Seppala Kennels:
Home of the Seppala Siberian Sleddog

Copyright ©2003, 2006 by J. Jeffrey Bragg

 

Tonya of Seppala and her little daughter Mokka of Seppala at Jeffrey's "Camp Tonamera"
between Lake Laberge and the Miners Range in Canada's Yukon Territory in 2003

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NOTICE to all the people who watched the "Togo" movie: Seppala Kennels no longer has an active and ongoing breeding programme. We have NO DOGS FOR SALE OR ADOPTION. We have NO PUPPIES and do not expect to produce any more litters. Please do not email us requesting adoptions, puppies or stud service as we are quite fed up with receiving puppy enquiries motivated by Walt Disney fantasies.

Our last year of major breeding activity was 2008. Our last living Seppala, at 16 years and 4 months, died here in Rossburn, Manitoba in October 2022. Our kennel, for its last ten or twelve years was primarily a caregiving operation for our remaining seniors and is now history. Jeffrey maintains this website purely as an educational resource; perhaps this coming winter I shall find time for a thorough site reorganisation. Below are ID photos of the final few years' population of Seppalas at Seppala Kennels IV.

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Maraq of Seppala	Lara of Seppala	Lizaveta of Seppala
Orlov of Seppala	Prince Ivan of Seppala	Chooch of Seppala
Kandid of Seppala	Candia of Seppala	Groza of Seppala
Gorki of Seppala	Olga of Seppala	Freya of Seppala
Volk of Seppala	Darka of Seppala	Vatyna of Seppala
Vushka of Seppala	Xapka of Seppala	Xenda of Seppala
Windy of Seppala	Tatka of Seppala	Yegor of Seppala
Tikhon of Seppala	Vologda of Seppala	Rasta of Seppala

We regularly receive email from people who express an interest in "saving the Seppalas" from extinction. We can sympathise with that interest; Jeffrey has travelled that road twice over. The problem lies not in the dogs or their genetics, but in human nature. Our experience has been that there are never enough committed individuals with the requisite determination, financial resources and character traits to ensure success of such a goal. Both in the post-Markovo period and in the early years of the new millennium, the effort to establish Seppalas on a secure long-term footing failed owing to weaknesses of human nature and simple lack of sufficient resources. The genetic resource that we gathered and made available was not properly conserved and developed in the post-Markovo period; it's happening again just as inevitably in the post-SK period. We have no further interest in advising or supporting anyone's efforts to "save the Seppalas" because in our opinion that battle has already been lost — and not just through wastage of the genetic resource.

It now seems obvious that there is no secure "ecological niche" in today's crowded world for general-purpose lightweight sleddogs such as these. The only possible niche today would be dogsled racing and that niche is already occupied by highly-specialised dogs with a constantly-changing genetic specification and makeup, relying heavily on extremes of performance selection, high population numbers and continuous heterosis. With their stable genetic makeup and extremely small population numbers, Seppalas cannot compete successfully. Efforts to force-breed them into a more competitive state (probably through further extremes of inbreeding and selection) would only mean yet another genetic disaster. It is better for the individual dogs that the "breed" or strain should be allowed to quietly subside into extinction. After all, the Leonhard Seppala dog has enjoyed a full century's run of successful dedication to a single purpose. There is no way really to prolong that run humanely.

Particularly and specifically we do not support anyone's effort to breed and use Seppalas in the Iditarod Trail and Yukon Quest thousand-mile races. We are convinced on the basis of the track record that these races can no longer be considered humane. They were marginal at their inception and have now evolved to the point that competitive teams cannot be fielded without the use of inhumane tactics and racing strategy.

Best wishes to the few discerning admirers of the true authentic Leonhard Seppala sleddog,

J. Jeffrey Bragg

 

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