pedigree

He became the most famous leader of my lifetime. Sired by Kaila's Mr. Pepper, he was a studfee puppy out of Nevada-Sun of Alka-Shan, which belonged to friends who moved to Italy. In his youth Agor showed his intelligence, but was also kind of a troublemaker in the kennel. Towards people he acted kind of reserved, towards me like a "one woman dog”.. It was not before he reached three years of age, that I discovered his leader ability. After the sprint racing season in central Europe we kind of retrained the dogs for the only existing Middle-Distance-Race in La Pesse / France, where you had to camp-out overnight. On the second day Agor kept on overrunning my leaders which seemed to have major problemswith the distance on the way back. Soon he was in lead and the team moving, even so I had to swing him several times around because he did not know any commands yet. Finally he had gotten the place he believed belonged to him. He excelled during the time we raced in the US and was in lead most of the time.

When he was six years old, he started to limp in the rear. When we arrived home in Germany, my vet did some X-rays of his hip and discovered severe arthrotic disorders on his left hip. She declared Agor's racing carreer finished. I consulted a specialized vet of another clinic for a second opinion, with the same result. After eight weeks I had my vet check the hip again, since Agor refused to use the leg at all. On the new X-ray she discovered a hair fracture along his femure all the way through the ball. Our conclusion was that, while playing wild with his kennel mates, he must have smashed his hip against the edge of our large dog house. Now hat we had a reason for the infection of a hip, that was three years before rated excellent, my vet started a treatment. Agor was put on Bute-capsules and on 5mg Prednisolon, following the injections. I was advised to start short walks with him, to force him to use the leg again. After four weeks I was able to take him with me on a 5 km jog every second day. By end of October he could lead the puppy-team for 3 to 5 km and we lowered the Pred to 5mg every second day.

In December, when we arrived in Utah, he was doing the shorter training runs with the main team and we stopped treatment. Surprising for us all he gained back his muscles and by January he was up front again with the racing team. His system's ability for repair is still a miracle to all who knew him. His most outstanding performance was placing second out of 28 teams in the 1994 Beargrease 130 at the age of nine years. The X-ray, we took one year later, showed that the acetabulum of his left hip had built extra bone to stabilize the femoral head.

Agor sired many good leaders, however he remained special. He was completely respected by every dog in the kennel and in the team.