Gerald will be sledding his Huskies on the main road, on Saturday 28th July at 9am. The Huskie run will start at Jikani, take a loop around the village green and back to Jikani. The road will be closed for the duration of the Huskie run, so make sure that you have a good viewing point somewhere along the road between Jikani and the Village green before 9am.
You will also be able to try sledding for yourself later on at Gerald property, Dogwood Lodge, a boutique hotel for dogs.
We have asked Gerald to share his story about how he came to be a huskie fan. This is his story….
It started many years ago when I rescued a stray Husky in Walkerville where I previously stayed. Like most people I knew very little of the breed. I soon found out that they are high energy, extremely intelligent dogs. In the beginning I couldn’t find much apart from the fact that the most common husky in South Africa is the Siberian Husky, which is also the smallest of the husky breeds.
We visited Hogsback early in 2016 and I fell in love with the area and village, and decided to make the move. A chance remark by my sister that this would be a good area for huskies led me to renew my search for ways to harness their amazing energy. This led to me joining Sled Dogs in Johannesburg in 2016. Here I was introduced to a popular pastime called “sledding” in SA. (Correct term is bikejoering). This involves riding a mountain bike while harnessed to 1 or 2 huskies, who run in front. I also adopted 2 huskies in the same year from Midrand (Ice) and Benoni(Shiloh) SPCA. The following year Rusty joined my pack from Husky Rescue. At the same time I was able to purchase my property in Hogsback, so the idea was becoming real. This was when I first came up with the name Hogsback Huskies.
In January 2018 I added Daemon to the pack, adopted from friends of my sister in East London. I currently have 5 huskies, but only the 4 males actively walk/run. The fifth is my oldest Husky, a little female I also found as a stray, and was never claimed.
My goal is to build up to a full husky team of 12 to 14 dogs. They will be trained to pull a wheeled cart, which I was recently given by a friend at Sled Dogs.
I was not able to spend the time required to learn how to run the cart for this year, so please visit next year when we will have it running with a small team. For this year, I hope you enjoy watching 2 of my pack running with the bike. They absolutely love it.
I have also opened a guesthouse for dogs to come and unwind in Hogsback. If you feel your dogs need some caring R&R in a paradise location, book them into Dogwood lodge.
Gerald Goosen