We run a kennel called Working Husky Kennel with approx 48 pure breed Siberian Huskies.
We breed most of our dogs by our self and follow them during their entire life. The dogs are the core of our hearts, our work and our lives, and become our colleagues and partners in our daily lives.
Sometimes we buy dogs for breeding from other kennels to keep our Siberian husky blood lines healthy. For breeding we only use huskies with the working abilities that we prefer.
They shall love this life, be friendly, be able to run in a good speed and manage the challenges that life in the wilderness demands.
Sometimes we get a dog that doesn’t fit in to the pack or like our way of living. For these dogs we always try to find a new more suitable home so that they can live a happy life.
Our huskies that follow on all the tours love to work and pull. To work in front of the sled is what they love most and you get amazed when you see their joy when we take out the dog sleds and harnesses.
The mentality of the sled dogs
The huskies are the centre of our hearts, our company and in our life.
It’s really important for us that we have a social pack that can socialize with each other without any tensions in between. They shall also be social with guests and calm and easy to handle out on our journeys. Most of this takes form on the way from a puppy to an adult sled dog. We and the adult dogs in the pack work together so that the young dogs become a part of us.
The rank order of the pack
We never allow fights in our kennel.
The hierarchy in our kennel is what we call a flat hierarchy. We, Stina and Matti are the leaders of the pack and stand higher above all the dogs that are more or less in the same level. They are not allowed to be aggressive or start fights. This is the system that we have been working with for over 20 years. The result is a calm and harmonious dog pack that never has to be afraid of being attacked. They know that we as leaders handle the conflicts in the group.
What do the huskies eat?
For many years we have feed our dogs with dry food from Royal Canin called Royal Canin Sporting Life Energy 4800. During high season in winter they also eat Royal Canin PRO Marathon 5000 to get an extra boost. Both are high energy dry food which means that its special made for hard working dogs and has the best possible digestible formula. Together with Royal Canin dry food we also feed a fresh frozen dog food, also with the highest possible quality. Good food and feeding routines gives a dog a better recovery after work and training, gives less injuries and give the dog healthy gastrointestinal system and good stool.
To get a good working result out of your dogs you have to fuel them with quality food.
Training
We start to train our huskies in beginning of August.
At this time of year we have no snow so we harness the dog teams in front of our quads which they pull instead of sleds. During training we attach great importance to get the dogs calm and quite when we are standing still, and to relax and be silent when we take breaks.
The first training runs starts at 4 km and then gradually we increase the distance. In December the dogs have run 2000-3000 km. When you train and run sleddogs you have to know that resting is just as important as the running and pulling. We therefore fill in a training diary where we can see day for day how far every dog run and when it’s time for a day off etc.
Racing
When we have possibility and time we try to participate in different sled dog races.
Our teams have won gold medals, become the best Swedish team on a big race abroad but also been scratching half way one time and been overtaken by faster teams.
Everything can happen in a race involving animals, because we compete under their conditions and the dogs as individuals shall always be in focus.
Expedition huskies
The main task for our huskies are to pull dogsleds on our dog sled tours. They shall manage in the environment we live in with temperatures down to almost -50°C. They shall also love to work side by side with us during the whole season and they do. They live week after week with us and the guests out on the mountain, in the forests around Jokkmokk and on other places along all our journeys.
There is a lot more to tell you about our dogs, about the Siberian husky breed but also about how they are as individuals.
If you want to know more about our dogs and our kennel you are welcome to our kennel Working Husky Kennel at Facebook ..
