News and Events of 2009

The 2008-2009 racing season ended with the SSHC's Quithel rally, where the weather was unfortunately too warm to run the full 7 mile trail and so it was shortened to 3.2 miles. I ran teams in both the B and C classes and we had a lovely time. Solara ran lead for the first time in competition and did a brilliant job.

Solara, Bilka, Vixen, Foxi, Frosty & Onieda   (Photo by Gary Stewart)

Altai, Shibka, Sirius & Tala  (Photo by Gary Stewart)

The year's shows were really enjoyable, starting with Boston where Altai was placed 1st in Junior Dog and Solara 2nd in Junior Bitch, qualifying them both for Crufts 2010.

I judged the breed at WELKS, and chose Rajarani Kolinsky for DCC and Zateizzi Valeresso at Wolfpaws for BCC. RDCC was Zoox Malastrana at Wolfpaws and RBCC was Zoox Seven Of Nine. Kolinsky went on to be made up to Champion later in the year, winning his other two CCs under Ali Koops and Anthony Rees, and Seven won her crowning CC at the next show SKC under Sue Jones.

Altai won his second Crufts qualifier of the year at SKC, and a third at Blackpool under Penny Evans. On both occasions he was placed 2nd in strong classes. Volk had a good day at Blackpool too, and won Veteran Dog. Penny said in her critique that he moved as well as many of the younger exhibits, which for a ten year old is pretty impressive!

In April Frosty was mated to Zoox Teebo and returned from her stay down south with her beautiful daughter Chorniy (Zoox Huathe from Wayreth). She was welcomed heartily by her friends and relatives here who had missed her and were delighted to see her come home. Chorniy soon fitted in beautifully and struck up a firm friendship with her cousin Solara.

The working season began wet and warm, so it was difficult to get the dogs ready for the sort of distances we usually cover. I decided that it was a good idea to aim towards completing the SSHC's rally series this year and so we concentrated on improving our speed over short distances of 4-5 miles. As the weather improved and the temperatures dropped we worked on the basis of a mixture of short fast runs and steady longer ones to improve fitness as well as speed and accuracy - a fast team is no good if you can't steer or stop!

Our first race was at Culbin, and we had a lovely weekend in good company. The weather was super and the meal served for the mushers on the Saturday night couldn't have been any better. The girls were placed 8th in the B class each day, a result I was very pleased with as they were running on unfamiliar ground and got a little confused by one of the complicated turns, adding extra time to our overall total.

In November a familiar face returned to us when Ash (Wayreth's Lord Golden) came home to stay for good. His previous owner felt that he would benefit from more work than she was able to give him for family reasons, and he has certainly thrown himself into running with great enthusiasm.

Ash recognised Maigan and Vixen immediately and after a few initial teething problems he settled into pack life quite well. He enjoys bouncing around on the furniture and regards himself as a lap dog, which is a little awkward because he is rather too big for that sort of thing!

As the working season moved on the teams settled into three fairly compatible groups, with Volk, Chara, Lupus and Ash making up a rather manic four, Sirius, Shibka, Tala, Maigan and Altai the "second string" five, and Bilka, Solara, Foxi, Frosty, Vixen and Onieda the main racing team.

Chorniy started her harness training at five and a half months, running behind her mum and Foxi for a short distance. She behaved perfectly and just took it in her stride, throwing herself into her harness with enthusiasm. As the weeks went on she progressed to running alongside Solara pulling my lightweight rig, and showed that she is not at all bothered by having nobody in front to follow.

Our next race was the SHCGB Tentsmuir race, where we had two interesting runs - I managed to fall off twice on the first day and still went faster than the second day when we hit an exposed tree root rather too fast and got a couple of tangles along the way! It was a really enjoyable weekend with lots of laughs and camaraderie - great to see so many friends from "down south" too. Some photos from this race will be coming soon.

Unfortunately Onieda then pulled a muscle (probably flinging herself around playing with her daughter Bilka as usual) and I had to move her off the racing team. Since I had noticed that Tala was running really well and starting to show signs of running faster than the rest of her team I put her in Onieda's place and she blossomed, fitting in beautifully beside her sister Frosty in swing and keeping pace with the younger girls easily.

Around this time Chorniy had her first runs in a six dog team alongside one of the older dogs, and didn't turn a hair! It is very important when bringing on a youngster to do it slowly and carefully, never putting them in a position where they feel out of control or that things are happening too fast. I am pleased to say that the preparation I did with Chorniy early in the season (and lots of walks in a harness on a long line as a baby) paid off and she made the transition to the "grown up" team beautifully. She will continue to run at either swing or wheel in the steadier team for the rest of this season so that she can learn about turns and being part of the gang.

Chorniy and Onieda after a late night run

As you can see in these photos, snow arrived towards the end of December, which was great from the point of view of temperature and is always lovely to look at, but which made our local trails very icy.

This worried us all because the last rally of the year was coming up, and right up until the last minute we were watching the condition of the trails carefully. Thankfully the track was icy but usable on the day, and the second race of the SSHC series went off brilliantly. The snowy trails an an unexpected effect for me because when I used the brakes my rig just slid like a sled and I couldn't slow the girls as I would normally do to help me stay on - this meant that they were able to just run without much interference from me and gave a fantastic performance which proved that the weakest link in our partnership is definitely me!

On the first day we were placed 2nd despite losing well over a minute due to a mix-up at the start. The girls really enjoyed running around the course and only made one mistake when they tried to turn back towards our house instead of the way I had asked them. Living at a rally site has a lot of advantages, but also a few disadvantages......  On the second day it was much colder and the girls improved their time by two minutes on the first day's run, but were pipped by a fresh team and so we dropped to third place. I have to say that I was absolutely delighted with how they ran, and the excitement of realising that we had caught the team in front of us in the last mile and a half was amazing. It is a fantastic feeling to have run nearly five miles and still feel the team surging forward with no sign of tiredness or slacking off.

Bilka, Foxi, Frosty, Tala, Vixen and Solara  (Photo by Henrik Mau)

Christmas arrived along with heavy falls of snow, and very low temperatures. It's pretty unusual for it to be very cold here because we are right by the sea and protected by the forest, but as I write (2nd of January 2010) the snow that fell before Christmas is still here, albeit in the form of packed ice.

The dogs really enjoyed the snow while it was fresh and fluffy, and we had a lot of fun playing with snowballs and running about. The packed ice has meant that we haven't been able to get out to train for a while, so going for walks and bouncing about in the snow is our main source of exercise and entertainment at the moment.