Västras Winterrrace 24-25/1-15

Yeah!

Håkan and some of our dogs are on their way back home from Nornäs. He and a team of four dogs, Corona, Jotka, Kalla and Geist have finished DP20 (2X10km) so now Jotka and Kalla will have their first award.

The team also won the race, 48 minutes in snowy heavy trail yesterday and 36 minutes today in colder and less snowy trail. Well done!

I have been showling snow many hours this weekend. It snowed all day yesterday and all night. I believe we have about 35cm snow.

Yesterday I went sledging with eight of our dogs. I went straight into the woods which wasn't a very good idea. It was far to heavy for the team so I had to turn back after struggling for about 700meters. The dogs in lead sometimes disappeared in the deep snow - it was not the sledge tour I had waited for. Luckily the road to our house was ok to go sledging on so I went 5km :-)

NAF for Håkan and his team at Wilderness race

At 23 o'clock night to Sunday 18:th I got a message that Håkan expected to reach the finish about 00:30 - which he did , to be more exact 00:33 . Unfortunately, he had no dogs. He had lost the team 16km before the finish when he stopped to snacks the and to take some blueberry soup . When he untied himself from the pulka to reach the dogs  they began to slowly move forward. They did not stay as they usually do as he told them , but rather increased the speed. Håkan , who days before the race had invested in a new pair of skis, did not have a chance to catch up with them for the skis did not slide well att all. Håkan put up  all his strength to try and ketch the team but saw no sign of the dogs and began to worry that they would be stuck with the sledge , start barking and attract wolves that they would be easy prey for , or run out on some nearby road and being run over . When he finally reached the goal , he was extremely relieved when he heard Deimos barking and saw that both he and Corona were exactly on the spot where they had rested after the first leg . Håkan was warmly welcomed by the two dogs in the team. Deimos barked and wagged his tail  and Corona who had settled comfortably on a pile of straw also waved her tail.
No one had seen them coming, they had just run to " their place ".

Of course it was sad that it would end so just 16 km before the finish but the most important was of course that both Håkan and the dogs found their way and that they weren't hurt.

So it was a Happy Ending 

Wilderness Race (Vildmarksracet)

Today Håkan and one of our puppy buyers ( Lars Jämtsved ) are competing in the Wilderness Race ( http://www.vildmarksracet.se/se ) . This is a competition of the total distance 120km with mandatory rest time of 4 hours . Håkan  is skiing and the three dogs in his team Corona, Corall and Deimos are pulling a pulka.
Lars is going by sled with 10 dogs. His team contains his own dogs and six dogs from our kennel;  Ergo , Appa , Etna, Geist , Aijas and Jotka.
I keep my fingers crossed that they will have a good race.

Good hips

Today we received a letter regarding X-rays of the hips on Bielkersmils Jatka of Birk and Bielkersmils Geist of Barusi -both grade A.

Now we have a total of 20 dogs that have grown up in the kennel with ok hips (all of which are x-rayed is free).

This fine result I feel confirm my and Håkans hypothesis  that the key to good hip status is that the dogs:

• get high quality food
• are allowed to move freely in trackless terrain as much as possible during childhood
• and that they are kept thin

Today it snowed quite abundant here in Jonsbyn so we hope it can become a sleigh ride tomorrow. Unfortunately, we currently have four females in heat so the dogs have a different focus than work so it remains to be seen how the work ethic becomes.

Mating has taken place

On the tird of january 2015 pdp Bielkersmils Bielka andpdp, SE(Polar)CH Bielkersmils Deimos of Ilya mated. So now we are hopeing for puppies in about nine weeks (around 7/3-2015). More information will soon be available at "puppyinfo".

We have now started a small and exclusive tourist activity. If you like you can go on a tour with our dogs, if there is enough snow it will be a sledge tour and if there is bare ground it will be a tour with our Troll-Wagon.

Last sunday we had a guest who went with us on a barbacue tour. He had never tried going with a dog team before. We were lucky since the weather was nice, sun and a few degrees below zero. Unfortunately one of the dogs stepped on a sharp stone and was injured so he had to sit on the Troll wagon.

The dogs are tied up to rest while we are going to roast some sausages.

Prices

30 min  – 300kr

2 hours, included stop for coffee, tee or hot chocolate – 700kr

4 hours included stop for roasting sausages over open fire – 1200kr

Phone: Christina +46700405267 or Håkan +46707973589

Email: bielkersmils@gmail.com