A passing

Last week our Grandma past away. She was a one of a kind grandma. She was the nicest, loveliest and prettiest grandma ever. She spoiled us, but also taught us a lot. 

She never had a fit or an argument and by heart, she still was a young Teenager. She was stubborn, not just a little bit, but quite a lot. When she smiled or told stories she had little naughty eyes, and oh, she did have lots of stories! She read so many Annie M.G. Schmidt stories that she knew them all, she told poems and songs. But also she loved to talk about her past. How she grew up, how she and my grandpa met and how they survived the 2nd world war. I could listen to Grandma for hours and never be bored.

Grandma also was an animal lover. Just like she spoiled her grand kids, she spoiled animals. Birds got fed, and all the neighboring cats got treats and ended up 3x as big as it was good for them. All animals were welcome to her. So when I got my dogs, she was happy. She spoiled them, and never got angry with them. She pet them, hug them, and played with them. 

We will all miss her quite a bit since she was a big part in all of our lives. I'll miss sharing stories with her, and I'll miss listening to her stories even more. 

Grandpa take care of grandma up there in heaven. She was quite a handful with tricks! 

Grandma, rest in peace. 

Reintje Otto

04-08-1920 - 22-08-2013

Midsummer Update

De zomer duurt maar voort en voort. Hoge temperaturen, en weinig koele nachten en regen buien. Betekend dat we niet zo veel op pad kunnen met de honden. Maar thuis beleven we genoeg plezier!
Zo zet ik na een hele warme dag een zwembadje neer, en s'avonds voor het slapen als ik de planten water geef mag Skaraa nog met de tuinslang spelen.
De rest vind dat maar niks, en zodra ik de tuinslang pak rennen ze naar binnen.

We zijn paar keer op visite geweest met de honden bij mijn moeder, met name als we gingen barbecuen en verjaardagen etc. Natuurlijk de aandacht van mijn neefje en nichtje vinden ze geweldig, en ze weten precies hoe ze er mee om moeten gaan.

Skaraa loopt inmiddels perfect los. Ze loopt super goed naast en ze luisterd perfect. Ze is dan inmiddels ook al 5,5 maand oud. Over 2 weken lopen we onze eerste show in Ahoy, dit is gelijk een internationale show. Vind het wel spannend.
Ook zijn we geslaagd voor de puppycursus. Ze was de beste van dr klasje. Ze liep ook al erg voor op de andere honden, maar we hebben er allebei gewoon lekker veel plezier in! En dat is belangrijk.

Welcome Skaraa

Welcome to Skaraa, our newest pack member.
She's named after a city in Sweden, Skara, And I added an extra 'a'. I didn't named her after the tv show Stargate SG1, where Captain Jack O'Neils son from another planet is called Ska'ara. But the reference is also pretty cool! Since we were into that tv show.

She is born on February 28th 2013, which makes her now 1 day short of 9 weeks. Her official Pedigree name is Kolyma's Siberians Magic-Touch. She's from the Kolyma's Siberians Kennel. There were 6 females pups born and 2 male pups.


With that news, some more news. Boris (Skippa's Brother) who stayed with us in search of his new home, has found one. He moved to Belgium last night. Together with 2 adults, 4 children, with only 1 of them at home. And cats, and 2 dogs (1 husky x malamute).
Good bye Boris, have fun in your new home. And enjoy! We wish you lots of love, happyness and luck.
Always in our hearts, and we will see you soon!

last training of the season

Today, we met up with a couple of people with samoyed dogs in the woods in Heerde. Some part of the group went for a walk, and only 5 of us went on a run with our dog scooters. Kevin took of hiking with Boris. And I've lent Skippa to someone with just 1 young samoyed, and he ran awesome. He didn't look at any dogs, or kids. Or tried to get to them. Which is unlike how we started the season.

I went with Sky en Koda. All dogs did great. Even Koda and Sky listened to the command 'door' wich i use so they keep going on, and don't go to other objects etc.

There is a video, which i will post later. Not filmed by me, but by the person who ran with Skippa and Milek

the end of the season

it's almost the end of the sleddog season. Spring officially started yesterday. But it's still pretty cold, and windy. And they forecasted a siberian weekend. With windchill up to -10 to -15 degrees celcius.
We don't run that much with the dogs anymore, because when March began, it was up to +15 degrees and sunny.
We do runs only in the weekend, and every now and then on a weekly day in the evening, before sunset. Because the wild boar all have babies. I don't really feel safe going in after sunset.

