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LIZAVETA OF SEPPALA was Seppala Kennels' last main leader, having stepped into the harness of the retired Tonya. She was also Jeffrey's number one "Girlfriend" and go-everywhere companion. "Little Lizzy Lineout" was a homebred leader, the daughter of two homebred Seppala Kennels leaders.
Born 2 November 2002, Lizzy was sired by Sepallop (Hercules of Sepp-Alta x Karcajou's Dreama of Windigo) out of Kolyma of Seppala (Xpace of Seppalta x River View's Sprite). A pure-strain Markovo-Seppala, she had a well-blended pedigree whose strongest influences were "Hank" (Hercules of Sepp-Alta) and the Baron/Mokka mating, with Powder of Markovo and Karcajou's Dreama of Windigo up close. 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 worked together as a team as smoothly as if they had had two full seasons of training. Never have I seen a team integrate so quickly.
Lizaveta was, like her mentor Tonya, a product of Jeffrey's "girlfriends system" of leader selection and training. Like Tonya, she went everywhere with the Boss, slept in his bed right beside his pillow, and became very closely bonded. Her affection for and trust in her driver were both very strong, as was 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 gave us our very finest leaders.
Lizzy died on the 11th day of August in the year 2018 of cancer, aged fifteen years nine months nine days. Jeffrey remains desolated by her loss -- I can't handle it, just cannot accept the fact she's gone.
