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 Ada ‘t Hart, and also learned to share their passion for the sport sled dogs . In the winter of 1992 we went to Windisscharsten for the Dutch championship, Banshee joined Jan’s team a few times and she enjoyed it very much. So we wanted a second Husky and in 1993 we got Keltif Cayenne. Knowing we wanted to do the sport with our own Huskies, we also acquired a third, Keltif Dawn, in 1993. We enjoyed training with 3 dogs.

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 Zeeland because of his excellent pedigree and we thought that with our Banshee he could be the ‘forefather’ of our kennel, but everything went slightly wrong. He broke two of the vertebrae in First’s neck and she was in a coma for 24 hours. The vet couldn’t do anything for her so we took her home put her on a pillow, turned her every two hours and fed her cat milk and at last she recovered. She had the will to survive and she still has. Her body is very small and with the nails of her right paw she touches the tiles in the kennel. But let it be clear, she’s a very hard worker. She’s in her element when she runs with the rest of the dogs. Because we had no real leader, Jan and Ada gave us Keo. Keo was an obstinate lady she trained the other 4 dogs perfectly. Due to Keo, Dawn became a self-confident leader. After that Keltif Cheyenne and her mother, Alaskans Timber Nina, joined our team. We had Nina and Keo on loan from Jan and Ada because those two with all there experience could help our team a lot.

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 Norway called Beauty. We have participated in the Pirena five times, this is a long distance race in Spain, France and Andora.

If you want to know more about this fantastic sport/hobby or you only want to see the dogs, please contact us.