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I frequently am asked why malamutes? Why would you seek by CHOICE to have dogs that are so much work and are so "contrary" (or so it would seem to some) in their demeanor? I guess I would have to admit shamelessly that I simply fell in love; with the breed, with the heart, with a kindred spirit that I see in them (I can be contrary). From the origins of the malamute with the Mahlemuts (Eskimos), according to an invaluable guide I have for malamute owners called Alaskan Malamutes: A Complete Pet Owner's Manual by Barron's, the dogs and their owners evolved together and through their interdependence they were thus assured of their mutual survival. The Mahlemuts were all about cooperation, team work; work ethic if you will. The malamute is of a similar mentality. Of all the dog breeds that I have had the pleasure of owning over the years (tales still to come), the malamute has always been the one that stands out and has now become my most favorite. A lot of people feel that they are aloof, pig-headed, totally unpredictable. Of all the breeds over the years that I have trained, I can admit they have also been an exception to almost every rule! Some people call it stubborness or an inbred refusal to be dominated; I prefer to think of it as an intelligence that is constantly on alert and waiting to be challenged. They are not content to be animals of pure "surrender." They are not content to be "performers" in the sense that they seek only easy rewards and enjoy being on display as the "well behaved puppet". I believe just in knowing the ones we have had the privilege to live with that they simply require more than the average dog in terms of socialization and they also require people who are willing to think "outside the box". They require a "job" more than other breeds. They are not content to be "among their own" and just play in the yard. They thrive on being part of a family and a social structure. They also thrive on heavy physical exertion. The trick with a malamute though is to make sure that there is always an alpha, and that alpha must by nature be human! They tire easily of being "trick dogs". I have been to countless obedience seminars and have heard basically the same thing; I have also seen it first hand. With a malamute, your training sessions for basic commands need to be kept to a minimum; far better to have many repeat sessions per day rather than 1 or 2 long sessions because if they do a command more than once or twice correctly and you continue expecting it to be performed, you are going to get the "special ed" version. I have come to believe in my own training with the malamutes that they are way too smart for their own good sometimes! Even in little 4-month-old Griffin, I can see the pattern already emerging. He will sit for me once, twice in a session. The third time that I ask it of him, I get a hand shake, a down, or just plain zip. He looks at me like he does not understand, which I know he does! Once a malamute has proven to you more than once that he or she knows a "trick" and it is repeatable (in that session) it is time to move on. You can always come back to it another time but for that session, I truly believe they are just waiting to mess with your head! (She wants a sit; watch this! Out comes the paw!) As an aside though, when pulling, I have never seen them ever exhibit this behavior which reinforces that they are very smart indeed!
I have also had a lot of folks over the years tell us both that if we tried harder, we could train our dogs to be more obedient. This is generally in terms of the little problem I like to call "jail breaks", which is really associated with the recall. Yeah. "Malamutes are not known for their ability on the recall." That would be the understatement of the century! They are also not known to be the kind of dog you would put out in your front yard unleashed and unattended (if you intended that they would be there when you returned; even if you never LEFT). I do know some people that have had success with this. I on the other hand have never had this success and would err on the side of caution as I firmly believe that malamutes are literally born to run. They do not do it to be bad. They do not do it to disregard their owners' commands. They are just by nature pack animals and especially when you have a situation with more than one dog, the situation just became even more interesting to get out and run for all they are worth. The most amusing thing about that part is that our malamutes can creep up on us as silent as an Indian, put on their "cloaking devices" and slip by us in a heartbeat without a sound made all through the tiniest window of a cracked open door. They will run as fast as they can as hard as they can while you yell after them to come, chase after them, run the opposite way, etc. However, if you get into the car and merely follow them, upon seeing the car, they immediately turn and chase after the car, only to jump into the car! They are delighted to see you and they are even more delighted that you brought the car! Unfortunately, they probably would jump into ANYONE's car. They are not particular about who they are socializing with or falling in love with at that moment, sad to say!
They are escape artists to the max if you are not prepared for them. They can dig a trench or a hole faster than you can bat an eye under a fence and even though they are not small dogs, all they need is a miniscule opening to escape. Case in point, when we moved to Central Oregon, we had a fenced yard. It did not take Kodi and Denaya but a couple of days to discover that there was nothing under the fence preventing them from digging out. It probably took them all of 5 seconds to dig an opening to slither through and away they went at 5:00 a.m. First prison break. Got them back luckily very quickly and for a week, Bob spent his "spare" time putting bricks all the way around the perimeter of the yard buried but up to the boards. Quite effective. We've also heard of people putting in chickenwire and different things that they will hit once they begin to dig, but brick seemed a safe bet; although it has to be brick big enough that they cannot move it! That was an easy fix; well not for Bob obviously! True to form though, Kodi found yet another way to bust out and it became a rather long and arduous task in trying to figure out how to cut the prison breaks. All it took was one incisor to "snag" a piece of fence board. How he discovered this, I have no clue. But once he found a way to snag a tiny piece, with his huge, strong jaws, he was able to literally rip a fence board right off the fence and they were home free. ONE skinny fence board off the fence was enough for the dogs to squeeze through and be free at last! We had been pretty lucky for about 3 years and their prison breaks had basically been just human error; someone giving them that window of opportunity by opening a door without seeing them (again the stealth maneuver). However, once they figured out how to pull off fence boards, we were doomed!
