Once Upon A Time

It all began many years ago when I was a high school stupid, oops, I mean student. What did you do during your high school years, besides have a good time, learn to drink and get in trouble with the teachers? Well, of course you did homework, didn't you! Well, I sure did. It seemed that the teachers in our school liked to levy mountains of home work on us poor stupids, which they never checked on anyway. I think it was just an excuse not to teach. We pretty well had to teach ourselves. Anyway, what does one do when you have all this homework every night. I used to sit in the living room reading notes, working out math problems, reading text books and of course, watching TV, the boob tube. Without it, I never would have made it through high school. Not alive, anyway! Back in the sixties, television was relatively new. There were actually a few good shows to watch. Do you remember, "The Line-Up", "Batman", "The Ed Sullivan Show and especially the first appearance of the Beatles", the original "Outer Limits", "M-Squad", "Rin Tin Tin" and many others that far exceed the interest of the junk that passes for TV these days. I think that I remember more about TV in the sixties than I ever learned from school in those days. That's a terrible thing to have to admit. I just hope none of my old teachers end up reading this stuff. However, one of those TV shows was to have a huge influence on how I chose to spend the rest of my life.

The Start of the Dream

"Sergeant Preston of the Yukon" and his wonder dog "King". How many of you remember that one. I must have seen every episode. Little did I realize that I had decided then that some day, when I was old enough, and my parents couldn't say anything about it, that I would own a Siberian Husky.

The Beginning

After high school, and a little extra schooling, I got a job at a steel company, Dominion Foundries and Steel Company (DOFASCO) in 1967. I was now a rough, tough,steel man in the City of Hamilton, Ontario. For a few years, I puttered around learning what life was really all about. It wasn't until I met my first wife, Shirley, that I found out that I wasn't so tough after all, tamed by a good woman. I began to really learn what life was all about. We got married, bought a house in Burlington, Ontario and then bought a dog. Obtaining a canine was a bit of a negotiation and a lot of whining. Shirley wanted a German Shepherd, she had had one before and I, of course, wanted a Siberian Husky. Did I know anything about Siberian Huskies, no, of course not. I was like most of the people out there that want a dog, buy first, learn later.

Hello Nelvayna

We finally settled on a little black and white husky puppy that was born in the country not far from where we lived. We picked her up in the fall of 1971 and named her "Nelvayna" after that infamous comic book character of 1940's fame, Nelvayna which meant something like "Fire of the North". It seemed an appropriate name for a female Siberian Husky. After quite an ordeal with "The Canadian Kennel Club," the mother's papers had not been transferred to the new owners who were the breeders, we managed to get her registered as an official single-named Siberian Husky, pedigree, nose print and all. We thought the world of this little pup and for a while also thought she was a perfect example of the Siberian Husky breed. The kids used to take her for walks and the youngest, Sharon, thought it was great to take her out. As Vayna got larger, she got stronger and eventually she was able to pull Sharon around, usually face first, without really trying. It wasn't long before we started to question whether we had a Siberian or something else. Her ears wouldn't stop growing. Neither would she. After a year or two, we ended up with a siberian that was huge with dumbo style ears. We didn't care though. She was ours and she was also smart as a whip, is a whip smart, I doubt it. Vayna had a capacity for learning that I haven't seen in any other husky. We decided to put her into obedience classes which were held by Abe Zvonkin, a former wrestler in the Hamilton area. She loved to go and quickly became the class clown. She talked to the gallery as she did her laps around the ring and always behaved herself even when other dogs showed qualities of poor temperament and poor breeding. After passing her classes, she won her "CD" in obedience by passing three out four trials, not bad for a siberian, although she just scraped by, point wise, in each exercise. Many people who saw her thought she was an Alaskan Malamute. I never understood why until many years later after I had truly begun to learn about the breed and its history. Later on, we also put Vayna through the "CDX" training classes which she did but howled her way through the long sit and long down. We tried everything to stop her from whining, even to using lemon juice, to get her to stop. The only successful thing that happened was that she acquired a taste for lemon juice. We didn't have the heart to try tabasco sauce but she would probably have liked that too.

Nelvayna The Hunter

Vayna was a great hunter as well as a terrific swimmer. When she went for walks, she would almost always bring back something that she'd either hunted down or rolled in. Sometimes she smelled awful although I think that she thought that she smelled just great. The smellier the better as far as she was concerned. She was a great mouser too. Whenever we found a mouse in the house, we lived in a new housing project in Burlington where we were surrounded by farmer's fields, we called on Vayna to catch the mouse and dispose of it. She was quick, much quicker than I was or the mouse. She always got her mouse, just like the Mounted Police always got their man. As I said before, she was also an excellent swimmer, probably liked water from all the baths she used to get. Whenever we went on holidays to the lake, Lake Dalrymple near Orillia, she would always enjoy "swimmin with the wimmin" as we used to call it. She would go in the water and paddle around, letting people grab onto her tail while she pulled them around in the water. If we yelled "help, Vayna", she would come into the water to save us. She was quite a dog.

