July
 29th July 2010
We have started to update our site big time. We will do the texts first in Finnish and then translate them in English. We are working on the kennel site at the moment. You can look at the front page of the MaXwin site. The text is still in Finnish but you can look at some old photos there. We are writing about our whippet history and our ideas of racing with whippets and breeding whippets on the site. We are also introducing ourselves - with some old photos from history. We are also writing a whippetography site where we will tell about our whippet life and kennel history year by year.
We are also working on our G litter site, introducing our planned G litter: Ringdove Jamiroquai - MaXwin Freida. We have also updated our link site.
25th July 2010
Kennel MaXwin's last litter is from year 2006, namely the F litter (born 7th December 2006 out of Old Road's Chayenne & MaXwin Zippy). We have been planning a litter already for some time to our tiny brindle bitch MaXwin Freida (45.3 cm) from our F litter. Freida started her racing career only this year so the litter has not not been current before that. We wanted to see Freida racing before making a litter with her, of course. Our F litter has very good hunting drive and all the dogs are very open in their minds, they have good caracter. This litter is not lacking speed either: there are title winners in the males as you can have read on our news in the past few years but the bitches have not been racing so much. In sizes our F litter is not very homogenius: there are three very small dogs and one dog of 51.9 cm and the last two are in between.
Freida who has her season time nearly in every 6 months started her season time a little bit earlier than thought this summer. So 20th July she flew with Minna Ruotsalo (me the webmaster :D) to Germany, near Cologne (Köln). We had a date with Ringove Jamiroquai, a male owned by Dunja Baensch from kennel Winsome Yankees. Ringdove Jamiroquai alias Silas is imported from Canada and he has American and European whippets in his pedigree as does our Freida too. You can look at the pedigree of our planned G litter in Whippet Archive.
Silas is a 53 cm male in height so he races in the Sprinters in Europe. Sprinters are males over 51 cm and bitches over 48 cm and they have their own competitions. These competitions are organized in connexion with the competitions for the so-called normal sized whippets except for the International FCI competitions (not for the Sprinters). Silas has proved to be a very fast whippet and in spite of his young age he has already won many title races in Sprinters and he has also done some track records. The last track record is from the last weekend in Münster where he broke his own track record being the fastest whippet of the day again. Silas is a social dog in caracter and he lives with two females and one male - earlier with two males. He is a playful whippet boy who enjoyes playing with his 7 months old daughter with Xantana v.d. Spaarne Meute. When we were there it was not only Freida who got kisses of this lovely boy but Minna too. Minna was in Silas favour because she brought him this lovely gift from Finland :) You can take a closer look on Silas in Dunja Baensch's site.
We were very happy when Dunja said yes to our plans and let us use her Silas to Freida. Even though we are in the middle of the racing season and Silas has to skip one competition because of us. We knew that Dunja does not give her males to everyone which we respect. Dunja has been interested in our F litter from the very beginning because the father of our F litter, namely Old Road's Chayenne has been her favourite dog in Europe for some years already. She admires this handsome black male who has been born in Belgium and who lives in Switzerland with the Eggert family. Dunja liked the pedigree and our Freida which made us very happy, of course.
Now we have done the matings and Freida & Minna are back in Finland. The matings were challenging because of the size difference of our tiger brindles. This was not the first time for kennel MaXwin with this kind of size difference. The matings are always a little bit exciting, not to mention when you fly to some other country for the male! But a big size difference makes it even more exciting and a challenge for the dogs too. It's not easy and usually you have to help the dogs. But our brindles handled it very well. We make quite good pimps, Dunja and I :) Now we just keep all our fingers crossed that everything goes well in the future too!
Minna & Freida's travel to Germany was very nice, in all aspect - and warm. We had a chance to visit the track of Cologne too where Dunja's friend Renate came for us. Thank you, Renate! It was nice to meet Anna & Eric too at the track. They do great job there. The track has not yet 350 m but 395 m instead but they are planning to build a 350 m box there. We wish them success in their plans.
It was very nice to meet Dunja and all of her dogs and talk about whippets with her. Old and grey Django vom Badenermoor (Lino) is still playful with his toys. Xantana v.d. Spaarne Meute (Carla) is a fabulous whippet bitch. And young Ruby (Winsome Yankees Arizona), a daughter of Silas & Carla will be a beautiful whippet girl, she already is. Not to mention about Silas: you can only admire his speed and racing talent but this playful boy seems to be a fantastic companion at home too which is important.
