SHAYTAAN SIBERIAN HUSKIES       

Happy are those that dream dreams and are ready to 

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

              

Siberian Husky Club of Canada - Meet the Members

 

Rob and Louise Cooke

 

 

Thanks to the Siberian Husky Club of Canada for inviting us to tell you a little bit about our dogs and ourselves.

 

We are Rob and Louise Cooke and we moved to Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia from the UK in August 2005. Rob is an aircraft engineer in the Royal Navy and had the opportunity of a temporary exchange posting to work with the Canadian Air Force. Our main motivation for taking the posting, besides the exciting prospect of living in Canada, was that it would give us the chance to work our dogs over longer distances in order to see what they can really do. This is an opportunity that sadly doesn’t exist in the UK due to the warmer climate and scarcity of suitable trails.

 

When we came across to Canada we brought over with us 9 Siberians, 8 of which are UK kennel Club registered. The 9th, Charlie, is our Welfare dog who we were originally fostering, but who somehow ended up staying!

 

We got our first Siberian, Trelowen Terros of Shaytaan, ‘Flint’, in December 1997, quickly followed by Cnejinkas Feldspar of Shaytaan, ‘Fel’. With these two dogs, we got heavily involved in showing and working and, well you know how it is with Siberians - you always seem to want one more, so now we have 17 with three more pups on order! Whilst in the UK we were very much involved with the Siberian Husky Club of Great Britain (SHCGB); I (Louise) served on the committee for a year, whilst Rob helped coordinate the Dual Championship points for two winters. As mentioned we also did a lot of fostering for the Welfare scheme, which was very fulfilling.

 

With the exception of Charlie, all of our dogs have been worked and shown with varying degrees of success. By far our most successful dog to date (in fact I think he may be our once in a lifetime dog - if we ever get another like him we will be very pleased) is our red boy UK and Can Ch. Huskidoo Lesmok Mhofyr of Shaytaan, known to us as Fya. Sired by the all time Challenge Certificate (CC) record holder in the UK, Ch. Forstals Kaliznik, and with a mother who, at the time, was top Siberian in the UK, CH. Gwaihir Lochbeaudeene via Huskidoo J.W. (Junior Warrant), we hoped that Fya would turn out to be pretty nice. Shown with reasonable success as a youngster, Fya really blossomed when he hit 3 years old and filled out. He astonished us at Crufts in 2003 by taking the dog CC (our first EVER ‘Green Card’!) under breed specialist Brunette Greenland (Rajarani Kennels), out of an entry of approximately 250 dogs from all over the world. That was an emotional day I can tell you, and one that still brings a tear to my eye whenever I think about it! Fya finished his Championship the following year, and that winter he finished as the SHCGB Dual Champion, a hotly contested award for the Siberian Husky with the best combined showing and working points for the year, thus proving that Fya is not just a pretty face. The Dual Championship is an award that Rob and I really wanted Fya to win, that we worked very hard to achieve and that we are immensely proud of. Fya also has a SHCGB BIS and RBIS to his name and has just completed his Canadian Championship at Dartmouth Kennel Club Show where he also went Group 3.

 

UK/Can Ch Huskidoo Lesmok Mhofyr of Shaytaan

 

Showing in Canada has been a real eye opener and has taken some getting used to. One year after crossing the Atlantic and I’m still pretty clueless as to the rules! We are extremely fortunate in Nova Scotia to be competing with our good friends Brenda Potter, Jeff Powers and Amber Welch and Pat and Krista Maynard. Brenda’s wealth of knowledge of Siberians and the Canadian showring has been invaluable, and we are very grateful for the help, advice and friendship we have been shown since we moved over here. It also helps that Brenda et al have a similar type of Siberian to ours, much to the bemusement of the occasional Canadian judge more used to seeing the ‘showier’ lines!

 

Racing has also been a bit different to what we were used to. The racing scene in the UK is 99.99% dryland utilising three wheeled rigs (we have never competed on snow in 8 years of UK racing) with races normally run over distances of between 3-4 miles. It is possible to find a sprint race scheduled for most weekends from the end of October through till the middle of March. There are a number of different organisations putting on rallies: SHCGB, Affiliated British Sleddog Association (ABSA), British Siberian Husky Racing Association (BSHRA) and Sled Dog Association of Scotland (SDAS) to name but 5. All but SDAS run purebred only events with the premiere race arguably being the SHCGB's Aviemore race (more a 5 day event featuring a two day race, a ten mile trek, weight pull, parade, quiz and a bit of partying) that attracts in excess of 200 pure bred teams every year. Having said that Aviemore is the premiere event, a lot of other rallies also regularly attract over 100 pure bred teams. Rallies are often run over two days, having classes for 2, 3, 4 and 6 dog teams (Aviemore also schedules an 8 dog class) with scooter classes and canicross becoming more popular. Over the last 8 years we did quite a lot of racing, predominantly under the SHCGB, with Rob running the faster team of Fya, Nero and Poppy (who did their fair share of winning and were rarely outside the top three) whilst I ended up with the slower team of Flint, Fel and Indie (and was rarely out of the bottom three).

 

Rob's 2005 Dryland Team. Poppy right lead, Fya left lead, Nero at wheel

 

For our first winter in Canada, and due to lack of snow on the East Coast, Rob only managed to compete in one race, the 6 dog Sportsman class at Tahquamenon Country in Michigan; he was soundly beaten by every other team in the field (purebred or otherwise). Undeterred by red lanterns or lack of snow Rob plans to race at distances up to 60 miles for the coming winter and will hopefully progress up to 150 miles +in winter 2007/08. It is proving a challenge to train our UK conditioned 'sprint' dogs to do longer distances, but one that we are endeavouring to rise to. Te addition to our kennel of three pups from the Kelim and Sibersong kennels in New Hampshire should help greatly as we get used to running bigger teams over longer distances.

 

Our 2006/2007 team finishing a late spring training session

 

Finally we have just (last month) been blessed with our first litter sired by Fya and out of our best bitch, Penkhalas Poppaea of Shaytaan J.W.. Poppy had five boys and one girl, and we are planning on keeping 5 from the litter with the other going to live with our friends Jeff and Amber. (Amber not only helped us out immensely with delivering the litter but also saved the life of the final pup). Poppy is an extremely pretty and sound bitch who had two reserve CC's as a youngster in the UK and was top bitch in the SHCGB Dual Championship the year that Fya won it so we have very high hops for this litter.

 

Our eldest bitch, Poppy, seen here at just over 12 months of age - Penkhalas Poppaea of Shaytaan

 

Well I think that is more than enough for the time being, we look forward to meeting some of you in the ring and on the trail over the next few years! All the very best and thanks for the opportunity to introduce ourselves.

 

Rob and Louise Cooke