New Here? Introduce Yourself

[Beki]

Hi,

I've been reading the COA list for quite a while now, but have never made a post. We have a nice little (ok, not so little anymore) pup out of Carie's Sparkle litter. She was naked girl if any of you saw Carie's pictures. I'm not sure what else to put here, I guess that's it for now. How's about everyone else introduce themselves? It's nice to "meet" you.

Here is a pic of Kayla working with my son Jason in puppy class:

Beki

[Esky the Husky]

Hi, my name is Ashleigh
I'm not a Chinook owner at the moment, but I've signed up to the COA- and every affiliated forum I could find to learn more about the breed.
I am absolutely in love with chinooks and think they would fit in perfectly to our family.

I have one dog at the moment, Esky my Siberian Husky. We compete in dryland racing together
Nice to meet everyone.

Forgot to add a picture

Esky and I working hard at the finish line at a race last year.
We were right on the line and ended up beating these guys home by a whisker!

[Bashaba Chinooks]

Hi Beki and Ashleigh!

That Kayla is a cutie- nothing like puppies and kids! And one of these days I plan to try my hand at dryland racing - for now I'm too worried about 'on bus' and trail distractions.

I live with four Chinooks, Conaway (male, 6), Tikaani (female, 5), and two of Tikaani's daughters, Sakari (2.5) and Calista (9 months). I wish we had more snow here in New Jersey, because I finally have a full recreational sled team - oh well, at least it finally got cold here! I bike-jor (preferably with just 2 or 3 dogs at a time) and sled, as well as work with my dogs in K9 Nosework and Rally Obedience. They are also excellent couch potatoes.....

[KimKramer]

Hi Beki and Ashleigh,

I'm Kim Kramer, my family and I are owned by three Chinooks: Kusko, Atlin and Saba (ages 7, 6 and 4 respectively). We live close to Karen H., so in addition to bikjoring, sometimes we are able to get together with Karen and use her sled!

[saltsand]

Hi,

I'm Donna and live with 2 Chinooks (Ellie B and Rogue), an Alaskan Husky (Holly), and a deaf border collie (Sabre). I run my dogs on a scooter or bike for fun, in dryland racing, and sled dog races. We all live in Washington State. I do not run Rogue since he has IBD or Sabre since he is 12 years old. Also, I hope to get into drafting with 2 of my dogs.

Welcome to the forum,

Donna Morton
Washington State

[chesterh]

Chester here - half of the duo known as "Kris 'n' Chester." We live in Londonderry, NH, a Boston suburb about a 2-hour ride from the birthplace of Chinook.

We have 3 male Chinooks filling our otherwise empty nest. Huck (Granite Hill Howlet, 3.5 yrs) was our first. Birr (Lakeside Run's Little Bear, 2.5 yrs) confirmed our addiction a year later. Tibbs (Forever Greene Trondek, 7 mos.) is Huck's son. If Kris has her way, we'll add a son of Birr to the mix when Birr "gets lucky." We bikejor and sled regularly, and also make public appearances with the boys to promote the breed - particularly as our official State Dog.

We are relatively new to the Chinook community (I'll let Kris speak for herself from here on out). I was drafted about 15 months ago to assume responsibility for the COA website, which has led to a host of changes including this forum. I'm hopeful that it will succeed. I have two identities here for now, being known also as user "coa_webmaster."

Beki - I added "Intoduce yourself" to the thread's subject line to call more attention to it. Thanks for starting it - a great way to break the ice.

Ashleigh didn't mention the fact that she is a new member from South Australia. She is the only active COA member residing outside of North America. This became evident when we went to produce the mailing labels for CQ - the software I wrote to handle membership assumed that all members would be in the USA or Canada, so her address didn't quite fit the standard mold. Ashleigh, I hope you got your newsletter. I'm very interested to know more about how you discovered Chinooks. I've been told that there was one in Australia at some point, but that it has passed on.

Thanks and welcome to those posting here - let's convince the rest of the gang to come here, too!

chester

[Esky the Husky]

Ashleigh didn't mention the fact that she is a new member from South Australia. She is the only active COA member residing outside of North America. This became evident when we went to produce the mailing labels for CQ - the software I wrote to handle membership assumed that all members would be in the USA or Canada, so her address didn't quite fit the standard mold. Ashleigh, I hope you got your newsletter. I'm very interested to know more about how you discovered Chinooks. I've been told that there was one in Australia at some point, but that it has passed on.

Thanks and welcome to those posting here - let's convince the rest of the gang to come here, too!

chester

Yes it's true, I'm from the land down under. I'm sorry for messing up your mailing lists I have not received any newsletters yet, but it can sometimes take quite a while for mail to arrive from the US.

How I discovered Chinooks isn't really that exciting, Esky is the second husky my partner and I have owned, we had another female before who left us far too early to visit the rainbow bridge at only 9 months old Since Esky has matured I have become involved in dryland racing in Australia, although we do get snow in the eastern states, unfortunately all the snowy areas here are national parks so we are only allowed in to race in the snow once a year. The rest of the year our racing is done on rigs bikes and scooters.

I mentioned to my partner that we should get a second dog that I could also race with. While he loves Esky, he doesn't feel that the husky breed is right for our family. So I decided to do my research to try and find if there were any sledding dogs that weren't so stubborn and were loyal - and that's where the Chinook came into the picture. So I started looking into both Chinooks and another breed the Tamaskan- but Chinooks are the favourite as they are bred for working ability and personality rather than purely for looks as the Tamaskan is.

So I joined COA to access all the articles etc, to learn as much as I can about the breed, and also should I start contacting breeders with questions they will know I am not wasting their time. Plus now I can start a thread in this forum and ask all the questions I need

[kris]

Hi Ashleigh and Beki!

I'm Kris (the other half of Kris and Chester). Am so glad you introduced yourself. We are training for dry land racing and sledding. Birr is fast and at his best trying to stay in front of other dogs. Huck likes a slower pace and time to stop and smell the roses (such as it is for dogs - generally nothing as nice as a rose!). Tibbs is too young to pull far, but is turning into an awesome partner for Birr. Did a little over a mile with the two of them on very fast snow the other day. Screamin' fun!! Am still too chicken to run two of the boys on a bike for dryland, but did a race with Birr last fall. All the boys are improving, but have a way to go. Here is a picture of Birr - don't know how to make it smaller.

Stay in touch - am always so glad to welcome new Chinook friends to the community!

Kris

[Silvertree]

We have 2 Chinooks, Parker from Moonsong and Kenna Loo from Frontier. This time of year we keep them occupied running on Mt Hood with 4 of their best Husky friends. Lindsay works with them in Rally-O and during the summer we do Nosework.
Parkie is quite the friendly fellow, and a wonderful Chinook ambassador. I've had several people meet him one day up on the mountain, only to tell me the following day that they went home and researched Chinooks on the internets. He gets lots of loving. Kenna is a bit more reserved at first, but quickly warms up to people she likes. She's eager to work for Lindsay or me, but not so much for others, she's definitely a willful little Loo.

We post lots of pictures and videos at http://www.facebook.com/silvertreechinooks .

Dan

[Esky the Husky]

Silver tree that is an awesome looking team you've got there