Erä-susi Huskiyfarm, -6°C snow in the summer..?
Well…where shall I begin? Some busy days lay behind me. But let’s start from the very beginning:
After a for me sleepless night we
started yesterday quite late at 8 o’ clock with watering the dogs. They are only given
water enriched with a little bit of meat every 2nd or 3rd
day depending on the temperature. When it’s warmer like in these days they need more water than on cold days. Afterwards they have to stay calm for at least 2 hours.
If we would harness them immediately and let them work their stomachs would
probably rebel. So the first thing which is done on a ‘water-day’ is to serve
them their drink. Then we start cleaning the cages and feed reindeers. Watering
and cleaning takes about 2 hours, if you have a team of 6-8 people.
That day we had to prepare 8 sleighs for 15 customers, who had booked a 20 km
trip. When they were about to come back, we already started to prepare the next
54 dogs, dealing at the same time with the other 48 arriving dogs. Everything within 45 minutes. It was just
wow! Harnessing dogs is quite stressful. They are really excited, jump around and
most of them would start run as soon as you open the cage doors even without
the harness and sledge, if didn't hold them back. They are unstoppable, if you let them. Especially the
bigger ones have no problem with jerking you; they are really strong and can’t
wait at all. These dogs have a lot of power, even the smaller ones! When you
have chosen the right dog, got it finally out of its fence without freeing its
cage mates, too, found a fitting harness and identified its place in the team,
then you have to clamp it on its place in front of the sledge. I guess there
might be a certain technique or just a lot of practice to not be totally
exhausted after just 3 dogs…It seems that I’m actually the only one who is kind
of really shattered afterwards. I’m always happy when they finally start
running and I can take breath. It’s obvious that I really need to learn all the
names. If you just have to get them out of their fences it is quite ok, because
some clever guy had nailed boards with the names of the inhabitants at the doorframe of each fence. But it becomes much more complicated when you have to put the dogs
back after their run. Unfortunately, the dogs don’t speak to me telling me their
names and their cage. I still need help, but it gets better day by day. My
teammates help me out and show me the right dog and the fitting house, but it
doesn’t work out always well, because the dogs are sooo loud that nobody
understands anything - no matter if spoken in Finnish, English or even German.
Most of the times I just guess…
 |
| That's how happy dogs look like!
The dogs are perfectly matched in their teams. Every team available to tourists consists of 6
dogs clamped in couples at 3 points on a metallic wire pulling one sledge
together. The strongest dogs are
situated in the back directly in front of the sledge. They have to do most of
the work. The couple in the middle keeps up the speed and the front couple
leads. Not every dog is a born leader. Just the most clever, brave and
assertive dogs can handle the front position. Nevertheless one team can have
more than one leader pulling in another position, as far as all of them accept
the leading dog in the front position as what he is: the leader. During the
training in autumn the trainers figure out how it works best testing the dogs
in different positions with different partners and integrating the puppies from
the last year. The youngsters are trained by their human trainers, but they
learn a lot from the older dogs, too. When the puppies are about half a year
old they have to move out from their mother’s fence. According to their nature
they get matched with older dogs. Shy puppies get a very brave, socializing
fence mate and the more excited or nervous ones are coupled with a calm dog in
order to tranquilize them a bit. The mother dog starts to run again about 2
month after she has given birth. Normally a litter is about 4-6 whelps.
|
The first safari that day was a nightmare: one epileptic seizure, a snowmobile
which didn’t work as it was supposed to do, dogs giving up in middle of the
track and had to be lifted in the sledge…But finally everyone arrived more or
less save and sound.
In this whirl some dogs moved out. They were brought to the 250 km far
Rokua, where the other farm is located. In these days it is the point of
departure for 5-days Safaris.( I would give a lot for trying it myself!