Eventually we got to a point in time where we wanted to breed her. We talked to a couple of breeders and chose one who didn't have an attitude. We were told that she couldn't possibly have any American blood in her by one breeder. When we got her pedigree from The Canadian Kennel Club, and took it to Arctic Pac kennels in Dundas, Ontario, we were told that she had lots of American blood in her background including the first breeders lines about three generations back. We learned quickly not to believe people who think they know everything unless there's proof. I was impressed that people could look at a pedigree and recognize the dogs in it. I was to learn in later years that this is a great asset and many good breeders are able to do this. When we finally chose a male for our little girl, with the help of the breeder, she produced six black and white pups, all of which ended up a better example of the breed than the mother. They all got their mother's intelligence with a blending of the size both in body and ear sets. Some of the girls were even smaller, which is quite common in a breeding. In other words, the puppies were normal in size unlike their mother. We sold all the puppies. I find it impossible to understand, even to this day, why we never kept one of the puppies, bad judgement on our part.

Westward Ho

In the fall of 1980, we decided to change our lives and get closer to realizing our dream. That was to raise Siberian Huskies in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I got a job with the City of Calgary and we moved to Calgary, Alberta. Vayna came with us, of course, but now she had to swim in the frigid cold waters of the Bow River which is glacier fed from the Rockies not far away. Did that deter her, no, not a bit. She loved water and it didn't matter if it was warm or cold. I couldn't keep her out of it. One time, when walking in Fish Creek Park in south Calgary, I found her swimming down the middle of a Bow River tributary that flows through the park. This, in the spring when the river was swollen with spring snow melt. She was paddling down the middle of the river having a great time. I thought sure she would be a goner but not Vayna. It was just another great swim as far as she was concerned, she loved it.

Vayna was very protective too, a great companion. While not a particularly good watch dog, she was very protective of anyone having a disability. She seemed able to sense when people had physical problems. She was also very protective of little children who came to visit. As she got older, she slowed down a little but she always loved her walks. She lived for her walks and always reminded me that walk times usually occurred after supper.

Farewell Vayna

In the summer of 1984, Vayna finally gave in to old age as all of Gods animals do after a while. She was 11 1/2 years old and had a good life. It wasn't until she was gone that I thought of all the words she had learned. She had a larger vocabulary than some of the people that I know at the City of Calgary. Anyway, we had a decision to make. There were two choices. Either we would never have another dog or we would have a whole bunch. Losing an only dog was too difficult a situation to live with.

Hello Vasha

After losing Vayna, we spent the next month trying to decide what to do. We spent a week at the hot springs in Radium B.C. where we inadvertantly discovered an ad for Siberian Husky puppies in the Calgary Herald newspaper. By Saturday, we couldn't stand it any longer. We trecked home so we could go see the puppies which were located in Black Diamond, a community south of Calgary. When we went there, all the puppies, six in all, were out in a pasture trying to figure out how to capture a horse that lived there. Six little fur-balls stalking a horse who wondered what these little dog-like things were. When we first saw "Alvasha", she was completely blond but eventually she turned a wolf-grey. This was my first experience with a wolf-grey puppy. As we travelled back to Calgary, we drove through a torrential thunder storm with rain and thunder so loud as to shake the car and almost blow it off the road. Little Vasha didn't seem to notice as she was curled up on Shirley's lap fast asleep.

As little Vasha grew up, she changed color. Initially she was blonde but after about 5 months she turned a beautiful grey color. She was a very cute little puppy. She liked to bury her little doggie treats in the corners and around the baseboards all around the house. Quite often, I would come home and see one, two, three or four cookies neatly pushed up against the wall in the dining room. Other cookies were situated in strategic locations in the bedrooms or hallway or the living room. I guess she always wanted to have something handy in case she felt like a treat. This behaviour went on for some time. When we went out to ballgames, we always took little Vasha with us. She was quite an attraction and was always on her best behaviour around other people. After the games, we usually went to the Dairy Queen for an ice cream cone. She grew to love ice cream and daintily licked at her cone whenever we bought her one. About that time, a co-worker learned that I had recently purchased a Siberian Husky and said that I should put her into the show ring. Up until that time I had not really considered this possibility so I talked it over with my wife and we decided that showing her couldn't be too hard. If my co-worker (Tim Kilgour) could get a championship on his dog, so could we. It would be a piece of cake....ha, ha, ha, I lie like a rug. So, off we went to handling classes. We went for quite a while, learning to stack the dog, show the teeth, do the patterns and groom the dog. Vasha got to like having baths. The first show that we entered Vasha into was a Siberian Husky specialty at the Roundup Center in Calgary in December of 1984. Shirley got to do the showing. I stayed on the outside of the ring to take pictures. We were benched next to a group of Alaskan Malamutes, this is where I realized how much Vayna had looked like a Mal. All of them could have been Vayna., they were identical to her in color, markings and size.

