Sleddog Legacy Online

Rae's Harness Shop to close

"Harness Supplier Caves In to Box Stores" says a story by Paula Dobbyn, Anchorage Daily News, just posted on the Juneau Empire website www.JuneauEmpire.com. (Full story available on the link -- you might have to register for a free account to read it, but it's an interesting story well worth the trouble.)

"I've lost my home. I've sold off my possessions. As I needed money, I kept selling off things. I've run out of things to sell. Enough is enough," says Patricia Rae, 62, widow of George Rae who started Rae's Harness Shop from his garage in 1975. From a thriving small business employing 14 people and grossing $2.2 million in 1999, Rae's business has plummetted to less than $400,000 last year, hardly breaking even. The well-known Anchorage store will close September 15, unable to compete with big-box discount retailers PetCo and Animal Food Warehouse that have moved into Anchorage.

Mushers everywhere will be sad to hear this news. Of all the retail suppliers of harness, dogsleds, snow hooks and other mushing gear, Rae's would probably be the best-known around the world. It seems like the reins of economic power continue to be gathered into the hands of mega-corporations at the expense of small business Mom-and-Pop operations. Maybe some things are cheaper for the consumer -- for the time being, anyway -- but it gives you the impression that something very basic is broken in our economic system and that there is very little hope of fixing it.

ISSSC Guru Doug Willett declares new performance standard

In a document titled "The Great Seppala Division," Douglas W. Willett, founder and iron-fisted ruler of the International Seppala Siberian Sleddog Club, has outlined details of a new performance standard for grading-up (presumably, although it is not spelled out in the document, of both Siberian Husky and Alaskan Husky crosses with Willett-Seppalas in the ISSSC's Continental Kennel Club registry's "MISC" category).

The Willett document describes the ISSSC upgrade policy as follows:

"It takes you at least 5 generations to get in the ISSSC/CKC purebred category. Where we are liberal is that we allow and encourage you to start the process with something that can run a mile in less than 10 minutes, rather than just looking at whether the dog has a good coat and where he comes from. Our entry policy is constructively liberal in order to improve performance generation after generation."

Thus the minimum performance threshold for upgrade candidates has been very simply defined and set as follows:

1. Ability to travel a minimum distance of one (1) mile;
2. Ability to cover the minimum distance at a speed greater than six (6) miles per hour.

The ISSSC deserves to be applauded for the liberality of its upgrade policy, which may well prove to be the beginning of a Sleddog Paralympics, breaking new ground by allowing canine amputees and sleddogs with orthopaedic prostheses to participate in dogsled sports and to achieve ISSSC "Seppala" status for their descendants.

It should be noted that the policies in effect may, in certain cases, be considerably more liberal than the statement "it takes you at least 5 generations to get in the ISSSC/CKC purebred category" might seem to indicate. Mr. Willett himself has demonstrated that ISSSC eligible purebred "Seppalas" can be produced in only 3 generations by starting from non-Seppala Siberian Husky bloodlines (Anadyr, for example), having given such status to the progeny of two of his own leaders (Sepp-Alta's Zues/Zeus at Windy Ridge and Sepp-Alta's Griffen at Windy Ridge) whose grandam Ninnis' Calamity Jane was of the pure Anadyr bloodline.

Elaborating further on the performance theme, Willett also explains that the ISSSC concept of sleddog performance "means being reasonably competitive in racing." Nailing the concept down yet further, the document goes on to explain that the Willett performance concept involves finishing "close to" professional racers, and that his current criterion "is to be within 110% of the winner's time."

It is certainly a novel concept for the performance standard of a population apparently completely dedicated to the sole purpose of dogsled racing to be defined as the ability to finish, in effect, no more than one half-hour behind the winner of an eighty-mile mid-distance racing event. The idea of handicapping has never really been a part of the dogsled racing scene, but the establishment of this new ISSSC performance standard may well be followed by demands for its application in the case of ISSSC dogs.

MISGIVINGS

Main Entry:   misgiving
Part of Speech:   noun
Definition:   uncertainty
Synonyms:   anxiety, apprehension, apprehensiveness, distrust, doubt, fear, foreboding, hesitation, mistrust, premonition, prenotion, presage, presentiment, qualm, reservation, scruple, suspicion, unbelief, unease, worry

"Finally!" I thought, as I finished reading a document titled "Seppala Evolution" just published on the ISSSC's website by Director John Coyne, "finally somebody down there has started thinking seriously about the future."

