At Polarhundsmästerskapen in Åsarna, we once again stayed in Kvarnsjö at Christoffersson family. As always at competitions, there are little time to hang out. All day we were at the competition area and when getting back to the house, there are dogs to feed and skies to prepare for the upcoming day's competition.

DAY 1

As always I started out with Haldex and Tióne in lead. They set off with a speed that were really promising. The first kilometres we held a good speed, but I noticed after, maybe, half the course, that Haldex wasn't his ordinary self. He has had some problems with his tonsills and has had two sets of antibiotics under the fall training. After this season we are removing his tonsills, since the medication doesn't seem to beat them. Haldex didn't push the way he normally do, and I could see it in the results for the first day.

Starax Nulato 'Nato' had his racedebute at this competition and as we suspected, after seeing him at home in fast speed, he doesn't quite cope working in high speed, but he runs along. I had use of him in the uphills though, so it didn't feel too bad afterall.

For the first day we finished in 4th place. I was, under the cirumstances, pleased with the result and knowing that anything can happen on day two I had hopes for a better placing.

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DAY 2

I had already decided to spare Haldex and for the first time I put him down in teamposition on a race and I let Niro take the place as leader, together with Tióne. I knew this was a longshot, since I know that Niro doesn't have the same speed as Haldex in lead. But it felt better to do so, since I thought Haldex needed the rest from leading the team.

So for the first time EVER I started out with Haldex and Nato next to each other in team. My handlers held them apart in the start, because Haldex can be hotheaded sometimes when it suites him. So just for safety precaution we did so. When the startclock was down to my startingtime we took off, and there were no argue or anything between the two of them. My dogs aren't really looking for trouble when we set off. It felt like I had already won.

The speed in the beginning were really good and it felt like we had a chance of climbing in the list, but after a few kilometres I sensed that Niro wasn't quite comfortable in the role as leader at this kind of speed. He started to slack and sometimes wanted to go to the left and grab some snow. Well... I knew then that we would, hopefully, at least hold our 4th place, and hopefully we would at least manage another 1st prize towards the swedish working dog test.

I thought of stopping and putting Tirith up in lead, but concluded that it was better to peptalk Niro into making the whole course around. And so I did. It needed some really good peptalk in the uphills and a lot of kicking, but we made it. As always in the last part before the goal I pepped all of the dogs into going as fast as they could. And I think we had a really good speed over the finish line.

We managed to keep our fourth place and had 53 seconds up to bronze so I was very satisfied with the results. Nato made his debute and at least I tried Niro in lead once more. Now I know that is not the place for him in sprinting races, but in middistance races in the future... Oh yeah! We were 1min 22 seconds slower this day, and that wasn't all that bad afterall.

At this competition I tried a new combination in the team and it is not often I do that. Maybe because I have so few dogs and of course I want to drive the ones I know are the best at certain positions. But at least, I gave it a try and I am very pleased of giving it a chance. I got some answers this weekend and I think if we are going to grow as a team, this is the sort of decisions I as the leader, must make. It feels good and I am proud to say that we got the 1st prize I wanted, so now the young dogs need one more next year, so they can title themselves as champions.

As always, thanks to family Christofferssons for giving us a place to stay again. And thanks to Agnes, Mari and Brenda for the help to the starting line.

But most of all, thanks to my partner, Johan! Helping me at home with training the dogs and taking care of me. Without you I would be a wreck every day! You make my life a lot easier!