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The Markovo Kennels Rescue Project: 1969 - 1975
Copyright © 2003 J. Jeffrey Bragg

Oxford Station and Lyl of Sepsequel

JUST AS THE H-LITTER was being weaned, we were suddenly turfed out of our house in Pefferlaw, which we had been renting by the month. At this point I was getting fed up with southern Ontario anyway, with its snooty dog-show people and the constant backbiting that went on within the Siberian Husky Club of Canada, where there was little or no serious interest in working Siberians. I phoned our friend Nancy Scarthe, who had owned SATAN OF SEPPALA IV, lived south of Ottawa, and was a real estate agent. I told Nancy that we needed a rural property within one month. Amazingly, she was able to deliver! Nancy found us a 100-acre decrepit dairy farm at Oxford Station, ON, just west of Kemptville, 35 miles south of Ottawa. It was on back roads, and there was a nearby conservation area that offered tempting trails for winter. But the retiring farmer and his wife were still living there, had not had their auction sale of farm stock and implements, nor had they yet found a house near Ottawa in which to live. I pointed out to Nancy the urgency of our situation, with a growing kennel, 6-week-old puppies, and no place to go. It was November, and winter was setting in. In the end, since the old couple were very anxious to make the sale, we simply moved in a few days before their auction; we all made the best of it together for two weeks while Nancy found them a house and they sold their farm implements.

A few days before we were scheduled to move to eastern Ontario, Johanna Wilson called. She told me she had just acquired an ageing Seppala bitch (EMBER OF SNOW MYTH, bred by Joel Nordholm) and her entire litter of young adult Seppalas sired by MALAMAK'S EGO. Johanna said that she hadn't space to keep them all and wondered if I would be interested in one of the females. I made a fast trip to Québec and came back with LYL OF SEPSEQUEL, a lovely white bitch, blue-eyed, with a very light silver saddleback pattern. EMBER was a doll, very similar to DITKO, friendly with a lively personality; I had already met EGO at Johanna's and knew him for a fine sleddog. I was thrilled to acquire LYL.
     She was in heat at the time. Also at the same time, ANISETTE had come in season. I had my hands quite full with the chores of packing and moving, and simply did not think I had time to supervise matings. What the heck, I thought, they'll be in heat again in six months. I was unaware then that many Seppala bitches cycle only once a year or even less. I postponed breeding ANISETTE and LYL to DITKO, with heartbreaking results.

Lyl of Sepsequel 1974, a Seppala Siberian Husky foundation bitch at Markovo Kennels
Lyl of Sepsequel 1974

The Death of Ditko

THAT WINTER EARL NORRIS visited the farm and took his pick of the "H" litter pups according to our lease agreement; TADLUK'S HANS, HOONAH, HUSLIA and HELGA, all OF ANADYR, were shipped to Alaska in mid-January 1971 -- nevermore to contribute to Seppala strain. (I had by then applied to the C.K.C. for the kennel name MARKOVO but had not yet received permission to use it; hence I used the kennel name that Mary and I used for other Siberian stock to register the four Norris pups that had to leave immediately). DUSKA OF SEPPALA left my farm with Norris, but only for a short journey to Québec, there to be bred to MALAMAK'S EGO, the ex-McDougall leader then owned by Johanna Wilson, on a lease arrangement similar to the one just fulfilled with me.
     The following spring (1971) DITKO started to show signs of discomfort in his hindquarters. The local vet sagely told me that it was probably hip dysplasia, or else arthritis! We x-rayed him, and sent the films to the Ontario Veterinary College scrutineer at Guelph. The verdict was that DITKO had the soundest hips they had ever seen on a twelve-year-old dog. The x-rays also failed to support the diagnosis of arthritis, but our vet treated him for arthritis symptoms anyway. He did not improve. He was obviously hurting, but maintained a friendly, cheerful attitude anway. On the 10th July, 1971, I went outside in the morning to his doghouse and found him lying dead. A necropsy revealed adenocarcinoma of the stomach; his hindquarter discomfort had been "referred pain." I was heartbroken. DITKO had become my best friend, and I would be desolate without his cheerful grin and his annoying "Dit, Dit!" double yap at suppertime.

Mikiuk Tuktu Tornyak, a Bryar strain Siberian Husky stud dog used by Markovo and Seppineau Kennels.

     That DITKO OF SEPPALA left me only three pure-strain progeny -- HAAKON OF MARKOVO (male) and HELEN and HOLLY OF MARKOVO (females) -- was entirely my own fault. I ought never to have allowed a question of personal inconvenience to prevent the earliest possible matings to LYL OF SEPSEQUEL and FROSTFIRE ANISETTE; I should also have moved heaven and earth to find other females on whatever terms were possible. I blame myself for the failure to this day.
     Left without a stud for LYL OF SEPSEQUEL by the death of DITKO, I sought further afield; through Prado and Gary Egelston I found MIKIUK TUKTU TORNYAK, privately owned in the American Midwest. Photos that I saw of TUKTU made him look very much like DITKO would have looked had he had a long coat. I shipped LYL by air to Dr. Rule Olson, the owner in Missouri, for breeding. On 14 December 1971 she whelped the "N" litter of MARKOVO. All the pups were short-coated like their dam, and it looked like a very good litter. So it proved to be; Tuktu was a good choice.

Mikiuk Tuktu Tornyak
(by Bryar's Silver ex Bryar's Queen)
 

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