Follow our quest for a more simple lifestyle living off grid in the remote north woods of Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, working with traditional sled dogs.
This is large female that had to be removed from the back yard twice in the matter of an hour.
The beautiful underbelly.
It's that time of year again when we need to do a turtle check of the back yard before letting the sled dogs out to play. We've rescued many a turtle, just minding their own business, trying to find a good spot to lay their eggs in sled dog territory. We continue to see the very same turtles each year as they migrate up the shore line from Oake Lake. How do we know? Well, they've got distinguishing edges to their shells where someone has tried to make a chew toy out of them.
As a part of the Hedlund Husky Preservation Project, we are compiling photos of our Deep Hedlund Line and Half Hedlund Line pups for the Hedlund Husky website. Again, these are being posted here first so you all get a sneak preview!
In 2009 Tuloon had her second and last litter of six puppies sired by McKenzie, another Deep Hedlund line Alaskan Husky. Sadly, a male and female pup died within a couple days of birth. We did, however, have four beautiful and healthy puppies. Topa and White Feather remained with Points Unknown and Tumac and Hana went to New Hampshire to live in Uktousa Kenneland our dear friends Lidia and Richard.
First visit in an adjoining kennel to the big dogs.
Puppy Pile!
Oken has the perfect example of the Hedlund "under eye" half circles
Zodiak
Zala
Cookqiz
All it takes is a disapproving glare from mom to get an instant reaction.
Cookqiz
Zala
Zala displaying the "Hedlund eye" at a very young age.
Wahya getting nibbled on by Tuloon
Tuloon and bunch
Cookqiz and Zala
In 2007 Tuloon, a Deep Hedlund line Alaskan Husky, had six beautiful puppies sired by Bazil from our Zulu line. Zala, Zodiak and Oken remained with Points Unknown. Cookqiz lives in New Hampshire with a dear friend at Uktousa Kennel. Q lives in a nearby recreational kennel. Wahya lives in a recreational kennel in Colorado.
Points Unknown and Redpaw booth. Sasha demonstrates how to pull a small tire.
This husky, when hooked to the biggest tire, went on strike and headed directly for the kiddy pool filled with water and laid down!
Sasha came along with her sister Wimzi for fun and socialization.
The hike is underway!
The 2010 Adopt-A-Husky Hike took place yesterday and was well attended. This event was designed to raise money for this Siberian Husky Rescue group. Included in the hike was a silent auction with all proceeds going to helping out a husky in need. Points Unknown was one of the vendors and handed out literature on our adventures and other activities as well as free samples of Redpaw Feed. Points Unknown has been a distributor of Redpaw Feed for many years and feeds this high quality food to our dogs and is happy to be able to make it available to you.
The day started off overcast and muggy and quickly turned into an unexpected thunderstorm with booming thunder and flashes of lightning! We got soaked to the bone but still had great fun! How can you not in the company of all of those wonderful dogs?
Wimzi, now nearly 4 months old, got her first introduction to our 65 gallon water tubs today. Summer temps have begun and many of the dogs enjoy dunking themselves in or just merely wading in these tanks to stay cool. The wind had been blowing heavily through our Silver Maple trees which created a "wimzical" sight as thousands of maple helicopters gracefully twirled around and eventually found themselves on the ground and in our water tubs!
What happened this morning can be likened to the story of Zulu jumping down the laundry chute to see me in the basement where I was visiting Tuloon and her puppies last summer. This is a "How the heck did that happen?!" event. This time, the story is about Zulu's granddaughter, Zala.
I was out in the yard rounding up the dogs so that I could head out to puppy class with Wimzi. I called for Zala, who typically comes instantly. She didn't come. I gazed on the other side of the fence to see if she had, by chance, slipped under after a rabbit and would any minute, come bolting toward me. No Zala. I began to walk closer to the house and as I went to take my first step on the deck, I heard panting, looked down and saw a foot and a nose barely visible from a hole about 4 inches deep under the deck! How the heck did that happen?! How in the world did she get under the deck in a 4 inch gap? I made sure she wasn't in distress and then I just had to run quickly inside to grab my camera. This had to be documented or else no one would believe it!
Well, there was no way she was going to be able to get out by herself. Not quickly anyway. She was stuck and stuck good! And I wasn't going to be able to pull her out safely. And there was no other way out from under the deck. I grabbed a shovel and started digging. All along, thinking,"You little #&*%!". This reminded me of the time an old retired sled dog named Bingo went into a long narrow den that one of the females had dug into the side of a hill in the back yard. He brought a bone in, tried to turn around and come back out and got stuck while folded in half. Poor boy! Thankfully, I found him and dug him out quickly. Poor thing walked as if still folded in half for a few minutes before he got his muscles to work properly again. It was a funny yet sad sight. Goofy dogs.
As I continued to shovel Miss Zala out from under the deck, she gained a little bit of space for movement and began to use her front legs to help dig which made my job even more difficult as I tried to avoid her legs while using the shovel. There was now about a 6 inch gap and Zala began to slowly emerge from under the deck before I could dig deeper. It looked like the deck was giving birth to a 45lb sled dog as she wiggled, squirmed, flattened her hips down and finally burst free. Oh, for crying out loud, Zala. I can see I am going to have to watch her closely once she begins the nesting period of her pregnancy. Who knows where she might end up.
She shook her muddy self off and continued about her tour of the back yard as if nothing had happened. And now, I was running late for class. Geez.
When telling our trainer at class this story, she grinned and said that I've got a problem solver on my hands. "What a great thing to have in your working dog line!," she added. It's interesting how things can look a lot different in a different frame. I was actually wondering what I had gotten myself into with this breeding! We're going to have curious puppies stuck in holes all over the back yard. Oh well, they'll be darn good sled dogs anyway.
Phoenix with Zodiak, a half Hedlund, in the foreground
Phoenix
McKenzie
McKenzie
Kenzie
Kenzie
McKenzie
Our Hedlund Husky Preservation Project group is compiling photos for the website of some deep line Hedlund Huskies, of which Points Unknown has five. You'll be the first to see the photos being submitted. The photos were taken by a number of us that include me, Neil, Melanie and Hailey. Enjoy these photos of our beautiful and talented dogs. (I'm not at all biased)
Pocking her head out slightly to check me out
This is large female that had to be removed from the back yard twice in the matter of an hour.
The beautiful underbelly.
