2024: A Turning Point

I haven’t blogged in a very long time, and I’m always saying that, and I feel badly about it! I had planned to do a series of posts on handling tips, which I will get back to at some point. This past year has been a huge challenge for me personally, since we welcomed a baby girl in the fall of 2023, and our lives changed dramatically afterwards. I became a stay-at-home mom, and the days were long and draining. I hope I don’t offend anyone by saying this, but I much prefer having puppies to a newborn baby! In many ways, babies are much less self-sufficient and fragile than puppies. I had to worry about things that I never had to worry about with the puppies. And any concern I had would last for months, instead of going away within days. We have had some litters get very sick, and we have lost puppies in devastating ways, so having litters can also be very hard. But when things went well, I found the process of raising puppies really enjoyable. They grew so much and changed so much from day to day. I remember waking up every morning excited to see them! That was not how I experienced being a stay-at-home mom lol.

Now that the baby has officially become a toddler, things are still hard. Now in the throes of teething and picking up cold after cold during flu season, the toddler is Needy with a capital N. I specifically picked Siberians as my breed because they are not clingy. They can be very affectionate, and I do really like that, but they are not a velcro dog. I knew I would struggle a lot with a dog that needed my attention all the time, and if I had more than one like that, I would feel so guilty about not being able to give all the dogs the one-on-one attention they required. I already feel guilty about spending significantly less time with the dogs after our daughter was born! But most of them don’t seem to care, because they’re still getting plenty of attention from their other favorite people, Dan and Bianca (our amazing kennel manager). On the other hand, my human child won’t let me go to the bathroom or eat a meal in peace. She gets bored of everything within five minutes and wants me to carry her somewhere else more entertaining.

Anyway, I feel that this year was a big turning point for us not only because we welcomed a human child but also because this fall marked seven years that we’ve been showing dogs. Our first dog Juno turned eight this fall, and we started showing him around his first birthday. He is doing great and has mellowed in his older age, but is still the same spunky, playful dog. We neutered him this past year, and now he can finally relax through our girls’ heat cycles. He was an excellent stud dog and would tell us exactly when the girls ovulated and when their eggs were ripe for fertilization. That part was quite annoying, since he would refuse to be crated during that time, but it was nice to know exactly what was going on! Since he was neutered, now it’s hard to know where exactly the girls are in their heat cycles and whether it’s safe to reintroduce them to the intact boys.

Seven years is not a long time to be showing and breeding dogs, in the grand scheme of things. Some people who have been in the breed seven years may have just finished their first show dog or just bred their first litter. It all depends on how much time and energy you’ve committed during that period, and also a fair amount of luck. Many people have to restart from the beginning multiple times due to show prospects not turning out or litters not turning out. We were both very committed and very lucky (overall) so far in our dog journey, so we were able to accomplish a lot in the past seven years. Simply sticking with it for seven years is a big accomplishment in of itself. There’s a reason why most new dog fanciers quit within the first seven years. After the novelty and excitement of the first few years wears off, you start to experience the really low lows. I really don’t want to discourage newbies, so I won’t elaborate more, but by seven years in, you’ve probably experienced some really trying times. At the very least, you’ve questioned yourself and your lifestyle and whether this is what you want for the future. It requires deep sacrifice on the part of a breeder, in every area of their life, to continue breeding dogs.

In the past seven years that we’ve been showing, we’ve seen many people come and go. And a lot of people retired or quit. I think it’s more important than ever for those who are left to join hands, practice good sportsmanship, and support each other. I’ve seen that go a long ways in other breeds, and the entries in many of those breeds are going up instead of down. If nobody wants to become a Siberian fancier, we only have ourselves to blame! We need to be more welcoming and more open to mentoring, especially in an online format. These days, people do not have the time or finances to travel states away for the opportunity of mentorship. Please, if you are interested in showing Siberians, simply reach out to us and we will help you as much as we can.

I apologize for the stream of consciousness that is this blog post, which I’ve written in-between feeding and entertaining the toddler. My point in writing all of this is to say that I’m proud of us for making it through seven years, especially this past year. In this sport, we often don’t give each other, ourselves, or our dogs enough credit. After seven years, if you are still passionate about the breed, about showing/mushing with your dog, about breeding responsibly, then you are honestly killing it! Kudos to you.