PICKING A PUPPY
From A Different Perspective!

Smileypup - this is a bad angle to look at the upper arm, but look at the nice croup on this pup

Smiley2 - living up to his puppy potential - Champion and Iditarod finisher -
NorthWapiti's Guy Smiley

One of my current leaders
4 month of age

This was my pick puppy, Nitro at 7 weeks, out litter done with one of my bitches. Notice the good amount of knuckle, the upper arm and nice croup on him.

Nicely build 11 week old pup - although he already has the 'ganglies'

For additional information, you may contact Karen at NorthWapiti's Siberians

Author’s note – please note that I am using the word ‘culling’ in this article. By ‘culling’ I do not mean the context that many AR groups choose to represent the word (as meaning ‘killing’) but rather in it’s correct context – meaning to ‘remove from a population’ - which for us, means to sell or place. No dog or pup in our kennel has ever lost its life because it was not suitable or didn’t wish to be a sled dog.

Karen

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There is a fair amount written about picking your next show puppy, but not nearly as much written about what mushers are looking for, so I thought some might be interested in looking at this topic from a different perspective!

First off, the best way to evaluate a dogs suitably for harness work is to actually run it, so for that reason many mushers simply don’t sell puppies and hang onto their babies until they are old enough to do some evaluation runs in harness. We are like that, although I do ‘cull’ a few pups along the way to adulthood if they look like they will be better suited for a situation different then ours.

I know some show breeders that will look at pups when they are still wet and make their selections right there. I appreciate that you can see a lot about how the dogs are put together, however, for a sled dog, I’m much more interested in the pups sum of the parts and the way the pups move then just the way they are put together. So I generally don’t even begin to evaluate babes until they are moving around.
I do like to note who is the first out of the whelping pool, who is the ‘bravest’ in exploring new territory and when confronted with new ‘scary’ things. I’ve not noticed an ‘absolute’ correlation between this and the ‘star’ sled dogs, but often that outgoing, brave baby is a dynamo in harness.

When the pups begin walking and running, I really begin to watch them, spending hours in the puppy pen just sitting and being a ‘climbing toy’. The pup that is the most agile and light on their feet will almost always catch my attention. That is the one that I want to keep my eye on.
Once the pups are about 4 weeks old we take them for walks in the woods. Again we are watching for the brave, agile and smooth ones.

As they approach 6 weeks, I begin to look for certain things in their structure. Most important to me at this age are a good upper arm, with the elbow definitely below the chest, a strong back – and an excellent croup. I want to see a lot of ‘knuckle’ on the youngster, indicating he will sprout some legs in the months to come.

One of my earlier mentors used to tell me that if in doubt when picking a puppy, choose the one with the longer tail. I think it was just an ‘old wives tale’ (or ‘tail’), but then again, like many old wives tails, it might have had a touch of truth behind it - as often I find the one with the longer tail to have longer bone lengths all over!

By the time they are about 8 weeks, I free run them with the 4-wheeler, as I stand no chance of keeping up with them on foot!
This is the stage that will tell you a lot. I look carefully for the pup that will run hard to keep up – or even better – keep in front of – the 4 wheeler. That is the beginning stages of ‘drive’. Although I don’t put huge amounts of stock in how fast they are at this age, I will sell a pup that consistently over a period of a few weeks can’t keep up with it’s littermates. That is our first ‘culling point’.

Once selections have been made at the 6 - 9 week age, I don’t put much stock in they way they look over the next few months. I’ve found different parts often mature in different stages, but in time they will usually come back together.

Ideally, at around 6 months of age they are starting to ‘come back together’ again and we will harness break them. It is exceptionally rare, but sometimes a pup will simply refuse to participate and those pups will usually move on to pet homes.

Once the pup is just over a year they will face their first real test, doing runs of 4 – 5 miles on a regular basis. At this point we will look for pups with the most drive, the smooth gaits, etc – keeping the stars and moving the ones that may not be quite as talented onto kennels with a bit lesser expectations for their pups.

By this point, hopefully we have given ourselves a nice foundation of talented, well build individuals to base our future teams on. Next up is giving them the experience and foundation to live up to the potential their genetics has given them!