As I write this I am groggy, falling over and in general completely fatigued. What should have been my usual evening of Halo 2 and sleep turned out nothing as planned and the even that my entire family has been waiting for finally happened.
Several years ago I convinced my parents that I wanted to try dogsledding and rather than take the sensible route and go to some resort and send me out on a ride for an hour or so, they got me a dog. One dog soon turned into four and at this point we run a full-fleged racing kennel of Siberian Huskies complete with large dog yard, large dog truck, lots of sleds and carts of various types, and of course, lots of dogs. My commitments with my old rock band prevented me from racing last year so my parents decided to give it a shot and loved it so much that they've launched in head first again this season.
All this though, and we've never really had our own litter of puppies. Last year, one of my dogs DID have a litter, but it was unplanned and required a c-section eventually. It was great, but not the real deal. Today that all changed.
Most of our dogs have been gifts and two in particular have always stood out. Jack was a retired leader from a prominant VT-based kennel and was well known throughout the sleddog community but was thought to be sterile and too old and slow to be competitive anymore and Kali was a gift from local race kennel as she was "dumb as a post". In our care, Jack proved to be plenty fast and Kali (with some basic training) turned out to be one of the best leaders in the area. It also seems that Jack is still fertile as, on a whim, my mom decided to bread them several months ago.
Tonight Kali gave birth to eight puppies that are not only really cute but worth enough to fund a potential S52 swap... I'm exhausted, starved and smell like some very strange things, but I can't help but smile. We had our first real litter.
Several years ago I convinced my parents that I wanted to try dogsledding and rather than take the sensible route and go to some resort and send me out on a ride for an hour or so, they got me a dog. One dog soon turned into four and at this point we run a full-fleged racing kennel of Siberian Huskies complete with large dog yard, large dog truck, lots of sleds and carts of various types, and of course, lots of dogs. My commitments with my old rock band prevented me from racing last year so my parents decided to give it a shot and loved it so much that they've launched in head first again this season.
All this though, and we've never really had our own litter of puppies. Last year, one of my dogs DID have a litter, but it was unplanned and required a c-section eventually. It was great, but not the real deal. Today that all changed.
Most of our dogs have been gifts and two in particular have always stood out. Jack was a retired leader from a prominant VT-based kennel and was well known throughout the sleddog community but was thought to be sterile and too old and slow to be competitive anymore and Kali was a gift from local race kennel as she was "dumb as a post". In our care, Jack proved to be plenty fast and Kali (with some basic training) turned out to be one of the best leaders in the area. It also seems that Jack is still fertile as, on a whim, my mom decided to bread them several months ago.
Tonight Kali gave birth to eight puppies that are not only really cute but worth enough to fund a potential S52 swap... I'm exhausted, starved and smell like some very strange things, but I can't help but smile. We had our first real litter.
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