For the most part, at first it was relatively easy to get them back. We live in a small community where people are very kind about trying to help you retrieve your dogs and our neighbors would always help us try and locate them; or someone would call and say they had them, return them or at least point us in the right direction with the car! They never did any harm; they simply loved the freedom of being able to run to their heart's content. Having had to give up the running on the scooter, obviously this was making it even more lucrative now to be free because they both were missing their "exercise". However, this quickly turned into an extremely annoying habit as at any given moment, we would look outside and discover a new hole in the fence and again, no dogs. The fact that we border on open land did not help much since there is wildlife everywhere and the chances of something happening increased every time. We also have busy roads nearby, extremely poor night lighting on those roads, and various and sundry ranches with all kinds of livestock on them. One particular late afternoon, after just seeing the dogs playing together outside, we looked out to discover again the hole in the fence. We both flew into action, called neighbors, called the police department to alert them that they were loose, and jumped into separate cars to begin cruising. We were all out in force and after 4 or so hours, not a sign of them. I had come back by this time to call it in to the vets in the area, to the humane society, recall the police department but nothing was turning up. Finally by 9:00 p.m. we had to just call it a day and by this time figured they had been gone for 5 hours. That was a record; still is! We left the lights on in the backyard where they had made their prison break although the addage is that a malamute does not come back on its own. We reluctantly went to bed worried sick what could have happened to the two of them. Upon arising at 5:00 the next morning, the first thing I noticed was skunk; the smell was coming in despite the closed windows (which is not that unusual given the open land) but it sure smelled pungent to say the least. On turning around to leave the kitchen, I spied Kodi at the back door absolutely shaking. When I opened the door, he was beside himself trying to get to me. The first thing I noticed was the smell, the second the WET. He was doused from head to toe in none other than skunk perfume. Not knowing what else to do, I brought him in because he was shivering so badly and put him in his crate while I went for help - BOB! On rushing about, I spied Denaya at the back door, not quite as bad as Kodi, but she likewise was covered with eau de skunk. I plunked her into her crate and then set about trying to figure out what to do.
Well, in retrospect, PROBABLY not the wisest move of all time bringing the dogs indoors. I was caught between a rock and a hard spot though was my defense and it still is (although now I think should have moved the crates outside; again with the 20/20 hindsight). There was still a gaping hole in the fence and did not want them taking off again. The garage had our 2 cars inside and was afraid that we would never get the smell out of them had I stowed them there. The laundry room with the crates at the TIME seemed like the best option. Whew; not really so much. It literally took weeks for us to get the smell out of the house. It took hours for us to clean their crates over and over with every chemical we could find, every spray. Their collars were completely ruined as were all of their dog tags, all the blankets. What a total mess. As it happened, it had to be a cool time of year too so we had to literally wait out the sunshine and warmth to get them outside in order for Bob to bathe them in the special solution link for skunk treatment I had pulled off the internet but luckily my neighbor had all the ingredients at the ready. Poor Kodi had apparently taken the brunt of it in his face and eyes and he was miserable for at least 3 days recovering from that little escapade. One would have thought that maybe that would have been a lesson in what happens with a prison break but unfortunately, it only intensified both of their delight at breaking out. We came home one day to find a gaping hole in the front fence and although thankfully they had not gone out into the open land, they obviously were long gone. Again we tried to circle the wagons and go out looking for them to no avail. When we finally gave up and came home, Bob was working on repairing the fence (yet again; it is obvious that my husband is a saint!) when Denaya appeared in the front yard. Again, who knows why she came back but she was a bit bloodied and looked a little worse for the adventure, yet no Kodi. While we were busy checking her over, the phone rang and the SHERIFF was on the line to let me know he had Kodi and he likewise was a little worse for wear (Kodi not the sheriff). Before he could tell the whole tale, I was already babbling about was he hurt, what happened, did he get hit by a car, etc. The poor sheriff finally asked that I please be quiet so that he could get a word in edgewise and then proceeded to tell me that both dogs had been trying to get in a llama pen; and I do not mean Fernando Llama. (For anyone who does not know, a llama apparently can kill a dog, any dog, easily.) So off we went to pick up the escapee and calm him down. He was nearly hysterical (Kodi not the sheriff) as he had been slimed by something from head to toe (the sheriff was under the impression it could have been wild dogs or coyotes perhaps AFTER the llamas). He reiterated, however, that we were "dang lucky" that one of the ranchers had not shot them on sight since they were messing around where they ought not to be messing and their "look" was enough to bring out the sharpshooter in these parts! Great news!