It's funny because it wasn't until a few years later that I looked at the pictures and recognized just about everybody in them. At the time I took them, I didn't know anybody. Shirley showed the dog but we didn't get any of those nice ribbons that everyone else got. I thought that I could have really used them because I was always losing my bookmarks. Eventually, we learned to watch the other handlers who had more experience than we did to learn what to do and what not to do. It was an interesting experience and most of the people were very friendly and helpful. At the specialty show that we had put Vasha in, I saw some beautiful red huskies. While we were talking to the breeder of our puppy's father, I let slip that I would like to get a red husky some day. The word was out and I didn't know it.

Hello Honey-Oohs

We continued to work with Vasha, that is to say that Shirley worked with her and I tagged along, an extra, a shadow. I felt like a fifth wheel. Then, one day at work I got a phone call. Would I be interested in buying a red husky. Of course I was and after a little bit of price negotiating with the breeder (Lisa Brooks of Isboks Kennel), we arranged to see the dog. The breeder came over that very night with the dog. I guess she sniffed a sale. The doorbell rang and in she came with the dog. She was the most beautiful red husky I had ever seen, not quite red but a honey colored blonde. And her name was "Honey-Oohs". At first she was a little timid so Shirley took her aside and lavished all kinds of attention on her. "Hey, she was supposed to be my dog". Well, now I got the old dog, Vasha, who was all of 8 months of age by now. About this time, all the cookies disappeared, never to be replaced. Vasha decided to show Honey who the boss was. She bit her and from that day on, Honey was the boss, go figure. Honey-Oohs was 7 months old when we got her. So now we began taking two dogs to handling classes and I got to train one of them, or rather she trained me since she was the experienced one. We began entering the two girls in shows, showing against each other usually in different classes, but we didn't care about the cost, we were having fun. We usually showed Vasha in Canadian bred and Honey-Oohs in the Open category. It took us a while to realize that most of the winners came from the Open category but we did quite well with Vasha in Canadian bred. We went to shows in Calgary, Red Deer and Lethbridge, places that didn't take too long to drive to. It was usually a weekend excursion and we always had a good time. We met lots of people who had a similar interest in the Siberian breed and some people who had other breeds of dogs as well. We didn't keep just to our own breed. I always enjoyed looking at the other breeds and often wondered what it would be like to get a different type of dog, there were so many beautiful looking purebred dogs available. Eventually, this was to happen but not for the reasons that I thought it would.

After a while of showing both dogs, Alvasha managed to get her championship in the summer of 1986 at the Evelyn Kenny show in Calgary. Poor Honey-Oohs got the boot for barking at the judge who decided to take a second look at the dog startling her in the process. She barked at him and got booted (the politically correct term is excused) from the ring. One black mark against her. I was horrified. I wondered if we had a basket case, a temperament disaster, a bad dog. From that point on we started to take the girls to obedience classes. While we did that, we kept showing Honey-Oohs in conformation. After a set of obedience classes we began showing Alvasha in obedience and Honey-Oohs in conformation. Our first show where we had the two in different shows was at Lethbridge in the fall of 1986. I showed Vasha in obedience and Shirley showed Honey-Oohs in conformation. Three shows. I felt sure we were going to get our "CD" in one weekend, Ha. On Saturday, Vasha performed well but goofed on the recall. On Sunday, she did well again but goofed on another exercise. At this point we decided to pull a nono in obedience. Shirley and I switched dogs for the third show on Monday. Honey-Oohs wasn't getting picked but she was up against a lot of good competition so her chances of getting points weren't too good. But Vasha, she was up against herself and she was losing. Shirley showed her in obedience and almost got her first leg but not quite, another goof up. Zero for three. After having Vayna get three out of four in years past, we thought we had a dummy here. Vasha, on the other hand, was just playing the game. She knew that if she didn't get any trials, she could keep going to the shows with Honey-Oohs who was now her buddy. We took the girls back to obedience classes for practice. Then we entered Vasha in the Alberta Kennel Club show at the Roundup Center in Calgary. This was a big show and took place in February of 1987. At this show, Vasha passed her trial all three days. See "the Antics of Alvasha" for the details. Even Honey-Oohs was not to be outdone by picking up 5 points towards her championship. We were flying that weekend. Now Vasha had her conformation championship and her "CD" in obedience. She was ready to be bred as she had come in season that same weekend. We had already registered our kennel name with the Canadian Kennel Club just for this event. We called it "Vashiral", "Va" for Vayna and Vasha, "Shir" for Shirley and "Al" for me.