Let me briefly summarise that article (which I would recommend to anyone with an interest in legacy sleddog breeds generally -- not Seppalas only, as it applies in principle to minority breeds in general). John tracks Seppala history in terms of what he calls "k-generations" (kennel generations), ten-year periods of influence exerted by individual breeders. He points out that "throughout the 90 year history there have been only one or two people of each human generation who have been the driving force that has kept the Seppala alive," and remarks upon "just how fragile the breed's existence has always been." John goes on to explain how high the turnover is in dogsled sports, citing a study which found that only 12% of those who began the sport were still actively involved after four years, that not one of those who bought dogs in the 1975 Markovo dispersal has continued breeding Seppalas other than Doug Willett, and that of the Seppala kennels mentioned in Doug's 1986 and 1992 books, only two are still active.

John's article mentions the formation of the International Seppala Association, comments that it "will need to aggressively recruit dedicated and committed members," correctly interprets the nature of the Internet presence created to support it, and justly remarks that "the challenge will be to transform this virtual interest into reality."

I'm happy to hear these remarks, especially coming from an ISSSC Director, for two reasons. First, they demonstrate that someone, at least, on their Board is capable of looking objectively at the realities of the current situation and of recognising that the original SSSD Project and its organisational extensions actually exist and will not simply vanish with a wish. Second, they clearly utter to the Project and to anyone who supports it a challenge to sustained action, and a warning that the future is far from guaranteed.

The article includes the obligatory overview of ISSSC's three-year life span, though not in any detail. It is interesting to note that some of the matters John pinpoints for future effort -- specifically "making the Seppala breed more widely known and...educating people about the unique characteristics of this breed and the value of keeping it vital and useful," as well as creating an environment to foster widespread interest in Seppalas -- are fields in which ISSSC has fallen far behind the efforts of Seppala Siberian Sleddog Project. ISSSC had nothing to do with the creation of most of the material now generally available on the web with respect to Seppala breed identity and characteristics, for example the various online encyclopaedia articles on the breed. Nevertheless, John is correct in identifying this as an area of crucial importance to the future of Seppalas.

Also discussed is an "annual Seppala race" (in Idaho, not surprisingly) which he holds out as an event in which "all Seppala breeders, whether they be  ISSSC, AKC or ISA followers," may presumably participate. (I wonder whether such open participation would really be the outcome, given that the race would be mounted on ISSSC's home turf.) I don't really think that John's conclusion, that such a race would "demonstrate the value of their specific philosophies for Seppala survival," is necessarily a logical one. Survival is one thing, performance proving is another. This is old stuff that has been gone over frequently in the past: no matter how many times it is repeated that racing is the only way to prove sleddog performance, the statement remains untrue. There are other ways to prove performance and no one is under any obligation to submit stock to ISSSC's judgment in this regard nor to accept their dictum that the only legitimate proof is DW's narrow style of racing.

I can most heartily concur with this sentence from the conclusion of the article: "the challenge to all of us is to produce the dogs that will be the ancestors of those needed by the next generation." That is really the essential point -- not all this discussion of the relative merits of various ways and means, or of the different organisations supporting them. Without the dogs themselves, all of this is just so much "blah, blah, blah."

The posting of this article on the ISSSC website may be something of a watershed. Heretofore ISSSC events have always left the impression that as far as ISSSC's original organiser is concerned, it's "my way or the highway" with no room for differences of opinion, let alone dissent. When ISSSC co-founder Bob Davis finally felt obliged to disagree with the Master a year or so ago, it was the highway for him, founder or not. ISSSC Director John Coyne obviously has certain misgivings, qualms, reservations, anxieties, apprehensions or worries. So does Jeffrey Bragg, among them being whether John will be forced to take the highway himself. The future of Seppalas is, in any case, far from a settled thing in the current environment.

Curiously enough, at least to judge from some of the other posts to the "bulletin board" of the ISSSC website, the one person in all this who does not share those misgivings is Douglas W. Willett. He seems content to post adolescent cartoons and collages (his most creative effort was removed from the site as soon as the other Directors found out about it), to continue his attempts to destroy the credibility of the SSSD Project through ridicule; to mislead, to generalise and to pontificate in a way that grows progressively more woolly and incomprehensible as he grows older. Some of his recent articles are written in such a way that few can understand what he is getting at. One can only hope that, despite the heavy autocratic hand of The Great One, eventually more thoughtful heads will prevail in ISSSC. John Coyne's article is at least a move in the right direction.

