SHAYTAAN SIBERIAN HUSKIES       

Happy are those that dream dreams and are ready to 

pay the price to make them come true - Leon J. Suenes

Slowberians?…….not at Kelim kennels!

A year or two before we made the move to Canada from the UK, I started to email a kennel in New Hampshire who I had found on an internet search and who had dogs that I admired very much. I particularly liked a dog they had bred called Kelims Super Dodge, sired by Karen Ramsteads great leader Northwapitis Super Grover. So when we moved over here we made plans to visit Kim and Kelly Berg at Kelim kennels and see the dogs for ourselves. They had a litter of pups at the time, sired by Dodge (who is just as handsome in the flesh) and out of a little bitch they had leased from Karen Ramstead, Northwapitis Spot. We were very lucky to be offered one of these pups and proudly brought home Kelims Divine Emperor (Caligula). Well that was two years ago and Cal has matured into a handsome and accomplished sled dog already. We were also extremely fortunate this year  to be offered a pup from their Northwapitis Skor x Northwapitis Kluane litter and we have had beautiful Cassie (Kelims Mothers Ruin) for about 6 months now.

I thought it would be interesting to give you an insight into a succesful USA Siberian working kennel. As you may or may not know, races over here are dominated by Alaskan Huskies and hounds and these fast teams are very hard to beat. Kim and Kelly frequently do just that though, a remarkable achievement with Siberians and a testament to their dogs and their skill in training. I have been extremely impressed by the twins knowledge and thought that goes into their breeding and training programme, and the honesty they show when assessing their dogs. We have learnt an awful lot from them and have been very grateful for their help and support on our transition to a very different style of racing than we were used to.

I asked them a few questions for this article and here are their replies :-

1.  How did you get into sled dogs and what made you choose Siberians?

We remember reading a few books which had Huskies in them.  All of a sudden we both wanted a Husky, but couldn't convince our parents.  Eventually after they realized we were not going to give up, they let us write letters to two local kennels.  We wrote to George & Ann Cook of Alkasiber Kennels (who we didn't know were only about 15 minutes from our home at the time) and Peter & Donna Johnson of Blackwater Kennels.  They wrote us back very nice letters and Ann offered us to go visit her kennel.  We fell in love with their dogs and started visiting their kennel often.  Ann & George became our mentors and we were their kennel help for roughly 8 years.  So it wasn't sleddogs we fell in love with first, it was the Siberian Husky.

2. Do you show as well as work them?

Yes, we started out really wanting to show and race equally.  Over time we realized what was winning in the show ring was not what we wanted to breed for and focused more towards racing.  We show periodically, but not nearly as much as we used to.  We just feel that the type of dog that is winning in the show ring could not perform as a serious competitive sleddog.  We have brought what we thought were some very excellent sleddogs in the ring and they just didn't do anything.  They looked out of place so to speak.  So now we mostly go to Specialties for fun. It would be a really cool world if you could walk in the ring with your top placing team also win in the show ring, sadly we just don't see that happening.  Even though we don't show, we still try and breed for type.  Our main goal is to have a very competitive race team with Siberians with type that could also walk into the show ring.  Fast Siberians should still look like Siberians, which is one 'fault' we sometimes see at races.       

  Kelims Super Dodge in the showring                                                              

3. Who has been the biggest influence on you?

There have been two people - George & Ann Cook of Alkasiber kennels, who taught us so much about the breed, Siberian structure, movement and breed type and how to show and run dogs.  They gave us a great foundation of knowledge and we are so glad we met them.  We were really lucky they were the first people we met as they became our mentors.  Not everyone is so lucky getting started.

The second person is Karen Ramstead.  She has also taught us so much about training sleddogs and some of our very best dogs come from her kennel.  We feel our kennel would not be where it is today without the help and knowledge these great people.

4. Do you have a favourite dog in your kennel? Why?

That's a tough one, but if we had to pick just one it would be NorthWapiti's Skor '"Skor".  Two other dogs very close to him are Kelim's Super Dodge, SD, CGC "Dodge" and NorthWapiti's Lincoln At Kelim, SDX, CGC "Lincoln".  Dodge was our first amazing leader who opened our eyes to what a 'real' leader can be.  That dog never seems to run out of energy and does anything we ask of him.  Lincoln is such an incredibly hard working, hard driving, fast dog and he was the dog who opened our eyes to what amazing work ethic, drive, and speed a sleddog can have. He was like that since he was hooked up at 7 months old. We remember our jaws literally dropping at the sight of him running as a youngster.  We have never seen a dog run like that before. Those two dogs just set the bar 'that' much higher in our standards.  With Skor, he is the dog who is the combination of those two dogs, so that's why we would name him the favorite.  We just can't say enough good things about him and he is a really special dog to us.  His sire is Karen Ramstead's all time Northwapiti’s Skor (pictured here) favorite leader (who she also can't say enough good things about), NorthWapiti's Super Grover.  Skor's dam is Northomes Visa, another good leader from Al & Ann Stead's well known kennel. 