We took her down to Lethbridge to be bred to Vivan Delude's Kainai's Apache, a beautiful large dilute black male. That is where we discovered that she had a major back problem and would not stand for the male. She couldn't support the weight because she had spondilitis of the spine. She would never have puppies. So, what do you do now? We began to work with Honey-Oohs who was our second choice for breeding but actually turned out to be the best of the two dogs. Things usually happen for a reason and looking back, it was probably a good thing that we weren't able to breed Vasha. That forced us to look at Honey-Oohs to be our foundation bitch. As it turned out, we ended up building our whole kennel on Honey-Oohs and her progeny are still producing good animals to this very day.

First Race

In 1985 we had joined a new dog club which had grown up in the Calgary area. It was called the Canadian Rockies Siberian Husky Club and was made up of a lot of local Alberta siberian husky owners with a few people from outside the province. Their annual general meeting coincided with a race and show for the members and the first one was held in January of 1986. We missed that one due to illness but we were at the second one held in January of 1987 at Bates Bar J Ranch just outside of Water Valley, Alberta. The ranch is situated in a valley and is surrounded by high hills with a creek running through the property. The members stayed overnight in the ranchhouse which was large enough to accomodate everyone who wished to stay overnight. The race was held on saturday and the show and meeting was held on sunday. I borrowed a sled and a leaddog from one of the other members and entered the three dog class. I put my best runner, Honey-Oohs, in dual lead with my borrowed leaddog and Vasha in wheel. Off we went like a shot, would you believe a speeding bullet. Ok, how about a slow bullet or maybe a fast snail. We mushed over hill and dale and through a bunch of trees to, Oh No!, a creek with a thin film of water on it. The leaddogs ground to a halt, each one looking at the water and then at each other. You could read their thoughts, "I'm not getting my feet wet in that stuff, are you?" Meanwhile, Vasha, who loved water kept right on going. The wheel dog passed the leaddogs and dragged the leaders through the water backwards. When we got to the other side, we had one horrendous tangle of lines and dogs. Vasha sat there with a thoroughly triumphant look on her face. She was now the lead dog and the others would have to follow her, right after I untangled them. All the while, the people back at the finish line were waiting for me wondering if I was ever coming back. I untangled the dogs, put Vasha and Honey-Oohs in lead with no neckline (Honey's collar had come off and was completely mangled up). The other leaddog went in wheel. From there we finished our first race. And some people think this is fun. I don't think anyone has ever taken longer to run 3 kilometers.

Calgary Stampede

During the summer of 1987, we were involved in the Grandstand Show at the Calgary Stampede. That year, the theme of the show was "Salute to the Winter Olympics" which were to be held in Calgary in the spring of 1988. We got to carry the comedian, "Wes Harrison" onto the stage on a dogsled each night. This was quite an undertaking and we had to borrow two dogs and a sled to accomplish it. Bill Tolley came to the rescue and lent us two of his best lead dogs and a sled which the Stampede people put on wheels. Our two import lead dogs were Keeko and Chinook with Vasha and Honey-Oohs on wheel. Chinook had become famous by leading just about every dog team in the movie "Stone Fox" except for the Samoyeds of the white team. Each night, for 10 nights, the dogs performed as required in front of about 16,000 people. And, each night, Honey-Oohs howled and sang with delight during the act that preceeded ours, which was the Indian war dance or rain dance. I think it rained every night at six o'clock so whatever they were doing, it was working. The Indians sang and danced and so did Honey-Oohs, sometimes so loud as to almost drown them out. Each night, the dogs would go up the ramp onto the stage, stop at midstage, drop off the comedian and continue down the other side of the stage, a distance of about 35 yards. When you consider how much a siberian likes to run, you realize how great an accomplishment that was just to stop them after a few yards to let someone off. These dogs were used to running for miles, not yards.

In the fall we continued to show Honey-Oohs and retired Vasha. We still snuck her into the shows. Nobody commented on why we weren't showing her but she was always good company for Honey-Oohs. Eventually, Honey got her championship in the fall show at Red Deer. Having been bred to Keeko, she was 4 weeks pregnant at the time and really began to show just after she got her championship. I guess she wanted to look her best in the prize photo that we got of her. Females can be so vain about that sort of thing.

