Here are a few of the 60+ dogs here at the racing kennel. To start, puppies!
The Hellions. From left to right: Aleta (Mama dog), Puddle, Drought (only boy), Splash (top), Rain (bottom), Levy, and Drizzle. These are the "weather" puppies, the names based around rainy weather since this summer when they were born it rained almost non-stop.
Kubota. This guy is quiet and very polite. Doesn't exactly come when called, but he is an amazing sled dog. During a race sometime ago, his balls fell out of the ball bag thing that the males wear on really cold races and nobody noticed until it was over, so his balls froze. An attempt was made to save them, but it was too late, so he was altered. He is not of breeding quality anyways but that really sucks for him.
Lark. Also quiet, kinda a one-man type dog but very sweet. A bit funny looking since her chest is very large and her legs long, but her head is pretty small. She's got real sensitive feet so care has to be taken when running her.
Makita (left) and Ryobi (right) share a house. They have two, but they think this is warmer.
Makita is quite sensitive and will flop over on her back if you show even the slightest bit of anger. She does not like the ATV (which we are using for training right now) so when she runs we strap a kennel on the back of the lead ATV just in case she won't run and has to be dropped.
Ryobi is a pretty cool dog and almost always comes out of her house to say hello to me unless it's really cold out.
Throttle. This guy just
loves to eat his poop, and for a while that caused him to constantly have diarrhea and he was losing quite a bit of weight. He still eats poop, but he's doing better now and has gained a lot of weight back. Throttle is a total goofball and very wiggly.
A lot of the dogs look like Throttle, houndy in appearance with short coats. There are some husky-types but they are not the "norm" at this kennel. Most are a mixture of the two with quite a bit of variance in type.
These sled dogs, won't they catch a cold or something with that shin coat? =O
ReplyDeleteIf it's not below -20 out, they are fine. Some of them have insulated houses and we are working on insulating those that aren't. When it gets real cold at night, we load them into the dog truck since they stay warmer in there, but it's a pain in the butt to do.
DeleteThe one of Makita and Ryobi is my favorite, with their little ears all squished up
ReplyDeleteThe ball bag story is exactly the kind of thing nobody would think to ask but seems really critical to know about if you are keeping male sled dogs in the arctic. Who knew? How do they keep the bag on the boys? do they get shorts of some kind?
ReplyDeleteSome of them wear jackets that go over their balls that have a hole for the tail (the balls could pop out of that but it would be difficult) and some wear a fleece "bootie" over the balls that is held on with velcro.
DeleteYou must supply a picture ball bags being worn. MUST.
DeleteLark, btw, is extremely sighthoundy looking.
DeleteFinch looks even more sighthoundy than Lark. Loon is the least sighthoundy of the three siblings, but you can see it if you really look at him. I'll get pictures of them eventually.
DeleteLOL yes, picture of the ball bags. While they are entirely functional... it still sounds hilarious.
DeleteKubota story is interesting and sad I never knew about the need to cover the balls to keep them warm.
ReplyDeleteMakita (left) and Ryobi (right)Is my favorite picture.
I agree with Jess Lark seems sighthoundish with the deeper chest.
Neat dogs either way.
Amusing stories. I'm a little surprised that more of them don't sleep together, or are they not given the option?
ReplyDeleteLark looks like trouble. In the best way, of course.
All of them do when they are loaded onto the truck. Any other time though, they might cause problems if some of them were in a run together without supervision so that is why some of the girls and almost all of the boys have their own spots.
Delete