-- Op-ed opinion by J. Jeffrey Bragg

Interesting AM info

IT'S ALWAYS ENCOURAGING to see someone doing good research and independent thinking about their chosen dog breed. Breed clubs and breed-myths are responsible for a lot of misunderstanding about sleddog breeds. So your editor JJB was enthralled when he was directed to Sheryl Franklin's "About Alaskan Malamutes" page.

Sheryl, who describes herself simply as "just a pet owner who's doing research,"
starts her information page off with a delightful chatty, rambling discourse on the characteristics of the Alaskan Malamute breed. Unlike most such breed sketches, this one really gets into significant detail to tell you exactly what the breed is like and the distinctive ways in which its representatives behave.

Be warned -- the page is L O N G (although it nevertheless seems to load into my browser at lightspeed), because it is a very serious attempt to deal with the nature, characteristics and history of the Malamute breed in depth. After the breed description comes a table of possible colour and marking variations, then a discussion of the vexed question of correct size. After that, the bulk of the page is taken up with what Sheryl modestly titles "Historical Tidbits." Quoting or adapting abundantly from 19th and early 20th century books, journals and articles, we are taken on a tour of working sleddog history that left me gasping! What a wealth of material has been made accessible here, and how boldly Sheryl has interpreted it to highlight interesting issues in the Alaskan Malamute breed! She deserves our thanks for making such an information resource available to fanciers of "legacy sleddogs."

Don't fail to GO SEE IT when you have a half hour or more to spend! I'm impressed enough with this page to give it a permanent link on the left-hand linkbar of Sleddog Legacy Online newsletter, so it will be available for awhile. The link title is All About Malamutes!

Antifreeze Action At Last?

The Hickory Daily Record (Hickory, North Carolina) has published a story of the death of a Siberian Husky from antifreeze poisoning headlined "Animals' antifreeze poisonings prompt government action". Antifreeze is a common agent in canine accidental deaths, as the ingredient ethylene glycol, which has a sweet taste, causes death from kidney failure when even small quantities are taken. The good news is that something may finally be done about this common hazard. The story states that an "Antifreeze Bittering Act" has been introduced in Congress which would require coolant products containing ethylene glycol also to contain denatonium benzoate, an extremely bitter chemical. Let's hope that bill gets passed!

Sleddog owners should be aware of this risk and be extremely vigilant to avoid coolant leakage from their vehicles, particularly in winter when antifreeze-soaked snow can remain on the ground indefinitely. Dogs on drop chains around a dog truck are at particularly high risk if the vehicle's cooling system has a leak or overflows. Coolant drained from a vehicle should always be disposed of safely and promptly -- never leave it unattended, even for a moment, where a dog might access it. It takes only a small amount to kill a dog, and the death is a painful one.

Rabid sled dog in Rankin Inlet

"Rabid dog mauls child" is the headline of a disturbing story by John Thompson in Nunatsiaq News datelined August 12. Two weeks ago a loose sled dog mauled a two-year old child and was subsequently shot in Rankin Inlet, a village on the northwest shore of Hudson's Bay north of the Canadian province of Manitoba. The dog's remains tested positive for rabies.

The child is undergoing treatment in Winnipeg. Meanwhile, a roundup of loose dogs is under way in Rankin Inlet. 25 dogs have been collected, 15 of which have been shot. A zero-tolerance policy for loose dogs is in force. Local officials warn that other dogs might be infected, and speculate that an incursion of foxes into the community may have triggered the outbreak of the disease.

Reference map of Nunavut from "The Atlas of Canada" (a service of Natural Resources Canada).

A related story from CBC News, datelined 11 August, is headlined "Vaccine failed to inoculate musher's dog, veterinarian says". Apparently the rabid dog was vaccinated last November, but by the musher himself, leaving some question about the way in which the vaccine may have been transported, stored or handled. In the circumstances, the dog's teammates must be presumed to be exposed. Some of them have already been destroyed; others will be subjected to six months' quarantine.

Togo - "The Real Story"?