First Litter

In December of 1987, Honey Oohs gave birth to her puppies. She originally had six but we lost three during whelping. The first puppy was born naturally, but then nothing for hours. Finally we took her to the vet where we managed to survive two more. Three of the puppies were huge and too large to whelp naturally. We ended up with three healthy pups from this disastrous beginning. We named them Vashiral's Lucky Charm, Vashiral's The Gizmo and Vashiral's Sergeant Preston after you know who. Lucky Charm, the first one born, was grey and white with blue eyes, Gizmo was black and white and huge with blue eyes and Preston was red and white and huge with amber eyes. See "the Morning Wakeup Game" for more on the antics of these pups. We now had five huskies and were living in the big city of Calgary. Things began to get tense with neighbors because they didn't like living next to someone with so many dogs. I learned they were terrified of dogs. It didn't matter how good or quiet the dogs were.

Hello Pepper

About that time, we got a sixth dog. Her name was Ninnis' Sgt. Pepper named after Pepper Anderson of Police Squad fame on TV. We had waited a while for this pup who was out of two lead dogs from Bill Tolley's kennel. She was a petite little thing and was as cute as a cucumber. The only thing was, she couldn't bark. When she wanted attention, she screeched, particularly at supper time. Now the whole neighborhood knew we had another dog and they showed their displeasure by complaining every time one of the dogs barked. In Calgary, citizens are encouraged to complain, about everything, especially barking dogs. I got complaints from both neighbors on either side of me. They used Calgary's Animal Services to harass me. Well, it worked. In September of 1988 we moved to an acreage in Water Valley, about 60 kilometers northwest of Calgary and Vashiral Siberians has been there ever since. We started building our kennels. We had lots of room and lots of work to do. There didn't seem to be any place to build a kennel because of all the trees but it's amazing what a chainsaw will do. I got a local farmer to drill post holes with his tractor and I was off. The kennels were in and fenced before the first winter set in around the end of November. Whew!, and that was just the beginning. The first winter was spent learning who were lead dogs and who weren't.

Hello Sheba

Oh, I forgot to mention that somewhere in the transition to Water Valley, we acquired a border collie. Her name was Sheba and very quickly became the S.H.I.T. of the kennel, Siberian Husky In Training. This came to pass because of an experience we had with a border collie named "Ike" in Lethbridge that belonged to Lloyd and Vivian Delude. Ike babysat our girls one weekend while we attended a show there and I never forgot how well he got along with Honey-Oohs and Vasha. He even retrieved their leashes and offered to take them for a walk while we were in the house. So the natural choice for a second type of dog was, of course, a border collie. Sheba loved to be with the huskies and for years was a very creditable lead dog when we went sledding. We even bought booties for her as she'd stop the team on the trail to clean snow balls out of her pads. She ended up being the watch dog of the kennel and always let me know when people were arriving either at our house or at any house nearby. She also became the designated sing-song starter. A few barks at a certain pitch and the dogs were off with a howl. In the early years, we had four other kennels of siberian huskies in the area and each one would sing in turn once someone started the sing-song. The neighbors here think it is quite unique to have these dogs around. They even compete with the local coyote population for singing.

The first winter in Water Valley was spent learning how to run a sled properly. To do this, we needed to find out if we had any leaddogs. I had my first racing sled built by Bill Tolley by this time and I went to a practice race in Vernon, British Columbia that fall with Honey-Oohs and her three kids, Charmee, Gizmo and Preston. The kids were almost a year old by then. The race was held on the side of a mountain and we used a logging road for the trail. We went down the mountain about two miles, turned around (with help) and came back up. This is where I found that Alaskan Huskies could run up a mountain about as fast as they ran down. On the first day, I put Honey and Charmee in lead with the big boys, Preston and Gizmo, in behind. As we went down the trail, it was all I could do to keep the girls from jumping over the edge of the road and running down the side of the mountain. Again, the people back at the finish line were wondering if I was ever coming back. On the second day, the girls, who now knew what the downside of the mountain looked like, wanted to go up the mountain instead. Again, we took forever to get back. We were not serious racers.

Later that winter, we began running Pepper. She was just a little girl but she wanted to go soooo bad. So, one day we took her to Fort Calgary in Calgary, Alberta where we were giving rides and putting the dogs on display. This is where I learned that she was a natural leaddog. She took proper commands at 9 months of age and even jumped over her leaddog partner, Charmee, to take the team in the desired direction. She did this a number of times and quickly became one of our main leaddogs from then until the present day.

