Everything started with one special dog: Keltif
Banshee.
For me, Heidi it was very clear, if we were to have a dog then
it would certainly be a Siberian Husky. After my son, Niels was born and I started working part-time, the desire
to have a dog became stronger and stronger. In September 1992, we called the
Siberian Husky club and they sent us a list with
breeders who had puppies.
Because we wanted to have a puppy who
was old enough to leave its mother, we chose Banshee. She was 4 months old.
From the first warm welcome we became close friends with Jan and
Jan Telkamp (my ex-husband) made a
wagon for the dogs to pull. The dogs worked with a lot of enthusiasm. In the
mean time we moved to a house with a large garden where we built a kennel for 8
dogs. A large team requires less effort from the musher himself. So in 1994 we
bought husky number 4, Keltif First. We had many
problems with First, when she was nearly 3 months old Click caught her and hurt
her very badly. He had come all the way from
In the spring of 1995 Jan and I (Heidi) divorced, very soon
after that Henk Rozema came
into my life. We lived in Klijndijk and the dogs
lived with my ex-husband in Odoorn. I paid alimony
for the dogs. Henk didn’t like Huskies he was devoted
to Rottweillers, but he knew that, eventually, some
of the dogs would come to Klijndijk.
In the winter of 1995, Jan my ex husband telephoned in a real panic.
First was unwell, she had been walking around crying all night and her
intestines were now coming out. We went to Odoorn at
top speed but when we arrived we discovered the intestines had paws. A little
puppy had been born, and while we watched puppy number 2 was born. Jan totally
panicked, he certainly didn’t want the puppies, he had never even noticed that First was pregnant. It was very clear we would have to take
First and her puppies to our home. We called the puppies Angel and Arrow.
It was a hell of a situation, First destroyed
our whole living room.
When the puppies were old enough, we returned First to Odoorn and she was finally happy. We then built a kennel
for Angel and Arrow. Meanwhile Henk began to get to
like Huskies more and more. He discovered that it’s very nice to run with a
husky. Because of a fight, Dawn had come to live with us permanently. The other
dogs had hurt her so badly that the vet had to operate on her for over an hour.
With a lot of love and patience she got her self-confidence back and was once
again running at the head of the pack. After that fight we realised that the
situation with Jan was getting out of hand. So we decided to look for a house
with a very large garden. And that’s where we live now, i.e. Borgerzijtak 22, Odoornerveen. It
was a small house but the garden was large, very large, 8000m2.
As our main concern was the accommodation for the dogs, the
first thing we did was build kennels. After that we had to renovate our own
house. It became a huge renovation and there’s not much left of the old house.
At this moment, we are finishing the renovation. Due to the circumstances, the
dogs didn’t run for 1 year. Henk has now started to
train the 6 dogs very carefully. Unfortunately, Keo has,
in the meantime, died. However, Henk has grown to
love the sport more and more and is becoming increasingly involved. In the
autumn of 1996, he entered his first competition at Sellingen
with 6 dogs. It was not an easy competition. But back on his feet again, he
wanted to improve. He has also worked on his theoretical knowledge and has got
his race-judge licence. In 1997 he brought 8 dogs and in 1998 he brought 14
dogs at the Diever competition. In that team there were
5 dogs which we had bred ourselves. By 1999 we had bred 7 of our own dogs and, by
2000, 4 more, we also had a Vargevass lady from
If you want to know more about this fantastic sport/hobby or you
only want to see the dogs, please contact us.