Winhaven Sled Dog Team

20/04/2026

We are very excited to announce the arrival today of two beautiful new additions to the Winhaven team.

Meet our new girls Miss Diva and Miss Chilli

Natomah Rommels Diva (AI)
Natomah Rommels Chilli (AI)

Forever Thankyous, big hugs and appreciation to Natomah Kennels - Kristen Morton for breeding such special Siberian Huskies and entrusting them to us.

They will be joining the Winhaven Alaskan Husky and Eurohound teams in 2027 - it’s been a few years since we have run pure bred Sibes and we can’t wait.

Many of Kristen’s beautifully bred dogs are well known over in the eastern states, so we feel privileged to join such awesome company.

14/04/2026

We have a few new faces in our team to introduce starting with C**t and Tiger.
These brothers came to us after last race season from the Burrows. They have settled in perfectly over summer, we thought that would be the case considering they are sons of ‘Winter’ who was out of our 2018 Issy x Shotgun litter.
C**t is a loveable bundle of energy while Tiger is a little more placid and goofy. Both boys are workhorses in harness with some minor start line antics that we are working on 🥰

23/08/2025

An excellent post and tips on commands. Perfect!!

Common sled dog terminology.

Most of this applies across the board but some mushers have their own commands and equipment definitions. It's whatever you train them to do.

These are our commands.

Gee = Right
Haw = Left
On by = Straight Ahead or Pass
Easy = Slow Down
Whoa = Stop
Ready = Tighten tugs get ready to go
Alright = Let's go
Come Haw = turn around left
Come Gee = turn around right
Gee Over = move to the right side of the trail
Haw Over = move to the left side of the trail
No = No
Yes = Yes
Pick It Up = Go faster
Good Dogs = Praise for the entire team

Pro tip: the less you talk to your dogs on trail the more they will listen. When you hear people constantly yelling at their dogs you know the dogs are cheating them and not properly trained.

90% of our training runs I will only give 5 commands the entire run. Ready, Alright, Easy, Whoa, Good Dogs.

Photo by Me 📸

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19/08/2025

We finished off this year’s race season with one of our favourite races, Canberra Sled Dog Club Classic. Thank you to the club for holding another wonderful and professional event.

Results:
First in 4 dog Jess with Buddy, Wilson, Pepper and Dee Dee
First in 3 dog Mitch with Ruby, Finn and Mouse
We also had Ruby running Nala and Jess with Bug in the 1 dog class. As well as C**t who has joined our kennel after winning the 1 dog class.

Our 5 dog team, Vaughan with Flash, Lily, Logan, Daisy and Ducky were sitting pretty after Saturday however Vaughan decided to pull the team up in the second heat as Ducky grazed his pad and was sore. This is the first time Ducky has pulled up lame during his 8 years running team but he has recovered really well.

Now our off season starts and 2026 is going to be a big year for us… more details to come 🙏🏻

17/08/2025

Reverse order fun, GoPro footage of Jess’ run this morning with Buddy, Wilson, Dee Dee and Pepper. This 4 dog team came together especially for this race and successfully defended their title from last year

11/08/2025

We are so proud of our team at Dinner Plain, we recruited a few mushers to help us organise the race and have majority of our dogs racing.
Thank you so much to these three awesome mushers for looking after our dogs, it was a delight to have you represent the team.
Scott -🥇in 4 dog with Lily, Flash, Logan and Dee Dee
Mitch -🥇in 3 dog with Finn, Ruby and Mouse
Ruby -🥈in juniors with Nala and Ducky

04/08/2025

Getting to the pointy end of the race season now. We did our last training runs tonight before heading to the Dinner Plain Sled Dog Sprint.

Our awesome Winhaven dogs will be running across multiple classes with some awesome mushers this weekend. They will be in 8 dog with Wayne Baker, 6 dog with Jess Winther, 4 dog with Scott Bennetts and 3 dog with Mitchell Deahm -mitch check the video ( Finn, Ruby and Mouse are working nicely)

27/07/2025

One of our favourite parts of running teams is working out different combinations, most of the time it works well! We are doing some team switch ups for our final 2 races for the year Dinner Plain Sled Dog Sprint and Canberra Sled Dog Club Classic. These will be finalised this week before we head to the snow ❄️

20/07/2025

H2 of Siberian Express Hypro Sprint Race
Jess Winther driving Wilson, Buddy, Daisy and Flash - 1st in 4 Dog Class

18/07/2025

SHCNSW - Dash in the Dark Results
Last weekend we travelled to Wingello for a lovely weekend, cold temps and good company.
We had the open class trifecta - 1st 6 dog, 4 dog and 3 dog
Jess’ 6 dog leader Lily was a little off in the night heat, she was a bit unsure about headlights and took a while to get past teams. Once Vaughan came past with the 4 her fears were gone and she was on the chase. This isn’t unusual for lily, she quite often goes through the finish line cautiously.
Our 4 dog team went around perfectly, they are very much a powerhouse team. Logan has stepped up to 3 dog this year after a couple of years in training with Jess. Leading in the dark is new to him but he gained more confidence and the team had a super run on the Sunday