(2 December 2004)
She's only a youngster, but what a gal! Born 2 November 2002, sired by SEPALLOP (by Hercules of Sepp-Alta ex Karcajou's Dreama of Windigo) out of KOLYMA OF SEPPALA (by Xpace of Seppalta ex River View's Sprite), Lizzy was not harness-broken until she was a yearling in the 2003-04 training season. Her litter was trained together as a team with TONYA presiding as command leader, and by the time the L-litter team had accumulated their first sixty miles in short-distance training runs on snow, they were working together as a team as smoothly as if they had two full seasons of training. Never have I seen a team integrate so quickly.
In spring of 2005 she did mountain bike runs in a local complex of community horse trails and proved conclusively that she knew her directional commands quite well already. Liz can gee-haw as much as you like in solo mode, without another leader to help out.
LIZAVETA is, like her mentor TONYA, a product of J. Jeffrey Bragg's "girlfriends system" of leader selection and training. Like TONYA, she goes everywhere with the Boss, sleeps in his bed, and has become very closely bonded. Her affection for and trust in her driver are both very strong, as is her motivation to please. For some people it probably wouldn't work (and maybe people of that sort should consider some other sleddog variety than Seppalas), but this hands-on, intensive and emotional way of producing lead dogs has given us our very finest leaders. Little Lizard may eventually surpass Tonya as a first-string command leader.