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, here's a link to a strange page on the website of the Iditarod Trail race: General Information - Togo (The Real Story).

Well, it's great to see these photos of the famous taxidermy mount of Leonhard Seppala's best-known leader, at least. (It's now in the Iditarod Headquarters at Wasilla, AK, just in case anybody still doesn't know.) But . . . couldn't they even have bothered to spell Sepp's name correctly? And considering they now have this dog's mounted remains displayed as a feature at the race headquarters, is that really the best they can do for an informational page about him, especially since it's billed as "the real story"?

Confusion!

"The more and more I read the more confusing it gets. In my mind technically the first Siberian Huskies brought over by Seppala are Seppalas, aren't all Siberians some what descendants of those same dogs?"

The preceding two sentences are quoted (with permission of the author of that post) from a recent thread on a sleddog forum. The misunderstanding, lack of comprehension, and sheer misinformation found on that thread were breathtaking, right from the title -- "sepella sled dogs"! It was heartwarming to see a couple of notorious "Racing Siberian Husky" authorities talking through their hats on subjects about which they knew nothing (notably Seppalas and dogs in Siberia), letting their ignorance shine forth for public inspection.

The mystic name, again!

I would like to attempt to dispel a little of the fog. Doug Willett, to give him credit, tried to intervene and tell them what the problem was, saying that it came down to semantics, that people were throwing words around carelessly, and that some people apparently thought the meaning of "Siberian Husky" to be so broad it could encompass almost anything. He certainly was correct! Back in December 1995, in "Seppala Network," I wrote an editorial, "Siberian Husky -- The Mystic Name." Well, the people who believe in the mystic name are still around, and they still don't get it.

What is a "breed," anyway?

To start with, let's look at this notion of a "breed"; there is really no such thing in nature as a breed. Taxonomists (scientists who study the classification and interrelationships of different life forms)define a hierarchy of classifications: kingdoms, phyla, subphyla, classes, orders, families, genera, species, subspecies and varieties. (And sometimes, arcane intermediate levels between these major levels!) Taxonomists regularly disagree mightily as to where a given species belongs, whether it's in the same genus as a species that looks closely related to it, or in an entirely different genus. They are sometimes forced by news studies in molecular biology to rearrange things on the family level, or even on higher levels. And as to subspecies -- don't even ask! Arguments about subspecies are a taxonomist's daily bread and butter.

Now dog breeds are not even subspecies -- at best one would be stretching a point just to consider them varieties because there is nothing in nature causing them to be bred as "demes" or local population-groups (the normal situation for varieties), only arbitrary human whims! Most dog-breeders, lacking any scientific or zoological background, seem to assume that their favourite breeds are either species or the next thing to it! Not true. All known dogs are now considered scientifically to be (genus) Canis (species) lupus (subspecies) familiaris. That is, the domestic dog is a subspecies of the wolf species C. lupus.

So the only scientific basis for dog breeds is the artificial imposition of a "pedigree barrier" by man, such that the canine subspecies is further subdivided into arbitrary breeding-groups that we call "breeds." Dog breeds are cross-fertile; their DNA is all part of the wolf-DNA genome; there's no basis for considering them evolutionarily separate, i.e., species. So a "Siberian Husky" or a "Dalmatian" is a human construct, not natural, artificially maintained by the application of a breed standard and a pedigree barrier.

What is a "Seppala," anyway?

Now, then, let's consider the burning forum question of "Seppalas" and whether they are "Siberian Huskies" or not. We say "Seppalas," and what do we mean by that? It's a man's name. We use it to designate the descendants of some dogs that this man once bred. If we wanted to stop there and not qualify it any further, we would have to include the Bow Lake Siberians and also the 1/4 Malamute 3/4 Siberian dogs that Leonhard Seppala bred in Fairbanks after his return to Alaska in the 1930s. Since none of us who have "Seppalas" want to do that (and since nobody has ever considered those two groups as in a class with his Poland Spring stock), we qualify it a little further. First, we are careful to state that for dogs to be Seppalas, they have to be sleddogs that have always been bred as such. Second, we then specify which dogs bred by Seppala we are talking about. We mention:

1. the dogs he is known to have bred in Alaska in the period 1915-1926,
2. the dogs he brought with him on his south-48 tour that wound up in Poland Spring, Maine,
3. the handful of Siberia imports that he and Ricker got through Olaf Swenson in 1930,
4. the dogs that were sold out of the Poland Spring kennel,and
5. the Poland Spring core stock that went to Harry Wheeler.