Hello Badger

In the summer of 1989 we acquired Kenadar's Badger who was a nice sized black and white leaddog. He would be a great partner for Pepper. He was a son of Takkalik's Yukon Nicolai who was one of Bill Tolley's main leaddogs so I expected Badger would be a good leaddog too. He and Pepper got along famously and became not only a great leaddog combo, but also kennel mates and the alpha and beta dogs of the kennel until Badger left us in December of 1998. Pepper and Honey-Oohs didn't see eye-to-eye over who was the boss, so after two major battles with the score tied one-to-one, we solved the problem by letting Pepper be boss of the kennel dogs and Honey-Oohs became the boss of the house dogs. This arrangement seemed to satisfy the girls because they didn't have any more fights after that. Pepper later began picking on one of Honey-Oohs kids but that's getting ahead of myself. Later that year, three of us, Bill Tolley, Bob Bourget and myself, concocted an arrangement whereby we would bring down a bred bitch from Earl Norris kennel in Alaska and split the litter according to a complicated formula whereby I got the last pick. On December 30 of 1989, Alaskan's Tonsina of Anadyr II gave birth to three puppies, one male and two females. After a few weeks, we decided to make our picks. Bill took the male, he always took a male so that was no problem. Bob on the other hand couldn't make up his mind because his wife was telling him what to do, doesn't that sound familiar. I finally got fedup up and told him he should take the grey female (the one I wanted). Since he was getting advice, I suspected that he would do the opposite of what I suggested and he did. He picked the black and white female. I got the little grey girl who was the only one who resembled the sire, Alaskan's Nukee of Anadyr and she has been a leaddog for me ever since. We named her Ninnis Cassidro at Vashiral.

In January of 1990 we bred Honey-Oohs a second time, this time to a really good leaddog from Earl Norris's kennel in Alaska. Earl had brought this dog down to Water Valley while giving a seminar to the Canadian Rockies Siberian Husky Club in 1987 and sold him to Bill Tolley. The dog was Alaskan's Biliken oz Anadyr. The Canadian Kennel Club had trouble reading English and registered him as "oz" instead of "of". Biliken was pure white and ran lead for the Ninnis racing team for many years.

Honey-Oohs gave birth to three puppies in March, Vashiral's Bunniken Blue, Vashiral's White Chocolate and Vashiral's Bit O'Honey. Bunny and Chalkee were all white and Bitto was white with a mottled grey, white saddle. Bitto and Chalkee quickly became leaddogs but Bunny has had to put up with looking at other dog's tails all her life.

Later on that year we bred Vashiral's Lucky Charm to Kenadar's Badger. and had five puppies born on Halloween night, October 30th 1990. This was Charmee's first litter and she had a mind of her own. We set up her whelping box in a spare room downstairs, we didn't yet have a whelping room which I would highly recommend for new breeders. Charmee managed to move her brood into the closet from the whelping box on the first night. This was an interesting situation since the closet was full of blankets and extra clothes and stuff. The puppies were lost in the menagerie of junk so we quickly had to remove all the stuff and let her have her litter in the closet. She was happy because she now had some privacy in which to have her puppies and she also got her own way. From this breeding we got Vashiral's Splash Gordon, a black and white male and Vashiral's Velvet Black Magic, a black and white female, both of whom who would run lead for us as they grew up. The other three pups in the litter were sold but two of them were to be returned for various reasons, the main one being that dogs are throwaway commodities in our society and are the first things to go when family problems arise. We got Vashiral's Nanook Sunshine and Vashiral's Kishka back and they have been with us ever since. Nookie was taught a number of tricks by her owner and has enjoyed showing off whenever we have taken her out in public but both dogs have lost their competitive desire and have not been very good on the sled. Having a dog in a kennel environment where they compete with the other dogs for pack position is very important in developing a good attitiude towards work. I have found that dogs in a home environment quickly lose that attitude and have trouble returning to their roots after they have been away from the pack for awhile. This may be more because of the lines I am working with, other breeders may have differing experiences.

In February of 1989, the Canadian Rockies Siberian Husky Club was asked to set up some dogsled races to run in conjunction with the First Calgary Winterfest which was a continuation of the winter festivities that followed the 1988 Winter Olympics. The festival committee had found some old Calgary Herald newspaper clippings of dog races held between Calgary and Canmore in 1925, the same year as the great serum run in Alaska. Their wish was to duplicate those races but settled on a sprint race instead when the logistics of the situation rendered that idea unworkable. Many fences had been built since 1925. The races were held in Canada Olympic Park and run on the upper side of the hill with an added loop halfway down the ski-hill and back up again. Twenty teams were entered and yours truly was one of them. We put on a good show for thousands of spectators and the participants in the race had a great time running their dogs where just a year earlier, skiers, lugers and bobsledders from around the world were participating. You couldn't help feeling that maybe dogsledding should have been introduced as part of the Winter Olympics.

In the following years, we took part in many of the Calgary Winter Festivals taking part in the sprint races and the parades that signified the beginning of the festivities. We also went to the Castor, Alberta winter festival many times to give sled rides to some of the younger people. On weekends, we often tried to find time to take the dogs out to the trails just south and west of Water Valley where many others could be found enjoying winter pastimes such as sledding, ski-joring and cross-country skiing, mostly sledding though. Other people were out training their huskies for sledding, breaking in new leaddogs or just exercising the old ones.