5. How do you plan a mating?

Over the last few years we have found ourselves changing our criteria whether or not a dog is breeding eligible.  We have gotten quite a bit more picky.  Currently, we very strongly believe in breeding the absolute best sled dogs possible.  We are looking for a male and female with excellent drive, worth ethic, movement at a lope and a trot, structure and type.  Temperament also plays a role.  We try and match temperaments together as well. If we don't feel like we have the perfect matched male for a bitch in our yard, we look at males in other kennels.  There are many good Siberians out there. There is no lack of race proven males to choose from.

We have some dogs who have the desire but not quite the body or movement we are looking for, so we don't breed those dogs or we neuter/spay them.  We believe in spaying/neutering any dogs we are not planning on breeding.  It's easier to deal with less hormones on the team if the dog is not going to be bred.  Two of our best leaders are neutered males. 

6. What do you look for in a puppy?

We start evaluating puppies at 8 wks, but prefer to judge them more at 10-12 wks.  We find at that age they resemble their adult proportions more.  Some people have told us that happens at 8 wks, but that has not been our experience.  We have evaluated litters at 8 wks before and didn't think much of a certain puppy, petted the puppy out and then kicked ourselves when we saw it a few weeks later.  Of course if you can hold onto a litter until 4-6 months you can really see how each pup is growing up, but not everyone can do that.

When we first start evaluating puppies we look first and foremost for balance front to rear.  We don't want a dog who has extremely laid back shoulders and a very straight stifle, or a dog who is very straight in the shoulder and has tons of rear angulation.  We would rather have a dog be overall 'straight' or 'angulated', just as long as it's balanced. We look for overall height to length proportions.  A dog too long in body usually is accompanied by a weak topline or too much angulation.  A dog that is too square tends to be straight in angulation and does not move properly at a lope/trot (many times moving wide in the rear because the dog has to step around it's front legs with the rear so they do not interfere).  We look for a strong topline/back.  We have found dogs with weak or slack toplines lack speed the longer they go.  Also we want good leg to body ratio, the legs being longer than the width of the dog's body from withers to bottom of chest.  We want a good croup, with the dogs tail low on the back, not 'stuck up' in the dogs back like you see in some of the show lines.  We also look at hock length, we do not want a puppy who is low on hock.  We look at pasterns, we want a slight bend - not down on the pastern, or extremely straight.  We look at the arch to the toes, looking for a good thickness to the foot with toes that are not too short or long, or a foot that is flat.  We want moderate bone, not too much as to tire the dog easier in harness, but not so little that the dog looks like it lacks power. After we look at all these

                 Northwapiti’s Skor x Northwapiti’s Kluane litter

structure things that essentially makes our dog 'work', we look at coat, and breed type such as shape and set of the eyes and ears, stop, muzzle length, head shape and bite. If we have two puppies with very equal structure we pick the one with better breed type.  Temperament wise we want a puppy who is not shy or wimpy in new situations. 

7. What are your opinions on health testing breeding stock?

We test all our own dogs eyes before we breed them.  We used to do hips, but they have almost always come back OFA rated "Excellent", so we have not done our youngest group of dogs yet.  We think especially in the running lines you do not tend to see hip problems.  We are more picky that eyes be cleared.  We start testing our dogs eyes at age 1 yr of age and usually do them yearly until age 3, then do them every other year after that.  Only the healthiest dogs should be bred.  We have one dog who had a intolerance to kibble with corn/wheat, so we decided to neuter him.  He would get a very upset and sore stomach during exercise to the point where it was extremely uncomfortable to run.  We decided that this is not a trait that we wanted passing on as we didn't want it coming back to 'bite' us years down the road.  It's a shame because he is probably one of the nicest built, nicest moving lead dogs we own.