3 weeks ago I had a call from an aquaintace who only recently adopted another half brother of Skippa. She already had one, and she has the father of Skippa's half brothers. The brother doesn't get accepted by his father. So he keeps getting attacked. So i picked him up. it was his 4th or 5th move.
He never had any rules, or disciplined, the only 2 things he knew was sit and shake.

So i took him in, and said I'll raise him, teach him all the basic stuff and find him a new home.
So he went off to his new home on friday, but returned on Wednesday because he kept being attacked over there by the alpha.
He is now an 8 month old "teenager".
Skippa is a bit jealous of him. While he accepts every other dog, but struggles when i give attention to Boris (his brother) or when I give Skippa attention and Boris comes near.
Boris is now to stay for us for a while until he is raised, disciplined, and a secure calm dog. He has hard times trusting people and other dogs.

Boris on the left, and Skippa on the right

A little over a year ago we decided we wanted another puppy again, we wanted to make a 3 dogged packed. Since we only had Skippa and Sky. So we put ourself on a list with the Kolyma's Siberians breeders. Only a few months after our neighbours came and asked if we could adopt Koda, which made him Skoda. We then decided to stay on the list with the breeders. And the day I had to pick up Boris the puppies were born. Eight healthy pups, 2 male 6 female. And one of them is ours!

Her name is Kolyma's Siberians Magic-Touch. And her regular name will be Skaraa. She is born on February 28th. And we can pick her up at the end of april.

Since we then will have 5 dogs *until boris leaves us* i decided it is a good time to look for new homes. Bigger homes, not really bigger, but with a larger back yard.

Then our final news. My old dog scooter finaly gave up. So we purchased a new one. And its way better! 

3-2-2013

Nederlands! Scroll naar beneden

Sunday we went for a late run, well late. it was late in the afternoon. We left home at 3.55.

But the dogs. oh man! They did awesome.

Since Skippa got so tired last friday, i put him again by himself in front of Kevins bike. And he ran quite fast. Sky en Koda were in front of my scooter again. They ran really really fast!! Kept going in gallop while i wanted them to trot.
We've seen some deer. Which was funny. First there was a deer in a bush beside us. It ran away further into the bushes. I told the dogs to keep on walking. Warned kevin through the walkietalkies that Skippa might pick up a scent of a deer. When 50 m further, i saw 3 deer just crossing, but have you ever seen a black deer? The first one was brown, the 2nd black and the 3rd brown again.
So i stopped, and told Kevin what I saw, and he told me black deer doesn't excist. But according to google they do. They came from Germany, but you see them on 'the veluwe' every now and then.

So eventually we were on the way to our car, when suddenly this thing, which looked like a bit black cat with some white stripes on his head and a white tail ran onto our road, and looked around and ran of. I think it was a badger, but I'm not sure!

We ended up with a run of 15.96 km which is 9,9 miles. We had an average speed of 13,4 km/h, which is 8,3 miles per hour! They haven't been that fast over such a lenght in a long time! And they even went in gallop quite a lot. Our max speed is 19 miles per hour (31,1 km/h).

Koda and Sky were still having energy like we could run another 3 miles. But skippa was tired. We had to wait a lot for them to catch up.



Zondag zijn we weer lekker voor een steprondje gegaan! We gingen laat op pad. Nou ja, laat, het was rond 5 voor 4 dat we eindelijk richting bos gingen.

De honden, oh man. Ze deden het echt super!

Omdat Skippa vrijdag zo slecht liep, mocht hij vandaag weer alleen voor de fiets bij Kevin. Zo slecht als dat hij vrijdag liep, zo goed liep hij nu.
Welliswaar niet zo snel als Sky en Koda, maar goed, die lopen met zn 2e. En Skippa is zowiezo al wat langzamer. Sky en Koda liepen ook echt perfect! Ze hadden energie voor 10! Ze wilden elke keer in galop gaan, terwijl ik ze in draf wilde. Nou ja, na een tijdje heb ik ze dan maar laten galoperen wanneer ze wilde. Denk, dan lopen ze zelf tegen de lamp als ze de energie niet meer hebben. Maar die energie bleef maar komen.
Toen we on de terug weg waren richting de auto kwamen we voorbij een stukje en in een bosje zat een ree. En die sprong gehaast weg. Nou ja, leuk *ahum* ze wilden er achter aan. Maar heb meerdere keren flink 'door' geroepen. En dat ging goed. Even verderop stilgestaan, en via de portofoons tegen Kevin gezegt dat er dus net een ree was weggesprongen in een bosje, dus dat hij goed moest opletten dat Skippa waarschijnlijk wel wat zou ruiken.
Dus wij rijden verder. Helemaal nog beetje van slag door die ree, steken er ineens 3 reeen over. Eerst een bruine, dan een zwarte, en dan weer een bruine. Maar ik heb nog nooit een zwarte ree gezien! En weer gingen we dus vol gas! Maar heb mn remmen wat verder ingeknepen, en keihard 'door' geroepen. Ze wilden er nl weer achteraan. Dus maar langzaam door gereden, daarna even gestopt en gewacht tot Kevin weer bij ons was, en verteld dat er 3 reeen overstaken. En een zwarte! En Kevin zei, zwarte reeen?? Die bestaan niet!
Maar volgens google dus wel, ze komen eigenlijk uit Duitsland, uit een gebied tussen Münster en Hannover!