All of the foregoing can be reasonably well documented, as such things go. (Certainly much better than, for example, can now be done for the Chinook breed -- they have a hiatus only 3 decades back that causes a surprising number of "open pedigree" lines that can't even be traced.) Those are the ancestors of the dogs that have traditionally been known as "Seppala Siberians" for over seven decades.

Furthermore, the above singling-out and defining of a bloodline can be extended in a very straightforward and simple way, by stating that the Seppala/Poland Spring lineage can be traced thereafter through the breeding of Harry Wheeler and Alec Belford, and from there quite specifically through that of William L. Shearer and J. D. McFaul. It is really the Shearer/McFaul period of the late 1940s, the 1950s, and the early 1960s that defines present-day Seppala lineage, (with a very limited assist from Cold River and later Charles Belford breeding, all from the same ultimate source as the Shearer/McFaul lines). McFaul breeding gave rise in turn to Bryar and Malamak, and Shearer to various minor lines. When the Shearer and the McFaul kennels finally closed, the whole lineage very nearly became lost. Today the McFaul/Shearer genome is defined by ten ancestral dogs from the Markovo/Seppineau breeding of the 1970s, because that was the only pure-strain conduit of the McFaul/Shearer lineage that made it through the post-McFaul hiatus.

If you accept that line of reasoning, then it's simple to say what you mean by "Seppala." Otherwise, it is not simple, it is not straightforward, and there is really no way of saying for sure what is Seppala and what is not.

The expedient compromise

That line of reasoning was accepted absolutely by the man behind the ISSSC, until very recently when his own self-interest required him to backtrack and suddenly decide that Anadyr (for example) was really 70 to 80 "percent Seppala," contradicting earlier published definitions to the contrary by the same individual. I speculate that the motivation for the turnaround was the desire for the progeny of two recent leaders (stemming from an Anadyr outcross line) to be considered eligible as 93% benchmark Seppalas according to the guidelines established in 2002 with Continental KC. The two leaders in question were about 5/8 McFaul/Shearer ancestry; it would have taken another couple generations of upgrade breeding to produce even 93% progeny. Prior to 2002, the same person was quite firm that 95% was the lowest possible cutoff point, and that if you wanted to be safe, maybe 97% was better. (Reference: "What is a Good Definition for a Seppala?" by Doug Willett) The whole business of legitimising the "back-to-the-boat" calculation of Seppala percentage seems to have been largely a business matter so that "pure Seppala" progeny of these two dogs could be marketed under the Continental KC rules established by ISSSC.

If one accepts that expedient compromise, then yes, of course, one swallows holus-bolus the premise that "all Siberians are somewhat descendants of those same dogs"! Because Eva B. Seeley's breeding was never anything but a minority. ALL Siberian Huskies stem, approximately 65 or 70% at a minimum, from Seppala lines if pedigrees are taken back all the way to foundation.

Are "Seppala Siberians" Siberian Huskies -- or vice versa?

For a couple of decades, "Seppala Siberians" were not too different from "Siberian Huskies," although as early as 1940 the term was being used to distinguish them from other Siberians. The clueless and the bumsteads of the forums talk as though Jeffrey Bragg were the only person ever to make such a distinction, which is laughable. The "Seppala Siberians" were a recognised commodity thirty years before Jeffrey Bragg ever started talking about them. On the History section of the SSSD Project website, on the Cold River pages there, you'll find a newspaper clipping circa 1940, showing Millie Turner with her leader "Cossack" -- that clipping mentions her team of "Seppala Siberians" in exactly those words.