8. What are you opinions on the way the Siberian breed is going?

In the US show ring we do not think it is going that well.  There is an extreme difference between dogs that are competitively competing on the trail and dogs that are winning in the show ring - to the point that they pretty much look like different breeds.  We do have a great respect for a few 'show' breeders though who do not run their dogs but still try and breed for athletic traits of the Siberian Husky.  We think the biggest problem is judges do not have the proper knowledge of working dogs and do not get to see dogs in harness - ever.  You really learn a lot about what structural traits make a dog capable of being a very good working dog by seeing them perform.

On the trail we think overall the breed is doing quite well.  There are a number of teams who can compete very well in all types of racing (sprint, mid-distance and distance).  Many of these dogs are also very nice examples of our breed.  In our area there seems to be a continuing growing number of purebred teams, which is very nice to see!

9. What has been your greatest success?

It has to be our recent race results.  We have won and placed very high in quite a few races over Alaskan/hound teams.  We are hoping to put many SDX & SDO titles on our dogs.  There was one race this year we where we were very impressed by the dogs.  It was a two day 15 mile race and we had a good amount of snow the night before so the trail was very soft and punchy.  Our 'A' team loped pretty much the whole race, which we thought would be too tough to do given the conditions.  We were in shock and awe of the team as we watched them work.  They were very inspiring!  The 'A' team ended up winning by 16 minutes over the 2nd place team (another fast Siberian team).

10. What are your training methods?

We train 14 dogs using a Honda 350 4x4 ATV.  We run the ATV in 3rd & 4th gear.  The engine gives the dogs more resistance than just leaving it in neutral.  We don't let them go that fast for the whole run while using the ATV.  We are teaching the dogs how to pull and work hard at this point.  We never help on hills.  One mistake we made when we first started training our own dogs is helping too much on hills.  The result was once the pulling got hard, the team              The winning Stratford team     would slow down and turn around and look at us as if we were stopping them for a break.  We learned our lesson!  If the dogs want to move forward then they must work hard.  Their reward for a really good training run is we 'give' them a higher gear on the ATV resulting in less resistance.  The dogs feel this and automatically pick up speed.  If we do this and the dogs do not pick up speed, then we know they are not ready to go faster physically or mentally.

When we get snow we break down to two 6-7 dog teams.  The weight is much less so the dogs also get to run faster and easier now.  Although we still use our drag matt quite a bit and hold them back.  If you let your dogs run full out in a 30 mile race they will be toast by the end.  So holding them back just enough works well.  You have to know when and where to ask your dog team for speed.  We are pretty good at reading our dogs now and know when to ask them for speed or not.  We never ask our dogs for speed at the end of a 'bump up' in mileage run.  Reason is they will be more tired than usual and we always want the dogs to respond positively when we ask for speed.  No sense in asking them if they are too tired to care or listen to your commands.

One other thing we do all fall is train most of the time without necklines between the leaders.  We want to work with each leader, and it's much easier to see who is doing what without a neckline - it just gives each dog much more freedom to move around.  When we first started training this way we were amazed at how one leader was really dragging the other one around, and how much the other seemed to goof off.  Now it's much easier to go up and correct a dog in lead when he isn't attached to another dog.  We think it teaches them to be more responsible this way.

We also rotate dogs around every run.  Everyone gets tried in lead every year, the ones with the most potential are the ones we focus on as new leaders in training.  We rotate wheel position as well.  Any dog on our team can run team/wheel.  We even run our leaders in wheel at times.  All of our dogs can run next to, in front of, or behind any other team member.  They have to get along on the team as well as in the kennel yard.  All 14 of our dogs run loose together as a pack after feeding time.

An ATV training run

11. What are your plans for the future?

We really like doing the mid-distance type races, preferably 30 milers.  Past years conditions have made us bump down to shorter races such as 15 milers and sprints, but we hope to have snowy winters the next few years so we can do more 30's.  While we think we have dogs who would do well in distance racing, we personally are not the 'distance' type mushers.  We like sleeping in a bed at night and not being in the freezing cold for days at a time.  Training for distance is extremely time consuming and you pretty much have to be dedicated to doing just that with your free time. We also raise and show Maine Coon cats, so the mid-distance type races suits us well.

We can see us sticking with this type of racing for years to come.  Our goal is to field two competitive teams placing as high as possible against all kinds of teams - Alaskans, Hounds & Siberians.

Thanks to Kim and Kelly for doing this interview, if you would like to see more of their dogs visit

www.kelimsiberians.com.

 Dodge and Lincoln leading the team

Louise Cooke

Shaytaan Siberian Huskies