DOGS FOR POLAR PARTY

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27917, 14 March 1956, Page 3

DOGS FOR POLAR PARTY

15 HUSKIES ARRIVE FROM AUCKLAND WINTER TRAINING NEAR HERMITAGE Fifteen leaping, yelping sledge dogs which will be used by the New Zealand expedition to the Antarctic next December, passed through Christchurch yesterday on their way to their winter training ground in the Hermitage area. The pack of curly-tailed huskies, including one runt, are about nine months old. One main team has already been formed from among them. This will be the first sledge team to be put into harness for work in June after the first snows have fallen over the Tasman Glacier. At Mount Cook for the next three or four months the fawn, white, and black huskies will occupy their time with growing to full size while eating. sleeping, and exercising. Their food will consjst of 21b of horse meat and 11b of biscuits each, every day. Full-grown, they will then settle down to a rigorous breaking-in period, followed by long and difficult trips dragging sledges over some of the most tortuous and rugged mountain country their trainers can find. Huskies generally have a working life of about five or six years. Eight of the group which arrived yesterday were, males. The huskies were bred in the Auckland Zoo from dogs which had been used by Rear-Admiral Richard E. Byrd in the Antarctic. On their flight from Whenuapai in a Royal New Zealand Air Force Bristol Freighter, they were accompanied by the zoo director, Mr R. W. Roach, and an assistant. Miss- Kathleen Hughes. After being unloaded, the dogs were taken from Christchurch airnort on an eight-hour truck ride to their compound in Mount Cook. Until Mr Harry Ayres returns from the Australian Antarctic base at Mawson within the next month with 30 more huskies, the dogs will be in the care of Mr Murray Douglas, assistant chief guide at Mount Cook. Mr Douglas, who will go south with the expedition next summer, drove the does to their new home. Miss Hughes is a 22-year-old kinder, garten teacher from Westmere, Auckland. She spent a good deal of her earlv life on North Island sheep runs handling dogs, and she has been assisting with the Auckland Zoo group since the first pups were born lasi year. As kindergarten mistress, she has in her charge two of Mr Roach’s children. Harewood Welcome At Harewood to meet the huskies on behalf of the Ross Sea Committee in Wellington were Mr W. A. Breach, chairman of the Christchurch Antarctic Appeal Committee, and Mr Gordon King, the organiser in Christchurch. Waiting for the huskies to be unloaded from the plane were 15 heavy steel chains given for the dogs by Mr King. The dog collars were bought by the appeal committee from the Christchurch City Council. The main team pf dogs are a fullchested. powerful group of nine led by a magnificent specimen who wags his tail to the name’ Lem. Lem. the lead dog, is followed by a friendly pair—Rose and Vida. The second pair in the team are Faith and Jip; the third pair are boisterous, panting beasts called Paddv and Leo: and the fourth pair are docile and sleepy-eved huskies. Joe and Tutloch. The dogs were named by North Island schools which have “adopted” them. The huskies were quiet on their flight from Whenuapai, and apart from an occasional snap at a clumsy paw or :a tempting, dangling ear and the odd tangle of feet arid chains, the flight was without incident. Over Harewood, the dogs, one by one. began to sit up and take notice, whining and pawing at the low windows of the aircraft.