Hello Bandy

In 1992, we bred Charmee a second time to Kristari's Elvis O'Blueridge who was to become the top Siberian show dog in Canada for that year. He was owned by Bart Miller of Water Valley and gave us a nice litter of five puppies, two black and whites, two greys and one red and white. Most people use all kinds of criteria for picking out a puppy from a new litter. I used a newly created, very scientific method for choosing the puppy to keep from this litter. I said that if we had a red puppy in the litter that we would keep it. Very simple, no nonsense easy to figure out. We had one red and that is the puppy that became Vashiral's American Bandstand. Bandy also became our next show champion and produced many excellent puppies for us.

Goodbye Shirley

Late May of 1995 saw the passing of Shirley, the matriarch of the Vashiral Siberian operation. She had endured kidney failure three years previous and failing health after that. All seemed lost at the time but nothing is ever as bad as it seems. Chapter one of the Vashiral story was over but chapter two was about to begin.

Hello Mona

Sometimes God takes care of his/her dumb animals. I'm not referring to the dogs but rather the ones with two legs. After losing Shirley I was left to take care of myself and the dogs, or I should say, take care of the dogs and then myself. It was in July that I went to the local Wally Mart store (WalMart) in Calgary to get something, probably bird seed, when I saw her. I don't normally shop for a woman at Wally Mart but this time they had a special on. As I was walking through the store I spied a picture of beauty working in one of the aisles. She was talking to another employee but I had time to notice her name tag. But, of course I didn't say anything. After making my purchase I left wondering who she was, I knew her name from her name tag, it was Mona.

A few weeks later, on Labor Day weekend, I was working outside in the yard, that is to say on the other side of the moat which is used to route all the extra spring runoff to the back of the property and onto the neighbors lot. That way, it becomes his problem. I was using my chainsaw to cut up some old wood that had been lying around for quite a while. I was dressed in my grubby mountainman clothes, the kind you wear when you don't want to get stung by wasps or any other little biting type things. I looked up and there in front of me were a couple of neighbor people that I didn't know and two of the longest legs I have ever seen. The legs said that she would like to see the dogs, so, in we went to see the dogs. She was a brave girl dressed in green shorts and interacting with all the huskies. She wasn't afraid of dogs, point number one. They seemed to like her, point number two. She later sent me a card with her phone number, point number three. It was on our first date that I put Mona and Wally Mart together to realize that she was the girl that I had seen back in July. Then I realized that maybe some other thing was at work here instead of coincidence. My dream girl had come into my life, and into Chapter two of the Vashiral story.

Not long after I met Mona, I did another breeding. I had a chance to breed Bandy, who now had her championship to Sunset Hill's Chile Connection co-owned by Bart Miller and Anne Bruder. Chile had his Canadian show Championship and would soon get his American Championship. I had shown Bandy against Chile's mother, American Champion Sunset Hill's Cheyenne Autumn, in the Calgary Kennel Club show back in the winter and she had won best of breed all three days to get her Canadian Championship in one weekend, the old pro showing the young kid a thing or three. Both Bandy and Chile were red and white and, of course, produced an all red litter. I learned something new from this experience. When you breed red to red, you get all red. I didn't know that!

Hello Foxy

We kept three of the pups, Vashiral's Crimson Foxette (female), Vashiral's Crimson Gizmo and Vashiral's Crimson Tide, both males. A few months later, I received a puppy back from my son who was living in Calgary. I had given him three dogs, Vashiral's Northern Spirit, a grey and white sister to Bandy, and her two offspring, Sunny and Major out of Badger. Sunny bred to Major and I got a little grey and white female with blue eyes in return. She was named Vashiral's Honey-Ohhs.

The winter of 1995-96 saw Mona get introduced to sledding. We started her out with four dogs usually with Badger and Pepper in lead. She did quite well that year and had graduated to six dogs by the end of the winter. My priorities were changing now as I had a new person in my life, a new relationship was budding and things were changing. I needed more time for Mona so there was less time for doggy events. However, that didn't stop me from working more on my dog business, breeding puppies for pets and spreading the Vashiral name around. I also had to begin teaching Mona more about the Siberian Husky breed so she could answer questions from people calling for pups or for advice.

We have now been married three years and Mona is fast accepting the responsibility and becoming the matriarch of the Vashiral Siberian household. We are up to about 25 dogs and a litter of puppies as of November 3rd, 1999. We are getting ready for Y2K here, that means having lots of dog food around when we roll over the speed bump and into the new millenium.