Unfortunately I could never afford a trip like this). That’s why some of the
best teams were put in transport boxes, which were already mounted on the
pick-up truck and filled with straw. I guess a box is about 120 x 50 x 50 cm
and has a hole at the front side to guarantee fresh air. The dogs put their
noses through the holes when somebody passes-it looks so funny! They see their
world with their noses…I’m not sure how good they actually see with their eyes.
In any case their noses are fantastic. (I’m wondering how it is to experience
your surroundings just by the sense of smell.)
 |
| Smile... |
My own dogs at home always had problems if they had to go by car. But as it seems
these huskies have a more resistant stomach. Getting them in the
boxes wasn’t a big problem although dealing with the tight boxes is nothing
which was especially trained before. The youngsters just learn it by watching how
the older, respected dogs go first.
Finally 2 hours later then the days before, around 17 o’ clock everything was done! It was already dark. I cannot remember when I was ever so incredibly tired. But my day finished actually even later. I had my first meeting with Mr. Wolf, the big boss of the human pack.
And I grabbed the chance to fill my already quite empty fridge. Working
makes hungry! I eat at least the triple of what I would eat studying and training - atleast 3500 calories.
Today was supposed to be a quiet day again. That’s why we were just
the three girls, doing all the necessary cleaning, feeding and drinking
coffee. Coffee seems to be the elixir of
life for the team. The first action arriving at the farm is to switch on
the coffee machine. No day without at least 3 coffee breaks .They drink incredibly
much coffee a day! But actually this coffee is not really strong. I’m sure my
Italian friends wouldn’ t even call it cafè. Just while I’m writing these lines, I
heard this little question I already learned to love: “Rike? Kahvi?”. I don’t really like the Finnish coffee. So, no
‘kahvi’ for Rike, but it is so nice that they still think of me and keep asking, even though I usually decline.
Like everything in life plans like to change quickly. Looking forward to a
calm day, but getting an exciting one: We had to free a reindeer which runs
regularly through the same wire-netting fence. We had to cut its horns free
from the wire being somehow wrap around them. The problem is that it is not
really safe to just jump into the fence and play with its horns. The Erä-susi reindeerbulls are probably the best fed
reindeers in whole Kuusamo and they are quite big compared to the reindeers I
have seen so far. In any case it’s not clever to just jump over the barrier and
take them by their horns. Serious injuries because of reindeer horns are rare, because the people here know how to handle them. Reindeers are really shy and startle easily. When they get scared they tend to turn fastly their heads and actually they are quite strong. We needed our combined forces and a lot of hay to
free it. But I guess in the end he was more scared of us than we of him.A red plastic piece found its way in the engine of the snowmobile and made it do really weird sounds. I was allowed to drive today and finally got the hang of it.
An unwelcome guest visited the farm in the afternoon. The veterinarian
came in order to vaccinate the 19 puppies and check on a couple of other dogs.
It’s no secret that the veterinarian is not the dogs’ favourite kind of human
being. The puppies hided in their dog houses, bit and whimpered, but it didn’t
help. In the end everyone got its dose of vaccine. He also checked a, as he
found out by an ultrasonic treatment, unfortunately pregnant she dog. The dog
was taken, brought in the garage and put without showing any kind of prissiness
the belly up on a workbench. It took him not even 3 second to check what had to be
checked.
Unfortunately not every litter can be grown up. The team tries to prevent
unwanted pregnancies, but often enough the dogs are just faster. I was told
that sometimes an abortion is the best and safest solution in order to prevent the spreading of hereditary deseases in the pack.
And the surprise of the evening: 4 puppies and her mother decided to
break free and have a walk in the deep snow. These puppies are really shy and
always run even further away, if somebody tries to get them…
All in all the last two days were tiresomely exciting. I learned and
laughed a lot, but now all I desire is my bed! ... System error…Not even the internet worked anymore. ....Zzzzzz
Knowledge of the day:
Never underestimate the power of an adult reindeer bull.
Packet soups are potentially life prolonging.
Not even in the trash container are you safe – “Rölli”(trolls) can hide just
everywhere.
No comments:
Post a Comment