* * * Starlight Siberians * * *

Working Siberian Huskies and Seppala Siberian Sleddogs

Starlight Siberians is a kennel of *working* Siberian Huskies and Seppala Siberian Sleddogs. We strive to develop and foster the Siberians as dogs held to their original intended purpose - hard-working, companionable dogs with skill and aptitude for pulling sleds in cold country. Our Furry Paws breeding program and kennel as a whole is closely modeled after what a real Working Siberian kennel would be like, and so simulates very careful breeding choices - Sledding aptitudes are given top given priority in breeding decisions, as well as careful selection for Excellent Genetic Health markers wherever possible. The "Seppala Siberian Sled Dog" as we refer to it here is a specific "bloodline breed" of Siberian Huskies that we are developing in Furry Paws, modeled after and inspired by the real-life Seppala Siberian breed. Read more about what a Seppala Siberian in FP (and in real life) is in our "Seppala Siberian Sleddog Breeding Program" section!

As of 2022, the volume of breeding and the coordination required for the upkeep of the Seppala project has meant that all other breeding operations and programs are on pause, including our non-Seppala Siberian Husky lines. I do plan to resume these in the future, and have farmed out some dogs to Eye of Aurora Distance Kennels for work on their teams and breeding if they see fit to use them.

If you wish to request a Stud service from one of our dogs, the bitch will need to have her full pedigree examined for Seppala standard, or Siberian Husky lineage for us to breed out our studs. If setting up one of these breedings to our dogs is something that interests you please message me! Please also feel free to reach out with questions regarding establishing a breeding partnership with us, or anything else you may be interested in!

“If I have a Siberian Husky who meets the criteria to be a Seppala but I’m not following the breeding project’s mission, can I still participate?”
If you have a Siberian Husky FP dog who does fit Seppala standard, but they are not actively a part of the Seppala breeding project started by myself (bred by me or another breeder for the purpose of the Seppala project), feel free to breed them however you like! If you have a dog who you wish to include in the Seppala gene pool however, it’s preferred and encouraged that you keep all their future breedings within the Seppala project/gene pool from there on out. For this reason, and because we are dealing with a “breed within a breed” situation in FP, we encourage folks who want to take part to create an entirely separate kennel for their Seppalas, so that it becomes easy to avoid cross-breeding with non-Seppala SHs.

“Can I breed a Siberian Husky that doesn’t meet your “Seppala Standard” to a Seppala (one that does)?”
If it’s in the context of breeding one of your dogs to one of Starlight Siberians Seppalas, no, you cannot. Our Seppalas are kept independent of ‘non-Seppala’ Siberian Huskies for the specific intentions of the project, and requests to breed any of them (including males at stud) to non-Seppalas will be rejected. I cannot speak for any of my partner kennels, but those who have taken on the Seppala mission have expressed agreeing with this stance. If this question is in the context of you having acquired a Seppala dog or puppy from us and planning to breed it yourself to a non-Seppala, we strongly discourage this and ask earnestly that you not do so. There are already very few FP breeders who are participating in this project; utilizing the genetics of a Seppala to move its line out of the Seppala gene pool would undermine the project’s goals, our wishes, and the entire point of the project. I plan to privately discuss the intentions for any Seppala that I sell or place with another user, and although I cannot control what you do with a dog after it leaves my care, I consider it a breach of my Seppala breeding program contract, and I will NOT work with you again in any capacity if I discover that you have done this with a Starlight Seppala.

“Aren’t Seppalas just a ‘more-pure’ or a different kind of Siberian Husky? Why separate them and refuse to crossbreed them?”
The definition of real-life Seppalas in the modern sense is somewhat controversial, and has been the subject of decades of infighting between even the most dedicated breeders. It’s Starlight Siberians' belief that although mixed-lineage Siberian Huskies can be considered part or even mostly-Seppala, the Seppala Siberian Sleddog is an importantly unique and distinct genetic strain of Siberian sleddogs. While at many times registered as Siberian Huskies and sharing a genetic base with them, for 90+ years Seppala Siberians were maintained within a very strict and specific set of breeding principles around being exclusively a working dog with direct ancestry and intentional breeding pholosophy. If those principles aren’t a part of a dog’s background and ancestry, we believe that to call them a “real” or a “pure” Seppala is to misunderstand the history of the bloodlines entirely. We encourage people to click on the links in our “The Seppala Siberian Sleddog” scrollbox to learn more about this important (and dying!) breed of animals.

“Why Don’t you inbreed or linebreed your dogs to quickly solve genetic health problems and lock in traits that you want? There are no consequences for it in FP like in real life!”
While it’s true that the serious genetic health problems from inbreeding aren’t in FP and can even technically be solved by it in the mechanics of the game, the point of the Seppala breeding program is to essentially simulate a real-life breeding program for Seppalas, in all aspects of what that would mean. Constantly inbreeding our stock would 1.) Be disastrous in real-life and thus doesn’t line up with what the project’s purpose is in simulating a real-life program, and 2.) Dilute the Sledding aptitudes in our bloodlines by locking in a single ‘aa’ pair while never expanding the genetic pool to include the other hidden aptitude loci pairs. Sure, if we inbreed endlessly, all our dogs will technically have Sledding, but that’s not realistic from a genetic standpoint, and it’s also not what the breeding program for working dogs would need - you have to re-evaluate and re-incorporate qualities that your bloodlines need to keep a healthy working dog program, especially for something like sledding. In FP, it would also mean that any outcross we introduce could eliminate Sledding from the bloodline instantly within a generation, even if it has aptitude at the other 3 pairs that the bloodline does not!

“This breeding that you did is terrible - It doesn’t improve on either dogs’ health or stats!”
If we’ve done a breeding that looks pointless or produced “bad dogs”, then you are probably misunderstanding why we’ve chosen that breeding. In the real world, Seppalas have a small population and are faced with a serious genetic health crisis. Breeding with a mindset of “only the best to the best, and forget the rest” would destroy the possibility for a viable Seppala population by reducing the gene pool to a point where only close inbreeding is possible. I don’t think I need to explain why that’s bad. Also, this goes back to the previous question - while a dog may not seem spectacular in genotype, *sport aptitudes are hidden*. A mediocre dog may have extremely important and valuable Sledding aptitude loci that we need in order to keep Sledding in future generations! A breeding that doesn’t seem stellar on paper was probably done in order to vary the genetic material of the gene pool and even out polarizing traits in our bloodlines - in other words, it was probably REALLY important!