SHAYTAAN SIBERIAN
HUSKIES
Happy are those that dream dreams and are ready to
pay the price to make them come true - Leon J. Suenes
|
Happy are those that dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true - Leon J. Suenes |
|
We are Rob and
Louise Cooke; originally from the UK we now share a house in Shubenacadie, Nova
Scotia, Canada with our pack of Siberian Huskies. We have owned, raced and shown
Siberian Huskies for about 10 years since getting our first boy Flint.
Originally only ever intending to get one as a pet, we then decided we needed a
second
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 Ch Eekonoos Zefram Cochrane
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 Sibersong Trojan Prince 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 ke Eclipse and Cassie at play
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) have now been 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 (note for example Fya's pedigree) and we were immensely pleased to be allowed to introduce these two lovely boys to our team. With the dogs we have, experiences we are gaining and the lessons we are learning we feel that the future is looking positive for our kennel but only time and the future will tell.
We hope you enjoy our site. Rob and Louise |
one as company for Flint and then before
we knew it here we are
today
with twenty nine. 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. 
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. 
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.
nnel 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.