
Our huskies kennel is located about 15 minutes north of Haliburton, Ontario and is situated on 55 acres of wilderness land overlooking Drag lake. The original state of the art, sled dog kennel was designed to house approximately 60 Siberian Husky dogs, but has since had an addition added to now hold 100 dogs as our husky family grows. The kennel has a radiant heating system through the cement floor and is maintained around 5° Celsius in the winter, so that the dogs are comfortable, but not hot enough to lose their winter coats. They love coming home at the end of a days dogsledding to their warm kennel & supper!!
The dogs share their inside kennels with a friend or brother or sister. We also have 2 large fenced outside play yards that everyone gets to go out and enjoy throughout the day. These yards have lots of places for dogs to dig, jump over trees and obstacles, have a good old race, interact with each other and just plain do what dogs love to do when they aren't out dog sledding.
The front of the kennel is kept around 20° Celsius and has a kitchen/feedroom, grooming room, washroom and a large open reception area which houses all of our equipment and a small dogsledding themed gift shop.
Because of the summer heat the dogs are unable to do much work, their coats are simply too dense to allow heat to escape quick enough. So summer time means summer holidays! Once fall roles around though its a different story. The first cool night will find the dogs howling at 6am anxious to get running! The general rule of thumb is that once the temperature reaches 10° C or below, it is cool enough for the dogs to start training. When we do fall training we run just like we would if there were snow on the ground except that we use an ATV 4-wheeler instead of the sled. At first 1 km runs are more than enough to keep everyone happy, but by Christmas time 15 km is an easy workout. Fall training is a great time to work with promising young lead dogs, to get puppies (1 year olds) used to running in a team, and just generally get everyone back into shape!
Like any athlete the dogs are only as good as the fuel that goes into their bodies. We have had great success and are very happy with Royal Canin dog food. We feed our dogs the new Cyantechnique 4800 line, which is specifically designed for high energy, working dogs. We have yet to find a food that the dogs like the taste of better. The dogs coats are always beautifully shiny and even at the end of the sledding season the dogs are in incredible shape! To find out more about what Royal Canin can do for your pet check out their site...