We
are Rob and Louise Cooke; originally from the UK we now share our lives
with 34 Siberian Huskies and Gus the Karelian Bear Dog in the town of
Saint-Jacques, NB on the New Brunswick, Quebec, Maine border.
We have owned, raced and shown Siberian Huskies for about 12 years
since getting our first boy Flint in 1997. Originally only ever
intending to
get one husky as a pet, we then decided we needed a second as company
for
Flint and then before we knew it, we had an ever expanding kennels and
dreams of long-distance racing.
The dog that really made the difference to us, and changed the course
of our lives, was our fourth dog, Fya. For us Fya was exceptional, he
had more strength and drive than we had ever seen in a dog before, in
harness he literally transformed our team and ensured that we well and
truly caught the mushing bug. In parallel with his drive on the trail
Fya also started to do exceptionally well in the show ring and early
success in Puppy and Junior classes culminated in him winning Best
Siberian Husky Dog at Cruft's under breed specialist, Brunette
Greenland (Rajarani). Within just over a year Fya had won his third
Challenge Certificate to become the first UK show champion from the
truly amazing Huskidoo litter bred by Bette Hawthorn and Mark Theaker.
To date this is the only siberian husky litter in the UK where the
whole litter have achieved champion status.
Not content with his show success Fya went from strength to strength on
the trail and saw him attain second place in the SHCGB Dual
Championship, behind Dave and Jill Hemmins' boy Ch.Eekonoos Zefram
Cochrane in 2003/04. The Dual Championship award is designed to
encourage the dual purpose nature of the Siberian Husky.
In 2004/2005 after another outstanding twelve months in the ring and on
the trail Fya went one better, displacing Zef and earning the Dual
Championship title. To cap off a remarkable winter for us Fya's co-lead
Poppy (a Zef daughter) took the position of the highest placed bitch in
the Dual Championship.
Setting our sights on a new challenge, when Rob, an aircraft engineer
in the Royal Navy, heard about the possibility of an Exchange Posting
working with the Canadian Air Force, we thought this would be the ideal
opportunity to try our hand, and test our dogs, at mid distance
mushing, and more importantly to run the dogs in snow - something
we had precious little opportunity to do in the UK.
So in July of 2005 we put the majority of our possessions into storage
(all husky paraphernalia coming with us of course), sold our house just
outside Peterborough, England and came across to Nova Scotia, Canada
with our (then) nine siberian huskies.
Coming across the Atlantic with a skeleton racing and training plan, it
was our intention to build up the size of the team, and the distances
we would race, over the three years that we knew we would be in North
America. Unfortunately the weather was not so kind and we have had two
very poor winters in Nova Scotia in terms of snow coverage. As such we
have not progressed as far or as fast as we would have liked. We
have also discovered that training for mid distance on a sled is (from
our perspective at least) very different to training for dryland
sprint. In essence we have had to relearn everything and despite
getting excellent help and advice from many quarters (Ann Stead and
Jamie Nelson at Boot Camp, Kim and Kelly Berg, Jaye Foucher, Corina
Alexander to name but a few) we still made some fundamental mistakes
and errors of judgment that have prevented us from progressing as we
had hoped.
We have managed to add considerably to our numbers. In order to achieve
our goals of running an eight dog team in 2006/2007 we acquired three
dogs from the Kelim and Sibersong Kennels in New Hampshire. Determined
to maintain the 'look and type' of siberian that we went for in the
UK we were extremely fortunate to get three dogs that not only
fitted into our vision of what a husky should be but also added greatly
to our team dynamic. All three dogs had a very positive first winter in
harness and have a great deal of potential for the future; Paris
(Sibersong's Trojan Prince) in particular has the potential to become a
very good leader.
As a result of our experiences in 2006/2007 (and despite completing our
main goal - the Can Am 60) we revised our race plans for 2007/2008,
competing largely at the same distances as we did for 06/07 with
the 100 mile Eagle Lake race thrown in for the experience. We have
continued to build the numbers in the kennel with one eye on the
future. We were fortunate to be offered Northome Lewis by Scott and
Corina Alexander and Northwapiti's Eeek by Karen and Mark Ramstead and
believing that one of our failings was lack of mid distance experience
in the team we jumped at the chance of owning these older and more
experienced two dogs. We also bred our first litter, out of Poppy and
Fya, and were also exceptionally fortunate to get two more beautiful
girls in Cassie (Kelim's Mothers Ruin) and Eclipse (Tumnatki's Eclipse)
both of whom are already showing great potential.
The later additions, Ammo (Barking Brook's Amarillo Slim of Shaytaan),
Erebus (Sibersong's Arctic Quest of Shaytaan), Antigone (NorthWapiti's
Banjo of Shaytaan), Jim (Chlouts Alley of Velikaya at Shaytaan), Aspen
(Mishawum's Rocky Mountain) and Terror (SecondWinds Polar Quest of
Shaytaan) were then joined by two imports from the UK, Dawson (Zoox
Trebbiano) and Yukon (Zoox Frizzante). We have been great admirers of
the Zoox line since we started out in siberians and were immensely pleased to be allowed to introduce
these two lovely boys to our team.
Having been great admirers of Krakens Kermit for a very long time, what
for us is a perfect pedigree is matched by exceptional looks,
confirmation and attitude, in 2009 we were extremely fortune to be
offered the opportunity to have Kermit come live with us. Kermit really
is out second 'Once In A Lifetime' dog. Although nearly nine years old
when he came to us having him around the kennel, and running in
harness, made us appreciate what a truly special dog he is. Furthermore
he has sired what appears to be, to us anyway, a very special
litter that has the potential to impact our kennel for years to come.
We are so looking forward to running the 'Insane' litter for years to
come.
We hope you enjoy our site.
Rob and Louise
shaytaan@bellaliant.net