Today the distinction needs to be made BECAUSE THE SIBERIAN HUSKY BREED TURNED ITS BACK ON ITS ORIGINS AND WALKED AWAY FROM THEM LONG AGO! (One, at least, of the forum participants seemed acutely conscious of that fact.) The founding of the Siberian Husky Club of America in 1938 was the actual turning point. Thereafter, the SH breed became a showdog breed in purpose, goals and intention. By the mid-1960s, the garden-variety Siberian Husky could no longer be considered a "Seppala Siberian" -- the type of dog that was referred to in the discussion of the early teams and kennels, the "dogs that all of you would kill to have in your kennels today." As one who was active in the Siberian Husky breed in the 1970s, I can assure everyone that nobody who knew anything about Siberian Huskies in 1970 would have considered the dogs being bred and shown by Judy Russell, Jack Foster, Kathy Kanzler, Jim Brillhart, Anna Mae Forsberg, and Marie Wamser to be "Seppala Siberians." Nobody! Sleddog function is a vital part of the distinction today, because, despite the public relations efforts of the two largest show-puppy mills to convince everyone that their bloodlines are basically working sleddogs, showdog Siberian Huskies have largely lost that functionality. Seppalas haven't.

So there is no need to be confused. Either the simple definition explained here has validity for you, or it doesn't. Either you agree that Seppala lineage is something distinguishable, and that its latest descendants were the so-called "Markovo-Seppalas" who were 99%+ McFaul/Shearer background. Or else you don't agree, and breed book author Michael Jennings is right that the only difference is that in some lines the name was perpetuated longer, but really all SH are Seppala Siberians. In either case, those who hold either position will have reasons for doing so that seem perfectly adequate to them.

A pointless argument

The argument about whether Seppalas are Siberian Huskies or vice versa is pointless, like most arguments on such chat forums. Any canine population is a "breed" if it is subjected to selection under a breed standard and submitted to a pedigree barrier that rules its breeding. The Seppala Siberian Sleddog, today in Canada, is recognised by that country's agricultural authority as an "evolving breed" under Canada's Animal Pedigree Act that governs all purebred livestock breeding in that country. They have been quite deliberately removed from the Siberian Husky stud book, where they were in constant danger of being sunk in the morass of purposeless show/pet breeding. In the U. S. A., many Seppalas are still Siberian Huskies, still a part of the A. K. C. Siberian Husky stud book registry, still seamlessly integrated with that morass. (And then there are the "percentage Seppalas" of the ISSSC, registered only with a commercial for-profit "registry" in Louisiana whose main stock in trade is publicly perceived to be cockapoos, labradoodles and puppy mills.)

The day will come when even the question of the purity of McFaul/Shearer descent will no longer matter, because the pure McFaul/Shearer line is not likely to be able to survive forever on its own. I still have a large number of pure-strain McFaul/Shearer descendant Markovo-Seppalas in my own kennel, but even I will acknowledge that it can't, or perhaps shouldn't, be kept going indefinitely without some fresh genetic input. My own feeling is that the Solovyev bloodline of Siberia-import stock seems to be (for me at least) the only really sensible option for broadening the gene pool and reducing the dangerously-high coefficient of inbreeding now current and inescapable in Markovo-Seppalas (and percentage Seppalas as well). That, at least, is in accord with the practice of Leonhard Seppala and Harry Wheeler (who both used Siberia imports in their breeding), which the cross-straining with the Seeley-derived stock most emphatically IS NOT. The Solovyev stock, moreover, is more of a true, honest outcross than any mainstream SH bloodlines; Racing Siberian Husky lines are even less so, as they are much too closely related to give any relief from the founder inbreeding.) Wheeler, Shearer and McFaul were unanimous in this matter -- none of them allowed any Seeley stock in their bloodlines; Shearer tried it at first, then discarded that line; McFaul discarded his Gatineau stock, which had only a slight Seeley contaminant, when he acquired the Harry Wheeler stock and the Seppala kennel name. Now, ISSSC breeders find it expedient to call cross-strain RSH, Seppalas. Such is their decision, but they cannot claim any backing from Wheeler, Shearer and McFaul for it.

Spreading confusion

The clueless and the bumsteads on the forum loudly declare that the dogs bred by Willett and by Bragg "are no longer Siberians"! (No longer hold title to "the mystic name"!) Shock, horror! I don't know about Doug, but I have not claimed to be a breeder of Siberian Huskies since 1997 when the WCAC was chartered and the Seppala Siberian Sleddog evolving breed given its recognition as such. I am not trying to deceive anyone about anything! Today's SSSDs are not "Siberian Huskies," but they certainly ARE "Siberian Sleddogs," and that to a much greater and more demonstrable extent than the dogs of the two great show-puppy-mills Kar*****da and Inn****ee! They are bred purely from the descendants of Leonhard Seppala's Siberian sleddogs and modern Siberia imports. You can hardly get any more "Siberian" than that. (The forum's notorious nitwits accuse me of breeding Alaskan Huskies -- the SSSD Project quite publicly and openly, on the record, bred ONE experimental outcross litter from a world-class Alaskan leader stud dog; we didn't like the results we got, and the experiment was taken no further. Three ageing bitches survive from that litter; they have no progeny. The nitwit faction on the armchair forum are misleading everyone and deliberately spreading confusion.)