We recently purchased a new male puppy from Rick and Deena Wannamaker's kennel, Windy Ridge, in Didsbury which Mona named Maverick. This little guy is almost all white with a very light blond splotch on his back. He is quite active and outgoing and looks like he will become the next major contributor to the Vashiral running lines. He is playing uncle to the litter that we currently have right now and loves to play with the puppies. We bred Splash to Foxie and got a nice litter of six puppies. As of this date, December 1, 1999, the puppies are 8 1/2 weeks old.

We are now getting ready for Chrismas and hoping that snow will be coming soon. The weather here has been usually warm this fall so we will have to see if a white Christmas is in the cards so we can go sledding during the holidays. I always take time off during Christmas and with Y2K coming up, we are being encouraged to stay away from work during the millenium change-over. Well, they don't have to tell me twice. I'll be outa here with bells on for Christmas. I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

January 5, 2000 update: Well, here we are again, we made it through the Y2K fiasco with no problems. I hope all of you did the same. We sent our last two puppies to their new homes over the holidays. Little Dax went to Frank and Betty Prosser at Errington, B.C. on Vancouver Island. The little tyke flew Air BC to Victoria on a Dash7 and was picked up by her new owners on December 26th. I hear that all is well as she joins two other huskies in their household. Little Hanka (alias Hanky-Panky) went home to Calgary on January 2nd to be with Shelley Mattson. We also did two more breedings over the holidays as Roxie finally came into season. We bred Roxie to Rocky and also did a repeat breeding of Honey-Ohhs to Tidey. The litters are due in early February so we will be getting ready for that event very soon. I will have to clean out our alternate whelping area so that it will be ready for one of the litters.

We have only had a light dusting of snow so far, not enough to plan a sledding expedition. I am beginning to wonder if we are going to have any real winter at all this year. The temperatures have been exceptionally warm so far and the longer we go, the less chance we have of getting any real snow fall. Let's hope that things get back to normal pretty soon. Maverick has learned how to play basketball with the other dogs outside. He's the ball, quite a funny site to see him bouncing up and down while playing with everyone.

February 18, 2000 update: Honey-Ohhs gave us a litter of 5 grey puppies, 2 males and 3 females. It was a nice surprise because it came on February 4th, a day early. She only had two last time with the same male. Roxie, not to be outdone, gave us a litter of six puppies, one male and five females on February 10th. She was a day early too. The male is dark red, almost brown along with three of the females, the other two females are black and white. The grandmothers of both parents were red and white and the grandfather was Badger, who was black and white so this litter looks to be ressembling the grandparents quite closely. We have managed to get out sledding the last two weekends now. A large dump of snow, almost 9 inches, came down last week so we might get to sled well into March now. That would be great. Maverick and Trooper are learning how to run lead but all the old lead dogs are still working, even Pepper who is almost 12. She hates to be left at home. This weekend is a four day weekend for most City of Calgary workers. The Calgary Winterfest is wrapping up and the weather is quite beautiful. We will be going out to the trails again in Water Valley to continue training the young dogs. Last Sunday, we went to Cremona for the Hawksnest Restaurant customer appreciation day. The dogs gave rides from 11 AM to 3 PM and then the owners were rewarded with a nice meal and Cappucino Coffees in the restaurant. The dogs were rewarded with a helping of roast beef gravy and leftovers on their dog food, compliments of the Hawksnest. Friday night was roast beef night so the pups got a piece of the action too.

June 1, 2007 update: Well gang. It's been a long time since I updated this page so here goes. A lot of things have changed in the last 7 years. Maverick, the puppy was shipped off to Rick and Sue Tremblay in Crowsnest Pass so he could become one of Rick's team dogs on the sled. Rick is into the racing end of things and we felt Maverick would enjoy being there more than here.

I had major back surgery on September 11, 2001 and that has put an end to my dog sledding activities. A lot of dogs have gone across the "Rainbow Bridge" in the last 7 years and others have arrived to replace them. We still have 25 dogs in the kennel. In June of 2006 I had double hernia surgery and things are just now getting back to normal whatever that is. We purchased a little grey and white puppy from Hal and Sandy Smith of EbonyShadow Siberians. His name is "EbonyShadow's Gizmo Vashiral" and he will be our next show dog. We have started training him already. Mona and I will be celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary this September. Time seems to go by faster all the time. I retired from the City of Calgary in February of 2004 and don't miss working at all. Everyone should live long enough to enjoy their retirement years. Right now, we still have 2 puppies left to sell from our last litter in December, Vashiral's Little Streak and Vashiral's Miss Katie. They are getting cuter by the day and will be hard to part with when the time comes. We are just now starting to plan our next Client BBQ wich will be held on August 11th, 2007 this summer. Hopefully, the weather will be nice and warm for that and we will get to see more of the puppies we have sold to people.

(....tune in for updates from time to time:>)

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