonstrated to me when a knotted log was pushed wrongly and tilted.... I could see the inside, the fibers were not cut but thrashed.... slow and very strong indeed... We are still not sure if it is quicker by axe... I think it is, but this is less effort...

Ok, so I'm gonna leave it at this for now, it is time for dinner :-)

cheers from the farm!

Nardo

While Working on Blog Updates...

2011-05-02T17:16:00.013+01:00

I would like to point your attention to the entirely new section we created on the blog, called:

From a Handler´s Angle

Here you can obviously read stories and accounts from our various dog handlers and kennel helpers, as they experience their daily lives with the Kipp d´Amundsen siberian huskies and share the daily woes, ups and downs in the life of a dog handler.

I am happy that Nardo (who together with Misa currently reside at the Nordic Husky Farm as our 3 months lasting Kipp d´Amundsen Crew) agreed to share his experiences from the kennel and his life here and who gave me premition to repost his writings on our blog.

Nontheless, I think reading about the dogs, the daily work and life in the nordic wilderness, from the perspective of another person, is really refreshing!

Enjoy!

Mud Wrestling

2011-04-23T17:10:00.005+01:00

post by Nardo Drouven

So, yesterday evening Katerina decided it would be good to train the dogs early in the morning, cause of the warmth during the day... and a good plan it was, for it is alrady very warm... but the doggies are back home and resting after a nice drink/breakfast...

During hookup (putting the dogs to the sled) this morning, the ground around the stakeout (chain where the dogs wait for harnessing and actual hookup) was very muddy... and when I wanted to harness Greyling he challenged me to my first ever mudwrestle... I succeeded and won, and managed to get the harness on him, but both of us were exceedingly pig-like after the adventure.... Spring is definitely here, which means brilliant sunny days, T-shirt weather and also a serious goodbye to clean dogs....

Anyway.... it's time to go outside again and eat my last bit of icecream!

Happy sunny hugs to you all!

Nardo

Online Auction to Help Our Kennel

2011-04-15T19:35:00.001+01:00

Dear Kipp d´Amundsen Kennels and Team friends, fans and supporters!

Due to various circumstances, especially associated with recent extremly high vet costs for emergency veterinary care of one of our dogs Canuck, our kennel is in urgent need of fundraising, even now that the racing season is over.

Besides sponsoring one of the Kipp d´Amundsen Athletes, Future Stars or Canine Senior Citizens (click here to see the sponsorship options on our website), another great way to help and have fun at the same time is the Online Auction we have just prepared on Ebay with 24 unique items, all for the mushing, sled dog racing, husky, malamute and other sled dog enthusiasts!

Please, help us raise the much needed funds to help cover the vet bills and to be able to provide the ongoing top notch dog care to our dogs, even in the hard times!

You´ll find books, hand painted porcelain and cermaics, mugs, cups, Iditarod T-shirt, jackets, a number of items with wolves, stickers, greeting cards, pins, magnets, all kinds of decorative items, even beautiful bed sets, and a lot more -- all with huskies, wolves, malamutes, sled dogs and mushing themes!

We are sure that you´ll be able to find some great gifts or just nice collectible items as a treat for yourself!

Spreading the word about our auction and resending it to your friends or sled dog enthusiast forums/lists will be greatly appreciated too!

Thank you so much in advance for your help! It´s greatly needed and even more greatly appreciated!

Katerina and the Kipp d´Amundsen Team_._,_.___

Sunny Day in Vedjeön

2011-04-14T17:09:00.002+01:00

post by Nardo Drouven

Today is a very nice and sunny day out here! In the morning the sun was already nice and warm when we went to feed the beasts :-)

Cleaning the kennels is now becoming easier, since the snow is disappearing from them and the kennel floors are made out of wood... whereas the outside is getting harder to clean, for there is still half frozen snow there and the poo sinks into deep holes.... giving a whole new meaning to the term "Shithole".... :-s

Yesterday we cleaned one of the kennels out so it is totally clean and has a totally clear wooden floor, absolutely brilliant to work on! Today we will be clearing out some more! :-)

I had an interesting near-dog experience today. We noticed that Delia had blue plastic in her poo... which is not very healthy of course... We have no clue where she got it, cause we did not use any blue plastic at all lately... but anyway.... In the morning I decided to check her house and when I took off the roof and looked into it, I saw a few pieces of plastic there... I rummaged through the straw that covers the doghouse floor and found some more... I decided to just get into the doghouse alltogether, and found quite a lot more! Now I removed all the plastic, so the problem should be solved... but being IN the actual doghouse was a funny experience.... looking out of their little door really gives some insight into how it feels for the dogs when they are inside their little homes :-)

Happy sunny cheers!

Nardo

ATV for Sale

2011-04-13T08:15:00.002+01:00

We have ATV Cougar 325 for sale.

Only around 1800 km on it, used very little, very good condition.

Weight 183kg, automatic transmittion. It´s a good, stable machine.

Manual (foot) starter, plus electronic starter. The electronic starter has some trouble, needs handy hands to fix it, if you need to use it.

The only reason we are selling is is that it is too light for our large teams (we usually train 14-16 dogs with ATV).

Asking price is around 18.000SEK, but it´s negotiable. Please contact us if you are interested or need more info.

...Meanwhile... in the Kennel......

2011-04-09T17:02:00.001+01:00

Another great post by Nardo, about the critters and life in the kennel. Thanks for letting us repost your stories and sharing your life of a dog handler with others!

So, there you stand... peacefully scooping dogfood from the bucket into the dog bowls.... while suddenly there is a lot of barking and dogs going crazy in their kennels! you look out, and what do you see! a black-and-brown flash with a fluffy tail running loose in the yard! Dropping the food I shouted to Cal to ask who it was... she and me were feeding the kennel dogs, while Jachym was feeding the dogs in the houses in the yard...she replied it was Charlie (one of the naughtier youngsters... she apparently got from her chain, but we did not know how..) We dashed out from the kennels to catch her, and after a little running by the three of us (well, four of us, including the escaper) we cornered her in the kennel-walkway... and her little one-dog party came to an end again... We brought her back to her house and it turned out she managed to take off her collar :-p little rascal ;-)

So... back to the feeding... we noticed that Delia, one of the veterans, an older female, did not eat at all... this is not very odd... but we try to make them all eat as well as we can... The usual trick is to take away part of the food and return the rest to them, and usually they eat it then... Not in this case, cause we gave her another type of bowl and Cal argued that she might not want to eat from those bowls... so, and I still can't believe I serve their every whim, I took another type of bowl, the one she is used to, switched the food and returned it to her... And lo and behold! she started eating happily, and finished it all!... Like old people, old dogs too seem to have their peculiarities.... :-p

Now it's pancake time!!

Hugs to all of you!

Nardo