My new winter hobby (well maybe next year)
 

We went down to Ringwood in the New Forest today to watch some friends compete in the ABSA (Sled dog championship). Although a little chilly we got to meet some more Malamutes and Huskies and it ended up being a fantastic day out. Now sitting on the sofa warming up under a blanket, waiting for my feet to thaw out a bit.

Jester and Lacey (Brother and Sister 12 weeks old) muddy puppy play

http://static.flickr.com/141/324995607_2fc4101975.jpg


http://static.flickr.com/139/325001520_825c3bad76.jpg

Woody.... came with Golden Tinsel and special effect lights for eyes lol

http://static.flickr.com/141/325011620_b7d8937af2.jpg

Lupo (13 weeks old) and Jester (12 weeks old) Playing

http://static.flickr.com/139/325007678_9e5e68c967.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/140/325013657_70ed999bfd.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/136/325015035_3e8f007563.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/138/325017057_8bae461473.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/136/325026615_f37a57989a.jpg

And some more....

Woody and Lupo

http://static.flickr.com/135/325033722_fd676fdd6a.jpg

Woody

http://static.flickr.com/144/325031567_ebc6240d23.jpg

Some more Huskies

http://static.flickr.com/134/325030003_ae41e5bbce.jpg

Lupo and Kemo (16 weeks old) (sp?)

http://static.flickr.com/143/325030448_c1743afe5c.jpg

Lupo and Kemo (sp?) again

http://static.flickr.com/139/325031024_7b3e61fbc5.jpg

I have a load more but got to work through the rest, and don't want to bore people with it lol

welcome to a new mad world then-soon the dogs will take over your life and that'll be it-everything else will be put second(quote-the wifes words)-brilliant hobby :D !

husky :D

He has really changed our lives, and no way would we be without him. It was nice to see so many Malamutes and Huskies. And our friend Kirsty one this race today so i expect they are still celebrating, her quote to us when she came over to givbe hugs to Lupo was... "yeah it was a good run, and Fin wasn't really pulling, just running alongside"... when we saw the results she had won!! just how fast do these dogs run if they run flat out.

The noises they made were amazing too, at one stage most of them were howling to the sky, and it only takes one dog to set them off too. Even Lupo had a little howl hehehe.

lovely dogs in those pics

Woody looks a bad a$$ :wink:

Hahahahaha, yeah right :wink: they are such soppy dogs. You get to know which ones are ok and which ones to avoid.

I want one :D

Pete

Great aren't they?
How can anyone not like dogs?

I saw packs of these lads, out in this town at the end of Patagonia called Calafate.
They were all working dogs I think. They had these mad blue eyes, really piercing icey blue. When I saw them first, I went over to have a look, and maybe pet one, but they were not interested in that in the slightest. The packs were very anti human it seemed, not interested at all, and even a little menacing as a group.
I learned to stay away from them, like all the locals did. They wouldnt bother you, if you kept clear of them.

Your lads have a more chubby, friendly look about them. I suppose the lads I saw were on their summer holidays away from the sledges, and got rounded up again when the winter rolled around.
Lovely looking animals though. Glad to see you are giving them the exercise that they are used to as well.

The pack you saw were huskies. Huskies are very different to Malamutes which is what i have. They have blue eyes where as mals have brown. Huskies are very slim and a lot smaller than a mal, huskies are used for their speed due to there light frame. Malamutes are very powerful and used for their strength they are very heavy set. Seeing Lupo standing next to a husky he is already wider than one and about 2/3 the size. Average weight of a husky tends to be under 40kg and up to 61cm at the shoulder. Average weight of a malamute is over 40kg some of the boys there yesterday were 52kg, one puppy was only about 9 maybe 10 months at the most and he weighed over 9st.... they don't stop growing until they are 18 months old, malamutes are also on average over 71cm at the shoulder, so my boy is going to be huge when he's grown.

http://www.icetrax.com/Photos/dreamer.jpg
Husky (also the dogs pulling the rigs above were huskies, we missed the malamute runs as we got there a little late)

As for the aggressiveside of them, in a pack it is best to avoid any dog tbh, and the owner should have the common sense to tell people not to come too close. We go walking with 3 other malamutes at the weekend as well as our little one, and they are fine as they don't all live together but common sense tells us to leash them all back up when passing another dog or people.

Our malamutes are very friendly and love people but all of them have been raised around many different people and children. As for the sledding, the dogs are worked all year round, but just not for so long in the summer. We use the 3 wheeled rigs which were also used yesterday. We are going to ket a kick bike (large scooter) for Lupo when he is old enough, and then he'll be a year old at the start of next season so i'll be able to compete, hopefully looking at running him alongside Ranger as they are best mates at the moment (ranger is onnly 10 or 11 months old so still a puppy himself). Then maybe in about 18 months time we maybe able to look at getting him a sister so we can train them together when she is old enough (I'm still working on Rigor for this hehehe). But we'll see how lupo takes to it.

Ok so i've rambled on a bit, but i love these dogs. Lupo is very friendly too, but i want to socialise him as much as possible, so expect to be seeing a lot of him when we are at meets.