pedigree

Wingasheek's Chewbacca

Manfred Witschel, 1997

(first published in SHC-Aktuell No. 6 - August 1997)

This dog with the call name "Chew" attracted our attention, because he was the only male, besides the females, who made it to the finish line in Mark Levitsky's Siberian Husky team. In the 1993 "Race to the Sky" over 300 miles in Montana he earned 6th place being the only Siberian-Husky team competing in the limited class among Alaskan Husky competition.

In recent years Chew had been used by his breeder Ralf Whitten in 6- and 8-dog sprint races with outstanding success, before he was sold with some of his litter brothers and sisters to Mark Levitsky. At that time Mark tried to develop a competitive distance team from sprint dogs. Since Chew had, apart from speed and endurance also proven stability and soundness - in the USA a notable exception in Mid-Distance for a Siberian-Husky with Zero lineage – he was interesting for us as potential stud. After his hip and eye examinations turned out to our satisfaction, we bought him by phone during the summer.  

In the following winter Mark transferred this dog to us, after he had used him once more in the "Elton 80" (2 times 40 miles). That was exactly one week before the "Beargrease 130" took place, in which Anneliese had entered. When one of the main dogs from Anneliese’s team ripped a nail off during the week, Chew had to fill in, although Mark had trained him in this season only for 50 miles. Even at the risk that he would have to be dropped at a later checkpoint, Anneliese opted to rely on his toughness and experience. In any case his power would be a large help over the first half of the race in the mountains. At night during the race the temperature fell to -35 Celsius (-31 F). On the firmly packed trail Chew, together with the other Alka-Shan team members, experienced his greatest achievement. Having started with 10 dogs and reaching the finish line with no loss, Anneliese won second place  among 28 participants.

Back in Germany, Chew was allowed to contribute to the extension of the Siberian Husky gene pool. He did this with great enthusiasm and downright successful, as proven by his high-performance descendants. He was retrained again to sprint and helped to strengthen the 4 dog team of Marco Pilz, a young boy and newcomer in racing. Chew’s enthusiasm for running was unbowed even with 11 years. After his racing career he insisted to participate in training and for his age his body remained amazingly flexible.