We had a lot whippet talk with Dunja during the matings. We also had a nice dinner on Friday evening at my hotel Clostermanns Hof. Good food and nice chat, I liked it a lot. My hotel was only five minutes drive from Dunja's house. Clostermanns Hof is a very nice hotel for someone who has a dog with him/her. Easy to go out for a walk, beautiful surroundings. Me & Freida had also a beautiful red car to drive. Just the right colour for us girls! I would say that I am a good driver but I have sometimes problems in navigating. On Wednesday I found my self on Heerstrasse, the address of my hotel, but in the wrong city!! Thank God it was the neighbourg city to Uckendorf-Niederkassel where my hotel was. I was using a navigator for the first time in my life and someone (not me!) had put a wrong city on it :) And I was trusting on the navigator so much that it took me a (long) while to realize that I was in the wrong city :D But I found the right city, finally. When I am travelling alone (not with a dog), I don't plan my travelling too much because I like the excitement not to know my every move.
Freida took it very easy on our trip. She is so cool girl. I didn't leave her alone at all, not once though, because I was there for her. She was with me even when I went to breakfest and the dinner. She also flew for the first time in her life and was cool with that too. We will have more information on our planned litter on our site in the near future. You can look at some more photos on our trip here.
We want to thank Dunja for accepting our Freida to be a bride to Silas. Vielen dank, Dunja !! Und Silas auch.
20th July 2010
Kennel MaXwin is specialized in whippet racing. We love this athletic breed and enjoy living, training and racing with the dogs. As everynone knows the emotions can sometimes be quite strong among this sport. That's why it can be a good idea to race between people every now and then :)
Kennel MaXwin's Minna Ruotsalo organized in October 2009 for the first time - straight after the last racing competition - a race between people. She herself raced too, of course, with a helmet camera. One male raced 400 m, three bitches 350 m and two bitches 280 m. The male won. This spectacle was so appreciated by everyone and we had lots of FUN!
Minna wrote an article called Kukkahattu (kukka = flower, hattu= hat) about this race and it was published in the Finnish Whippet Magazine. Unfortunately the text is in Finnish but you can enjoy some photos. You will also find more photos taken by the following people:
Anita Sandqvist
Antti Ruotsalo
Jaakko Stenroos
18th July 2010
 The webmaster of the MaXwin site (Minna Ruotsalo) has been busy with her work, studies and the dogs so this is the first update on the MaXwin site this year. I will change my ways! It has also been a challenge to learn to update the site with a Mac as the site has been done with the Windows. But it's worth the effort. I just love my new Mac!
I will start my updating with a short news. Though I have not updated the site the MaXwins have been active at the track. The dogs have done a good job at the oval though, unfortunately, we have had a few injuries in our team. The top dogs MaXwin Baxter and Delaware have been unjured as well as Blacktor. The star of the team in this year has been MaXwin Fantom (51.9 cm) who has been racing extremely well and has won two title races. We have some other A finalists too in different competitions. MaXwin Fibi seems to become in good condition too and MaXwin Fabio has done some good races too.
Two of our imports, namely Oochigea's Hanaa and Catkyll's Celine have started their racing career. Hanaa has raced a few competitions. This strongly build male can run and run and run but he needs to improve his start and acceleration. It takes time until he reaches his speed. Hanaa is a very nice in caracter, a very calm dog at the track. But he is not that calm at home with the Jokisalo-Ventelä family. He likes to play! But at 9 p.m. he just insists to go to sleep :)
Celine (48.8 cm) started her racing career today and this girl is fast. She is! She needs to improve her start and racing lines as well as learn to handle her body in full speed and then she is super fast! Celine has been very energetic and still is. The Sormunen family won't get bored with this black beauty. Boy this girl is sweet, beautiful and fast!
We have also trained our French import Elko River du Tepee d'Amour who lives with the Sommardahl family. Elko River is also an energetic dog like Celine and a beautiful male. He makes a funny noise when he is full of joy. Elko River runs very nicely inside and has been racing good times also. He is not yet competing.
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