Joee Redington knows sled dogs. Competitively racing since the early 1960’s, Joee has won the Rondy and also raced the Iditarod. A Joee Redington team raced by Michi Konno won the Open North American Championship in 1998. Joee’s team this year is comprised mostly of Alaskan Huskies with little or no pointer bloodline. This is somewhat of a departure from the current trend of heavy pointer influence in most teams. With his immense experience and expertise, garnered from decades of family involvement, when Joee talks about dogs, smart mushers listen, closely. GSFirst I would like to say I have not retired. I sold my competitive team of huskies and pointers in 2005 and started over. I decided to concentrate on raising huskies. I had a number of older husky bitches and a good male. I have always had good fast huskies. In 2005 I was 4th in the Fur Rondy and 3rd in the Open North American with an all husky team. Now I am raising a new team of all huskies and believe they can be as competitive as pointers. Also, some one needs to keep raising huskies for high speed, otherwise there won’t be any left to breed back in. All my huskies go back to Sailor. He is the grandfather or great grandfather of all of them. When Egil came over with his pointers he had a good group and half of them were out of the Sailor line. Most of my line comes from Tyrol, a Jeff Conn bred male from Sailor. Training has changed over the years. Earlier training techniques emphasized discipline. Now mushers are using other methods such as individual attention, loose dropping, free running, movement within the team, different partners. Who is to say that huskies won’t respond to the new approach and be just as competitive as the pointers?Other mushers have bred to my huskies in the past. Jamie McGee bred Stephen Bittl’s Mimi to my Tritt and produced a litter in which 5 of the females were in the 2006 and 2007 North American. There were two in Buddy Streeper’s team, Macy and Myia the leader, two in Bill Kornmuller’s team, Jewel and Ashley, and one in Mark Hartum’s team, Dion. Terry and Buddy have a mixed team of huskies and pointers and his leader, Dee, is a husky. This shows that huskies are equal to pointers. Arleigh Reynolds got an older husky bitch from me and bred it to his pointer line and been pleased with the results. Sven Erik Teslo from Norway contacted us almost a year in advance about breeding to our husky line. This spring he came over with the bitch, bred it and has a litter on the ground. He was featured in Aug//Sept 2008 Dog and Driver detailing his trip. Jacques and Magali Philip have been purchasing huskies from me for over 10 years. He has been a prominent stage racer using dogs from me and bred out of my line. He has specifically bought older husky bitches for breeding. Dan Kaduce came to me in 1998 and bought Michi, a littermate to Ty. He said Michi was the best dog he ever drove and bred him into his kennel. A few years later he came back looking for an older bitch, Bristol, who he bred to Tyrol. His Quest team is made up largely of dogs from these two lines. My current team comes from 2 studs, Ty and Joint. Ty is my old breed and Joint, who also goes back to Sailor, is a Rob Peebles dog. I bred these to 5 husky bitches, Gift, Skittles, Trim and Toolie, all Redington dogs, and Pop, a Jeff Conn dog. All bitches also go back to Sailor. Twelve of the new group are 2½ years old and the rest are 1½ years old, all huskies. This is the direction I want to go with my kennel. I want to raise huskies that will be able to run sprint and stage races and with different training run mid and long distance. I want to raise good, fast, tough huskies.