Dus eindelijk waren we op weg naar de auto. Rijden we op de grote zandweg, rent er iets de weg op. zo'n 50 meter voor ons. En eht was al aan het schemeren, dus afstand is lastig in te schatten. Het leek op een grote kat, zwart met bij de kop wat witte strepen. Het stond stil, keek om zich heen, zag ons, en rende toen gelijk de weg over. En wat zag ik daar, een wit staartje! Maar geen idee wat het was, een zwijn was het niet, een ree ook niet. Kevin denk een Das. Maar dat zou wel kunnen, we zien ze eigenlijk nooit!

Uiteindelijk hebben we 15.96 km gereden. Met een gemiddelde snelheid van 13,4 km/u en een topsnelheid van 31,1 km/u! Vet hard jonge!
Bij de auto aangekomen was Skippa lekker moe, maar Sky en Koda hadden zo nog 5 km kunnen lopen denk ik!

01-02-2013

Vandaag lekker getraind.
Kevin was vrij, die moet morgen werken. Dus dagen geruild om te trainen.

Het was doodverlaten stil in het bos. We hebben heerlijk gereden, heerlijk genoten van de omgeving. Zijn weer tot aan Garderen gereden en toen terug. Uit eindelijk 15.83 km gereden.

Het weer was helaas niet super. Het is weer boven 0 graden celsius, dus geen vorst en het regende. Wat dus resuleerde dat mijn handschoenen en jas helemaal doorweekt was. Maar dat mocht niet baten.

We zijn gestart met Sky en Koda voor de step, en Skippa voor de fiets. Maar Skippa liep langzaam, luisterde perfect. Daar in tegen liepen Sky en Koda best snel. Dus moesten we elke keer 3-4 minuten wachten tot Kevin met Skippa weer bij ons was, of tenminste in ons zicht was. Waren helaas de portofoons vergeten, anders kon ik m zeggen waar die af moest etc.
Na zo'n 8.8 km hebben we Koda alleen voor de fiets gezet en Skippa naast Sky voor de step. Toen was t echt nog alleen maar langzaam aan lopen.  Hij trok niet echt. Maar hij bleef netjes mee hobbelen.

Bij de auto gekomen was Skippa best wel moe, alleen Sky en Koda nog niet. Eenmaal thuis is Skippa dan ook in zijn bench neer geploft waar Koda en Sky nog lekker gingen spelen!



Had a great run today! Kevin had a day of because he has to work tomorrow.
It was really quiet in the woods. It was really peaceful and beautiful, enjoyed our surroundings. We drove up to Garderen and then headed back. Ended up doing 9,8 miles.

The weather wasn't that nice. It's above 32F, and rainy. Which resulted that my cloves and coat were soaked. But I enjoyed the ride.

We started with Sky and Koda in front of my scooter and Skippa in front of Kevins bike. But Skippa was slow, though he listened perfect to all the commands. Koda and Sky ran really fast, they did an awesome job. everytime we took a turn we had to wait 3-4 minutes before Kevin and Skippa caught up, or were able to see us.  We forgot our walkietalkies, so I couldn't give him directions.
After 5,5 miles we switched Koda and Skippa. So Koda was by himself in front of Kevins bike, and Sky and Skippa were in front of my scooter. Skippa didn't really pull, but he just ran along. It was a really slow pace, but we made it :)

When we got at the car Skippa was really exhausted. Sky and Koda werent. Even at home, Skippa just layed down in his kennel, while Sky and Koda played some before crashing down..