Strider

Strider is from my "Movement Litter". I basically created the theme because I knew I wanted to call him "Strider" or "Stride". His father Pippin from my Lord of the Rings litter was originally suppose to be called Strider (name of character in the movie) but in the end  I really liked his "puppy name" Pippin so stayed with it. However, I decided that if I ever kept a Pippin son then he would be named Strider. So this is how Strider ended up with his name although I really also did like his puppy litter theme name of Speed  and often think I should have kept it because he is a "full speed ahead" type of boy.

Pedigree
Strider has an impressive pedigree to live up to. He is line bred on his father Pippin who is a multi Best in Show winner, an Am/Can National Specialty Award of Merit winner and my main leader in harness for a number of years. However, via his mother JuJube, he is also the grandson of Ch. NorthWapiti's Crunchie who was a 4 time Idiarod finisher, the last time at 10 1/2 years of age. Crunchie had over 30,000 miles in harness and was never injured or dropped from a team. He was also a Canadian Champion and Group place and was Open Dog winner at the 2008 US National. Strider has many other impressive dogs in his pedigree including several other Iditarod finishers, BIS winners, rally obedience titled dogs and a number of therapy dogs. So he has big paws to live up to!

About Strider
Strider was born at Margaret Ann Shaw's place where his mother Jubie lives. He was the first born of his litter and I was taken with him from the moment I saw this first picture of him. Fortunately he is turning out to be a very promising boy. Strider takes after his grandmother Jive in looks, not just his black coat but also his head type and has the soundness of movement of Pippin, Crunchie and Jive. He will be a slow maturing boy so the show ring may not see much of him for quite a while. However, in the meantime he is having a great time doing agility (following in his great grandfather Levi's paws) and off course he will run in harness. 
Although I hoped he would be the one from the beginning, it was he early love of his father that played a big part in my final decision to keep Strider (then Speedy). Here you see him playing with his dad. I love this video of these two, along with his brother Drifter.

Activities
 I don' t have an ATV at the moment so just running the dogs with the bike and sled but for a young dog he is very focused and hard driving. He can be a pain in the butt to hookup but once you get him running he is a powerhouse.  :)

Currently Strider is enjoying agility, learning tricks and rally obedience while he matures. He has lots of potential in agility with his ability to do distance work, something that will be necessary with my mobility issues.

He has also quite the list of tricks he can do including position changes, backing up, spin, paws up and kiss, weave, catch toy, bow, jumping through a hoop and even riding a skate board. He was the "star" in a recent video I did for the Tricks class I teach. Very talent boy indeed!

​At some point, once he matures, he will likely take his turn in the dog show ring and hopefully will make his father proud.