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Copyright © 2003 J. Jeffrey Bragg |
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Copyright © 2003 J. Jeffrey Bragg |
BY THE TIME a year had elapsed, I was training a ragtag team of green young dogs (including KODA's three progeny) and older show-pet stock, making heavy weather of it with lots of tangles and frustration. I was struggling to come to terms with the Siberian's sleddog heritage, but most of my dogs seemed as bewildered as I was.
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I
had a clunky old sled purchased from Bunty and an even
clunkier three-wheeled rig. I traded in my Plymouth
Barracuda and bought a 3/4 ton GMC 4WD pickup, for which I
immediately set to constructing an eight-compartment dog
box. |
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AT
THAT TIME there were virtually no racing Siberians in
southern Ontario! DITKO was old, but he was a reliable
leader and was far more useful than what I had been running
at lead up to that point. I began looking for more racing
Siberians. Hearing from someone that J. Malcolm McDougall
had such dogs but was phasing them out in favour of
Alaskans, I tracked "Mac" to his lair in Ste. Agathe des
Monts, Québec. It was November and already in the
Laurentians the snow was piled twelve feet high on either
side of the mountain roads, but with my new truck I made it
to McDougall's kennel and managed to persuade him to sell me
MALAMAK'S OKLEASIK. "Mac" gave me fair warning that if a dog
was no good to him it was probably of very little use to
anyone else. Okie taught me a lesson. He could run in a team
quite well, but in all else he was a schmoo of a dog, inept,
apologetic and lacking much self-confidence.
Undeterred, believing that I was now learning who had the real working dogs, I decided to import two Siberians from Earl F. Norris in Willow, AK! First came SEPP OF ANADYR, a white male from a brother-sister mating out of NICOLAI/CHORNYI lines: SEPP was a wild wolf, totally unsocialised, panicky, afraid of absolutely everything, an utter, irredeemable spook. Then came LASKA OF ANADYR, a linebred IGLOO PAK'S TOK granddaughter: if SEPP was a wild wolf, LASKA was a wild fox, feral, sneaky, jittery, just as spooky as SEPP if not more so. Eventually I managed to run the two of them at wheel, but whenever I had to hook down and come forward to sort out a tangle (which was still quite frequently), there were SEPP and LASKA, curled up in foetal position in the deep snow off the trail, shivering with fear. I found this depressing.
DITKO WAS THE BEST dog I had, but he was ten years old and I had no Seppala bitch to breed to him. By this time I was slowly, painfully acquiring the knowledge that would define what turned out to be my life's work. Through a brief correspondence with none other than Short Seeley, I learned of Lawrence L. Prado of Milton, NH, who was writing a book about the early breed history of the Siberian Husky. There ensued an intensive correspondence of frequent long letters as we each explored Siberian breed history. Like myself, Larry Prado was the proud owner of a copper-coloured show champion, but he also owned a leggy, black and white bitch named MONTE ALBAN XIPE out of pure Bryar Seppala lineage! Eventually we talked each other into attempting a breeding, but Larry would neither bring his bitch to my kennel nor entrust her to my care, so we met halfway -- beside an eastern-Ontario highway. Of course, DITKO was tired from the drive, put off by the strange setting, the bitch turned out to be too early in her cycle and hostile to the male; nothing happened, and we each returned home feeling put out. Nevertheless the correspondence continued, and I gradually came to realise that there existed an "alternative" Siberian, the Seppala dog, that was totally separate and apart from the show-dog that had been so heavily promoted by Eva B. Seeley and Lorna B. Demidoff.
Having discovered through research that the McFaul stock was sold to Earl F. Norris in 1963, I resumed my correspondence with him, as it seemed the best bet. Earl informed me in the winter of 1969-1970 that he had farmed out two Seppala males in eastern Ontario, and directed me to pick them up and look them over to see whether I thought they might be of use to me, and if not, to have them euthanised. I took delivery of TONY OF SEPPALA and PIETRO OF SEPPALA II. TONY was an unattractive scruffy animal, so incredibly short-backed that at almost any gait he crabbed extremely; by no means could he move straight forward at any speed. The other dog, PIETRO, was very large and heavy-boned, probably twenty-five inches tall and well over sixty pounds. He was rangy, handsome and short-coated, but when he moved, he seemed to be coming apart: legs, paws, pasterns, shoulders flew wildly in all directions, everything flopped. Never had I seen a dog with such loose ligamentation, nor have I since. After much soul-searching, I took them both to the vet. I could not see my way to breeding either one, particularly as I was having difficulties finding bitches. Even now I doubt whether I would risk using either one.
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Seen in retrospect after thirty years, perhaps it was a mistake not to have attempted a trial breeding of each one, but as I had yet to discover any pure Seppala females I could not at that point see what use I could make of them. At that point, the notion of attempting to rescue Seppala strain had not yet entered my head; I barely realised just then that it stood in need of rescue, because I was only just beginning to comprehend what these late McFaul dogs represented. I was learning as quickly as I could, but hardly fast enough.
