A summer of new dogs and obligations

At the start of the summer, we met with a number of companies who had shown real interest in sled-dog welfare during the last couple of EU projects.

Lapland University now wants to make a third EU-supported welfare-related project looking at how to communicate about sled-dog ethics, (since they still do not believe that the companies are yet ready to sit around a table and come to an agreement about what those ethics and standards should be).

We, however, feel strongly that this would be putting the ‘chicken before the egg’. What on earth is the point in communicating about what ‘good welfare’ should look like, if no-one in the industry has come to a consensus about it.

It would just lead to ‘welfare-washing’.

We have talked enough.

There are enough companies that now understand, whether from an ethical standpoint or an economic one, the need for standards. And the others can get on board, or not. It is time that we build a platform upon which certification can be developed.

To that end, we re-activated the ‘Lappish Sleddog Welfare association’ — despite having only a few people present (when holiday comes in Finland, everyone disappears) — and set some quite tight targets for the development of the guidelines themselves.

Now, of course, I ‘just’ have to finish the association’s website, which I started in Spring (goodness only knows how I am going to find time for that) and then try to cobble together the documentation we started to prepare years ago on the guidelines themselves.

Meanwhile, I have reached out to HeyHusky, again, around their new HuskyFair concept, set up a domain for the sled-dog entrepreneur association’s website and in the background, spent a lot of time getting the remaining targets for the summer into a project management program. This will hopefully help everyone know where we are all at with the numerous tasks that go into running a dog farm both day by day and through the seasons.

Whilst all of this was going on, our guides were closing out the winter and looking at some of the winter stats. It was a wonderful 10th season. Huge thanks to all of our wonderful clients and partners for making our 10th year of operation so fun and memorable!

We (Lorin) discovered a number of fun facts:

• Number of safari departures: 331 safaris over 142 days from December to April.
• Day with most number of dogs working: 19th of February — 185 dogs
• Cumulative running total of all dogs to date across the years: 340,208km (8.5 times around the world!)
• Top dog: Lyngen, 3002km over 112 days (like running from Hetta to Paris!). Lyngen is part of Venla x Pikkis’ 2016 Mountain Pup litter and a happy going little dog. Not by any means one of the strongest but fluffy, durable and easy.
• Total number of times our guides (and clients!) harnessed a dog: 18,007
• Number of nights spent in our farm kota: 63 nights with 263 guests!
• Number of nights camping out with dogs at wilderness cabins: 64 nights with 164 guests!

Incidentally, this year, we ran the dogs for the last time under sunny blue skies on April 23rd. This weather-dictated end to the season was c. 2 weeks earlier than in other years. Global warming is clearly felt also in the arctic.

As an aside to all of the farm-related stuff I will talk about here, I actually spent most of the summer in the UK, looking after my 91 year old mother who is pretty-much house-bound, now, without support. If I can persuade her to spend some time here this winter, then I may be able to juggle everything. If not, well let’s see.

Eliel also spent most of the summer in the UK helping with gran. He missed the dogs a lot but he spent time riding and swimming and had a 2nd (the first being in Finland) church youth camp (which he maybe didn’t enjoy so much).

Whilst there, we also enjoyed a visit from my mother’s 91 year old best friend, Hazel, and her son; both of whom were last in Hetta for my mother’s 90th birthday party.

Eliel is trying hard, at present, to work on videos for his youtube channel(apparently mom’s facebook is too old fashioned). He checks eagerly, daily, to see if he has new subscribers (please subscribe even if it isn’t really worth it at present, if you want to make a little boy happy!) so I guess I will have to help him to cut some semi-decent videos in the future.

Just as I moved the day by day farm management organisation onto PM software, I also set up a Trello account for Eliel (now age 9) so that he could start to manage his own timetable and all of his pre-screen tasks. I couldn’t tell you how many hours of my time have gone into sorting out his new school computer, linking it to his phone, syncing his calendars to mine, etc. This is probably the one and only thing that would make me even slightly happy that I have only one child. Setting them up to succeed in a modern age is hugely time consuming!

Eliel’s weekly farm-related targets include feeding the farm three times per week, playing with the pups daily, feeding pups daily, training his own dog, watering the house dogs and taking part in thre more relatively easy farm-related tasks each week. (This is on top of basic life stuff like the dish-washer, cleaning his room, outdoor playtime (also a ‘Trello’d task!) and study).

