Our philosophy

Philosophy

In our Äkäskero Sleddogcenter our dogs have first priority.
Many people like dogs but only a few are dedicated to take responsibility for the entire life of a dog. We at Äkäskero are committed in providing the best we can for our more than 400 dogs. Every dog living with – either born here or bought in – will be cared for even when old and retired from working.

The laws in the Nordics give an owner the right to kill an animal just because the animal is not needed, liked or useful anymore. This is with the condition of killing the animal with no pain. We at Äkäskero believe, that animals have the right to live a good, long life as long as their health permits it. Even if – in some circumstances – they may have never worked.

We demand, that all individuals and companies who make their living with animals have to care for the animals even after the end of their working life. Animals are not machines. We are fiercely committed to the ethical treatment of our dogs and hope to raise awareness of the importance of it among our customers.

Usually at your average sled dog camp you should see more than 20% of the dogs being retired. But oftentimes you will only see a few retired dogs (fake-oldies, so to speak). A good way to know if a company gets rid of retired dogs is to ask how many dogs they have and how many of them are retired. This ratio will tell you a lot. At this time (June 2018) we have 179 dogs eleven years old or older. The oldest one being Oktan, born 2003. Some more dogs are retired due to health problems and they have never been able to run in a sled dog team. All this is of course very costly and also needs a lot of work and real love for dogs. Old dogs need a lot more caretaking, medicines, attention. It is easy to fall in love for a puppy but it takes dedication to care for an old dog.

We are dedicated and committed to caring for all of our dogs regardless of whether they work or not. We can ensure enough resting time for the dogs, so that not a single dog will be over-worked, due to having more racing dogs than needed. We do not accept any form of violence or scaring techniques in training or otherwise. Our dogs have access to a spacious yard, and are exercised and stimulated also outside the racing season.