July 28, 2005
'SH bloodlines' completed
After deciding in April to expand greatly the informational pages on Siberian Husky Bloodlines on the SSSD website, this week saw at long last the completion of the project for the time being. There are now no fewer than 29 separate pages on various SH bloodlines including both the historic pure Seppala lines (McFaul, Wheeler, Shearer, McDougall, Bryar, etc.) and a number of "racing Siberian Husky" lineages (Natomah, Little Alaska, Calivali, Zero, etc.).
Each page has from one to half a dozen sample pedigrees (5 generations usually) in my own hand-built CSS pedigree format (no ugly grey tables) carefully chosen to illustrate the nature and in some cases the subsequent influence of the bloodline under discussion. There is no information facility like this anywhere else on the Web!
The SHCC, SHCA, ISHC and other breed clubs don't care a rap for breeder education and will not trouble themselves to make this kind of information available. In fact, there are relatively few people around these days who have access to enough of the facts to do this kind of thing, and those who do, for some reason don't have websites and refuse to make the material generally available.
Well, there it is now, it's all publicly posted on the web and I hope it will do some good.
July 22, 2005
wolf dogs
A topic of enduring mild interest to Isa and myself is the subject of "wolf dogs" -- wolf hybrids, breeds developed from wolves, natural close-to-the-wild-type breeds, wild canids. Yesterday I happened onto several websites dealing with wolf look-alike or wolf-derived breeds, complete with plentiful photos. Most interesting was the one on the Saarloos Wolfhond, complete with a fascinating rundown on the developmental history of the breed and the woes of its developer. Another interesting one was the Czechoslovakian Wolfdog. And finally, one from (of all places) the U. K. I had not heard of before, the Utonagan, this latter a wolf look-alike developed largely from the GSD, Alaskan Malamute and Siberian Husky.
After looking at all of these web wolfdogs, I went home and had a hard look at my two 7-month-old "wolfesses" Darka and Dushka, growing pups from a litter that is 3/4 Markovo-Seppala and 1/4 Solovyev (Russian) bloodline:
They looked just as "wolfy" but about two or three times more beautiful, somehow, than the actual wolfdogs. An enduring joy of owning Seppalas has always been their breathtaking natural grace and beauty. (Yet another reason why I have no time for the part-Seppala strain-crossed sorry excuses for Seppalas promoted by the ISSSC -- too many of them are clumsy and ugly in appearance. I know from thirty years of experience that real Seppalas are almost never like that.) These two pups looked like wolf-cubs when they were small, and they have yet to lose their wolfy looks. A few years ago we had a long-coated Seppala, Kidron of Spirit Wind, who looked all for the wolf like a Gray Wolf from Montana or Idaho. Well, when they first came to Alaska, they called them "Siberian wolf-dogs," I'm told . . .
. . . I just came back from an hour's run in the exercise yard with the D-litter (including wolfesses), the C litter, their dams and their two "aunties" Tonya and Lizzy. The young ones are growing apace, looking as good as any litters we have had here, and showing lovely temperaments. There just is nothing like the real Markovo-Seppalas, and the Solovyev outcross appears to be a perfect complement to them.