Being bilingual and not really having that supported through school, he also has to do at least two more hours of school work each day than his friends. He obviously considers all of this to be immensely unfair but we have explained that with all of the benefits that come from living on a farm and being bilingual, (his own motorbike, snowmobile, kayak etc and safari access / general outdoor wilderness play opportunities and also, effectively, a 2nd home in the UK), he has to start to accept his share of the chores associated with his life too.

I guess we will either put him completely off work in the process, or help him to develop a work ethos that unfortunately doesn’t come naturally to him. Only time will tell. I find myself as often wondering ‘am I pushing him too far’ as I do ‘am I supporting his development enough’?

Our dog-adoption program is something that suddenly went into hyperdrive, for the first time this summer. It is a little scary to give a dog to someone that you don’t know and we have done this in only a few cases to date, but with our highest demographical group reaching retirement age at this point, it is something we are going to have to become more familiar with, I think.

This spring / summer, Owl (to ex clients and 3rd time adopters, Fe Frei), Cloud (to ex-guide Erwin), Eureka to a Finnish / British family with whom we had had no previous contact, Bruiser (to ex-guide Raya), Zeta and Banda (to a relatively local family), Hulda (to 2nd-time adopter Stefan), KGB (to 2nd-time adopter Gabin) and, most recently, Bella, (to 2nd-time adopters Jenni Hoffman), have all gone to soft forever sofas.

Sadly, we also said goodbye to Manus, Aida and Neo, all of whom had known cancers that had been relatively dormant for some time but which had then started to become active. And we took on some young rescues, all of whom proved to be relatively feral. Time will tell if they end up running or not, this coming winter. For now, we are just trying not to get bitten when we approach them.

However, on a positive note, we welcomed a new ‘Jenga’ litter, shown here during their first bath-time.

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SUMMER DAZE

The guides also spent many long evenings, this summer, around water; SUPing and hanging out at the Hetta beaches where new relationships came to pass.

Hetta as a biking destination is also starting to take off so we thought we should spend some time exploring a few more of the trails. Even Eliel managed the whole 24km (from our house) Pahtajärvi route despite it involving a LOT of bike pushing and carrying and taking, in the end, nearly 8 hours.

Tim was a little more focused on work than on galavanting around, as usual. He has been busy with all of the never-ending farm fixes and repairs, and some new building projects including some strange one-off double kennels have been experimented with - as well as finally finishing off the dry-stone wall and fencing of the sole piece of grass that sometimes grows here.

Maxime, who wondered into our yard from out of the woods last year, left back to the woods at the start of summer having completed a major overhaul of the lighting on the farm and in the recuperation area. This was a pretty huge project, the effect of which won’t really be felt until we suddenly realise that we can see when feeding the dogs in the evenings during the polar night.

In terms of larger projects, we have an extension to our barn under-way that will serve as….well we are not quite sure! Whilst we really should have figured it out prior to building it, warm space is always at a premium.

Of course we have the small projects like the greenhouse, forge and enclosure of the house extension from 2 years back still to try to fit in, before winter. Let’s see what we manage.

On a separate note, Tim has also gone youtube crazy this summer so if you enjoy videos about bushcraft, check out his Lappish Bushcraft channel.

DID YOU KNOW?

Did you know that the same adaptation that helps sled dogs keep warm in winter, also helps them keep cool in summer?

Huskies are one of a number of Northern dog breeds that have a special double-layered coat. The top coat is comprised of long, tough and coarse ‘guard’ hairs that keep dirt, moisture and insects away from the skin. Underneath, there is a dense, fluffy layer of hair called the undercoat, which serves to insulate the dog by trapping air close to the skin.

When the coat is maintained in good condition, the insulating properties of the undercoat function most effectively. That’s why, if you visit our farm and have some time to kill, we’ll hand you a brush and point you in the direction of a dog in need of grooming! We appreciate the extra hands to keep on top of this daily maintenance, and it is one of the nicest things you can do to directly contribute to the welfare of our dogs!

Anyway…in our next post we will feature some of our oldies looking for a retirement sofa and talk a little about some of the cool new apps we have been developing.

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