Oscars success story – Ann Maria Parkinson

Back in January 2019, we made the decision to add another dog to our pack. We have 2 x malamutes who were coming up to retirement (one now has now fully retired and one has semi-retired) from canicross racing. We decided we would rather a husky this time for the speed element rather than the distance element we had with the malamutes.

A friend from my canicross club shared a picture with me of the handsome Moose who is a lurcher x husky. PERFECT!! We contacted 8 below to have our home check completed. A little while later that was done and we were informed we had passed. I spoke with Simon about Moose and he informed me he was a failed foster so we had a lengthy chat about what we were looking for (male, at least 18 months and a love for running ) and we were told about Oscar who was in kennels near Wakefield.

We arranged to visit him on a Friday, for a pack walk to ensure there were no issues with our resident bitch Willow (she can be a bit grumpy from time to time) and it all went perfectly so we decided he was the one to join our madhouse!!! We were racing on Sunday and didn’t was a new addition to be left in the van so we asked if we could collect Sunday.

Race complete I then raced from Dalby forest to the kennels to pick him up.

Got home and it was our resident dog Marley whose nose seemed to have been put out and he was not happy with the new addition! The roller coaster of “have we done the right thing” started but with perseverance and positive training, they started to bond.

We also started training Oscar in Bikejor which was something we were keen to compete in but with the malamutes, it had always been more of a plod on a bike rather than a decent bikejor experience!

Anyway, fast forward to today…. Oscar won 1st place in the British Siberian Husky Racing Association (BSHRA) welfare dog season for bikejor after successfully obtaining a welfare number for him to be able to compete.

Him, Marley and Willow are all also best friends – although we still have the odd grumble!!

We could not have asked for a better addition to the house!! Now if we could just get him to stop hogging all the bed!!!