I have been dreaming about my very own Siberian Husky since I for the first time saw a picture of a husky... I must have been about six or seven years old at the time. It took many years, lots of determination and big dreams, but today I can proudly look out to the kennel and see a beautiful pack of 13 huskies, a Lapponian herder and one Australian kelpie. These dogs, they are besides my life and passion, also my best friends.
It all started with Viiru, the Lapponian herder, who has taught me more about life of dogs than no one else. During the past ten years we've grown up together and trained obedience, agility, tracking and search and rescue. Viiru has competed in the highest class in Finland in both agility and obedience.
Viti (Kefeus Sirion Drusnaja) is the first Siberian husky in the kennel. From the start I already knew that there will be more huskies to come - Viti was later accompanied by Istna and my three imports from Manitou Crossing kennels, Minnesota; Agon, and Alaskan huskies Siren and Shiloh. As I'm writing
this, the number of huskies is 13, 10 Siberians and 3 Alaskans. My main focus is to teach the dogs how to work unite as a team and find everybody a right position in the team. With that, we also build a strong bond between the musher and the dogs, and, I believe, also the best performance. I have
been racing mostly Mid-distance races in both 6-dog class and open (with 8 dogs). After finishing the season 08-09 with the best results ever I can look back and only say there is still a lot of things the musher needs to learn, but the dogs are quite talented!
Pate the Australian Kelpie joined as to follow Viiru's pawprints in agility and obedience. Kelpie has been a new breed for me and it has been very interesting to learn to work with Pate. He has already started his career in obedience; on agility course though I believe the handler (myself) needs quite
a bit of practise to keep up with the fast and motivated young kelpie ;)
Clips from here and there, our life at the Hidden Trails.
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