We've come a long way from back in 2017 to 2021, where we are now.
(Made by Anne Claassens)
The name Bad Wolf Sleddog Team came to be because we wanted to participate in our race, or rather trainings camp and one of the questions on the form was 'Team Name' back then we hadn't really thought about it yet and so we didn't add any. But when we wanted to send the form out nothing happened and it told us that there were 'fields that weren't filled'. So we went back and the only one that we didn't fill in was the one where it asked for a team name. So we started thinking. For this part of the story you need to know that both Bart and myself (Nina) some sort of geeks. So we were watching Doctor Who and there were references in it to Bad Wolf.
And as anyone knows who has Siberian Huskies, people are constantly asking if they're wolves. And there it is, the reason why we called our team: Bad Wolf Sleddog Team.
(Haidmuhle, jan. 2019)
But Bad Wolf Sleddog Team was a team with 2 dogs we adopted (one which has moved on to a friend of ours, due to conflicts within our pack) and Bart's first dog Keyla. At this point we just wanted to have fun with our dogs and let them do what they wanted most, running and pulling. We entered a few races. But not to win, but to have another place to train, instead of our own trails week after week.
After two seasons we both decided we wanted to go further, do more, and maybe still not win, but at least do well and finish well. So, we went looking for dogs to add to our little pack, but this time no adoption, but a puppy from sport lines, instead of the pet dogs we'd had so far, and ended up in Poland where they had a litter of 9 puppies. Because we were in the 'neighborhood' (sledding in Haidmuhle, Germany) we decided to go pick the Kesha (Kenosha Anana Amarok, Narsil Anana Amarok x Anana Amarok's Freya Wilcza Dusza) up ourselves (and you probably know how it goes when you go and look at puppies, but we went home with 2 instead of one).
Zumi (Kazumi Anana Amarok) & Kesha (Kenosha Anana Amarok)
And from then on the fun really started, where we did go in the past season, with these two added to the team we suddenly had drive, the drive to go forward and really work for us. Where in the previous season we went forward, but mostly when the dogs wanted. These two would be our basis of the team moving forward, and in the future maybe even the line we wanted to build our kennel on.
(Westerlo Race, Oct. 2019)
When we started training in the 2019/2020 season we noticed that both of our pet huskies weren't on the same level our new, young, and more sporty dogs were. We wanted to add some more sporty dogs to our team.
In 2020 we got the chance to bring in a cousin to Zumi and Kesha and we jumped on it, he was in Belgium already, so no need to travel all the way to Poland again, that's how Sky (Chukchi Runners Skylar, Arrow at Chukchi Runners Wilcza Dusza x Singing in the Rain of Silverlight) came at 6 months old into the team in Sept. of 2019 to add some much needed power for the coming season. Because as much as we liked to run all our dogs together the young dogs had more energy, speed and power than our pet huskies could bring. So we decided to train them more separately. It was around the same time that we decided that we didn't want to train for the sprint races anymore, we wanted to enjoy the ride longer, and so we set our sight to the tour and mid distance races, during training. We went and asked questions of distance mushers and learned ways to train our dogs for the next season, when we would have a full team, hopefully.
While Bart and myself now switched off which races we ran, we both thought it would be more fun to both run the same race, even if we wouldn't compete against each other. Me in the DS2 (Dog Scooter, 2 dogs) and Bart with 4 in front of the dryland rig.
Back when we went to pick up Zumi and Kesha Bart fell in love with one of the other females that the breeder had and he had asked to be put on the waiting list for when she would breed a litter with that female. And in August of 2019 the awaited litter appeared and we started our wait to get Quince (Quince Anana Amarok, Sibersong's Maxwell House x Valkiria Anana Amarok) to Belgium.
But, as we did last time, we didn't decide to just get one puppy, but also another one from a litter that was born a few weeks later. Yami (Yami Anana Amarok, Sibersong's Grey Goose x Liora Anana Amarok).
(Quince, Yami and Sky, early 2020, our hope for the coming season)
The search for snow in 2020 was a hard one, but we ended up in Italy, with all the dogs, we had three puppies who still couldn't join the team, but we still had fun adding our dogs to other teams, loaning dogs from others and just sliding around the beautiful Italian mountains.
(Our entire pack at that moment)
When we got back the whole Covid situation started to happen, the few races we always have at the end of the season were cancelled and here in Belgium a lot of the forests were closed and unnecessary car rides were prohibited, so we couldn't even finish closing off our training.
Before the total lockdown came we did manage to get another addition to our team Yami's sister Ygritte, who we got in agreement with the breeder, at the end of Feb, 2020.
(Yami in front, Ygritte in the back)
To make a long story not that much longer, in the 2020/2021 season, where there weren't any races we started to look forward to our first litter. We started to get Zumi ready, getting her eyes checked, which were clear, we're still waiting on the official documents for her hips.
We made a request for our kennel name, which was granted the 9th of january 'Keshumi's Pride', wherein the names of Kesha and Zumi can be found, the two dogs with whom our dream really started. And so we say goodbye to Bad Wolf Sleddog Team, and hello to Keshumi's Pride Distance Sleddog Racing Team.
(our new amazing logo thanks to Rob & Ellen from: tnes.de )
(LtR; Lead: Yami & Kesha, Swing: Zumi & Ygritte, Team: Keyla & Loki, Wheel: Sky & Quince)
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