Well, it's all semantics, as the man says. I have a very clear and simple explanation of what I mean by Seppalas, of what has always, traditionally, been meant by "Seppala Siberians." And in Canada, Seppala Siberian Sleddogs have a very clear and official existence that does not involve percentages, puppy mills, or profit-registries. If they still don't get it, out there on the armchair-musher forums, too bad. A word of advice to those who are still relatively inexperienced in the world of Seppalas -- the forums are NOT the place to go for reliable information on the subject. As someone else said on the same thread, "please please let us be careful how we speak to newbees on the subject"!

Where did the Inuit dogs go?

"What really happened to the Inuit sled dogs?" asks a July 9 story in Canada's national newspaper The Globe and Mail.

Almost 50 years ago the indigenous sleddog population in northern Québec and what is now called Nunavut began a precipitous decline that brought its numbers from estimates well in excess of 20,000 down to a few hundred in the course of a few decades.

Arctic natives now insist that RCMP police officers systematically slaughtered their dogs to force them to adopt the white man's lifestyle. The RCMP denies the charges. And once again, Canada is faced with the unedifying spectacle of its national police farce (oops) investigating itself to clear itself of charges of wrongdoing. Canada's scandal-beset Liberal minority government has decided not to proceed with a public judicial inquiry, despite recommendations of a parliamentary committee and the Nunavut legislature.

Reckless driving . . .

"Sled dog's death merits reckless driving charge" runs the headline of a Fairbanks (AK) News-Miner story published last month. Musher Jeff Holt's Iditarod lead dog "Goose" (bought as a yearling from Jeff King) was injured so severely when hit by a car that ran an intersection last October that the dog had to be euthanised.

It's the second time Holt has been the victim of a hit-and-run driver; in 2003 his leader "Chip" was killed by the 16-year old driver of a 6-wheel ATV who literally ran over his team and sled. This time the driver was an individual who failed sobriety tests, fled the scene of the accident, escaped from police when stopped later for another reason, had no driver's license, and now faces one year's imprisonment and a $5000 fine for the "misdemeanour" reckless driving charge. The same individual also faces drunken driving and drug charges in two other cases. Compensation of $4000 is being sought for the dead lead dog, but the perpetrator is unlikely to have the resources to pay either the fine or the compensation.

Those of you who don't live in Alaska might be excused for thinking the place would be heaven for dog drivers. The above situation is a good taste of Alaskan reality. "The last frontier" isn't always the ideal environment for mushers and their teams.

SSSD Breed Listing

THE SEPPALA SIBERIAN SLEDDOG breed has just been given a prestigious listing in "Canada's Guide to Dogs," a classy canine-information website with a Canadian focus. The site has a special section for "Breeds Under Development," and although it takes a rather dim view of commercial registries, Poos and Doodles, special consideration has been given to legitimate developmental situations, principally those of the Shiloh Shepherd Dog and the Seppala Siberian Sleddog.

The site's webmistress Patricia Mitchell has gone to considerable trouble to research the two developing breeds and to offer a careful description of them. Needless to say, a listing of this kind represents a great asset to a struggling new breed and a definite PR boost. Clicking on the banner below will take you to the SSSD page of Canada's Guide to Dogs.

The First Cloned Dog

IT HAS FINALLY HAPPENED, a little sooner than most of us anticipated, perhaps. High-profile South Korean research scientist Hwang Woo-Suk of the Seoul National University, South Korea, has successfully performed the world's first known canine cloning operation. A young Afghan Hound names Snuppy (short for Seoul National University puppy), now 13 weeks old, was revealed to the world's press yesterday.

Here is a link to an excellent photo from wwww.livescience.com showing the 13-week-old Afghan puppy with the handsome tricolour male donor of whom the puppy is a clone.

