Burnham-On-Sea resident Jenny Parfitt and her 2-year-old Alaskan Malamute, Lumi, were selected to be a part of Team GB at the World Sleddog Association’s World Dryland competition at the weekend.
Competing in Bikejoring, a sport where one dog or a team of dogs runs in front of a bike, pulling, they achieved fourth place.
The annual competition was held in Suffolk at Haughley Park.
“Lumi ran extremely well in very difficult weather conditions and I’m so proud of her,” Jenny told Burnham-On-Sea.com.
“She loves being in a harness and working, and always is very excited to get out and happy to be running.”
“My friend, another local person from Cheddar, also competed with his 4 dog team of malamutes and came 3rd in his class.”
“12 nations were represented and Team GB came second overall, ahead of France in second and Poland in third.”
The Alaskan malamute, often mistaken for a large Husky, are considered the ‘freight train’ of the sled dog breeds, she adds.
“They are restricted to training and working in low temperatures less than 12°C due to the thick double coat, and are happiest and perform best in sub-zero temperatures.”
“We train at the Quantocks, but are very limited to timings as we have to be careful of other forest users and often have to go to Salisbury Plain to do most of our long runs. They have to learn to respond to verbal commands only.”
“Training will be more tricky soon as our pack is growing (we can only run with single dogs on public forest land) so any offers of land (particularly woodland) to train would be very gratefully received.”
“In the future, as our pack grows, we will hopefully be competing in the on-snow competitions, next year being held in Östersund, Sweden in February.”
“I love talking about the breed and sled dog working, so if anyone is interested they can stop me to find out more. I am a swim teacher at BoS pool, and live locally – you’ll often find me walking the dogs on the beach.”