The process that produced Snuppy is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. The domestic dog is considered one of the most difficult species to clone, for various reasons associated with its reproductive process. Eggs cannot, for instance, be matured in vitro as is possible in some species; canine ova are released from the ovary before they are mature, and must mature in the fallopian tubes of the female prior to fertilisation. In the successful cloning process, scientists removed eggs from bitches, removed the nucleus of the ovum and replaced it with a cell nucleus taken from the skin of a male Afghan hound's ear. A total of 1,095 artifially created embryos were transferred into 123 surrogate dams to create the two whelps that actually came to term (and were delivered by caesarean section). The second puppy died of pneumonia in 22 days. The efficiency rate of the process was only 1.6% -- but perhaps not too bad considering the ground-breaking nature of the work.

Because the research was done in South Korea, the scientists could use large numbers of dogs maintained under looser animal welfare regulations than those of, for example, the United States. It is stated that the dogs were created strictly for scientific purposes. "We are not in the business of cloning pets," said Gerald Schatten, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who collaborated with stem-cell research pioneer Hwang on the Korean cloning project.

Sausalito, California, company Genetic Savings & Clone is still working on its own canine cloning project, which will ultimately (it is hoped) result in the successful completion of "the Missyplicity Project," the cloning of "Missy," the now dead mongrel pet of Texas billionaire and University of Phoenix founder John Sperling. GS&C has already successfully cloned pet cats, using a process called chromatin transfer, at a price of US$50,000 (which was recently reduced to US$32,000). As GS&C has confidently stated that it expects to clone dogs sometime this year, we presume the company will not be far behind in the canine cloning race, but with a process that (it is claimed) may result in fewer failures and a healthier clone than the first-generation somatic-cell nuclear transfer technique. The California company already runs a "gene-banking" service to allow pet owners to preserve DNA samples in anticipation of future cloning.

This news has far-reaching implications for the dog world. People are very attached to their pets; some have the money to pay for clones however expensive they may be. Westminster and Crufts dog show winners may also be potential candidates for cloning. AKC, for one example, has not yet closed the door to such a possibility and has already approved the use of a range of repro-tech procedures ranging from artificial insemination using the frozen banked semen of deceased stud dogs to DNA microsatellite identification of frequently-used sires.

How long do you suppose it will be now before we see a team of clones of some elite racing dog (the example I like to use is George Attla's "Lingo") entered in the Fairbanks Open North American Championship?

Welcome to Sleddog Legacy Online!

IT WAS about time! Times change and with them, it would appear, also change people's ability and willingness to stick to a task. Northern Dog News had a long run of who knows how many years, Racing Siberian Husky lasted for fifteen years as a mailout newsletter. Seppala Network published half a dozen issues over a couple of years. Seppala News lasted for two issues. Since then, nothing.

Having published a mailout newsletter, I know how much sheer hard labour is involved; I know, too, that it cannot be done well these days without being subsidised out of the publisher's pocket. Postage and printing costs are too high by comparison with folks' willingness to pay for what they get. Team and Trail, I suppose, still exists, although one hardly ever hears anything about it any more. Dogsled racing competitors are at least anxious enough to read the race results to guarantee a paying readership for T & T. But there is less urgency among those of us who care little about racing news. So the community of purebred and recreational dog mushers gets left without a newsletter.

The obvious answer to the dilemma is an online publication. It just takes a little bit of "thinking outside the box." Weblogging software can be used for more than just self-indulgent ranting and journalising!

So powered by MovableType, here is what may well be the prototype continuously-published newsletter for dog drivers! Not quite like any of its predecessors, Sleddog Legacy Online will attempt to offer news, articles, information, opinion, photographs and links to those who are interested in historic sleddog breeds, recreational dog mushing, sleddog training, dog breeding and genetics, canine health and nutrition, and similar topics. We hope to maintain a broad field of interest while offering in-depth coverage to the struggling sleddog minority breeds such as Seppalas and Chinooks. We shall offer a platform for public announcements and news from associations and websites concerned with such breeds. And we hope for input from those of you out there who share the interests we have just described.

There won't be any "issues" nor any "deadlines" involved. Material will be published as it becomes available, news as it happens, topics as they become relevant, links as we discover them surfing the Web. The newest items will always be at the top of the page. Older items will move down the page and ultimately will be archived (but still accessible). It should be a very flexible and responsive system, and we hope it will be an active one!

There's no champagne within reach -- but here's luck to the new endeavour anyway!