Obviously, lecturing my precious darlings was not doing any good. Obviously, nothing was doing much good at all now that they had learned this neat trick of getting out. Being a person who refuses to give up, I decided to go to the internet for help and searched for several hours coming to the only logical conclusion available in this situation. The electric fence. I hated to do it but unfortunately, I felt we had no choice now. According to all the data that I could accumulate, once the "artic" breeds discover a way out, you basically have lost the fight and they will continue to press it for all its worth. At first, it seemed cruel on some level but then on so many other levels, it just seemed the only safe and/or smart thing to do! If we did not break the behavior, one of these times, it would have ended up in a disaster of some nature for one or both of them and heartbreak for us. Bob did not like this idea. Bob did not like the idea of putting an electric fence all the way around the perimeter of our yard and charging it up (it seems Bob is always getting the labor parts). He had been through this years ago and someone (usually me) was always going out, seeing the fence unplugged and meaning well, plugging it in when he had specifically turned it off. He had already been tagged by the electric fence while pushing the lawnmower into it and while watering when he had specifically turned it OFF. I think he did not trust ME was the problem (I have to admit I can see why). However, after a lot of begging and a lot of printing off of articles and discussions with breeders, etc., I finally convinced him that this was the only way we would ever have peace of mind again and the only way we could stop this potentially deadly behavior. Up went the fence.
Being malamutes, they had to test it out. I guess they figured the first time or so it was a fluke. What surprised me the most was that Kodi really got it instantly. In retrospect, he was never one for pain or discomfort, unless it involved his "girl" Denaya. I think he only attempted a couple of times to even remotely get NEAR the fence after he was tagged with a pulse. Denaya on the other hand apparently thought she was invincible as we heard her screaming and wailing about it at LEAST half a dozen times or more. They finally began to understand that the fence was a "bad place" and at last there was peace at the Kirchner Hacienda. The funny thing is that now we do have it turned off (I so hope Denaya does not get on-line and read this). Griffin is still a pup and after talking with the breeder, we decided it might terrorize him and make him afraid before he is old enough to understand what the zap is for. At present, Denaya watches him bouncing around the yard and she sees him TOUCHING the fence wire in all different situations. When I watch her, she is literally watching HIM with her mouth hanging open as if to say "how is he DOING that? Why isn't HE getting shocked?" I'm hoping she thinks he is blessed somehow and thinks he has magical powers; BUT she is not willing to go check it out herself! This is a good thing. I still have no doubt that she was the brains behind the prison breaks and Kodi was the brawn. Pretty much the same thing in the scootering. Kodi did the majority of the hard work and little Princess Denaya ran along looking pretty. I sometimes thought she was worried she might work up a sweat or muss her hair!
On the surface, it would seem that malamutes are a lot of work!! They are and they are obviously not meant for the faint hearted. They require a great deal of attention but the rewards are amazing. They also require you to get inside their head a bit and figure out ways to get their cooperation and their respect. I thought I had it all figured out when I taught them to pull/run on the scooter; then with the advent of Kodi's illness and having to give it up (Denaya absolutely would not do it alone), we had to look for different venues to give them the exercise that they crave. They do play and wrestle, chase each other all day long; I call it kangaroo wrestling as often you will see them up on their hind legs "boxing it out"; but it is usually completely silent. Still, they love the challenge of running and unfortunately their human family was too old and not in a position to jog with them. We finally figured out an alternative which worked very well for them both. We would drive them to a small ballpark here in town armed with tie-ups, a few treats and each other! We would stand in the baseball dugouts thus blocking a "way out", tie up any loose gates that could be escape routes, and then turn them loose. Usually they would run insanely around the field for at least 30 minutes and totally enjoy the freedom of being loose as a goose! In the snow, it was a delight to watch them; occasionally if someone else brought a dog on the walking trail behind where we ran them, they would run the fence barking and carrying on with the dog and that was good as well. At least they were in a contained environment where they could run to their heart's content without any pulling weight on Kodi's bones.
Obviously, we have had very unique situations with very unique dogs. However, to me the delight has been to try and figure out what works and to make it as painless as possible, although in saying that, you have to know your limitations and your dog's limitations as well! (And it seriously does not hurt to have a devoted helpmate such as Bob has been!) You have to live within the breed and you have to live within your own comfort zone. Thankfully, between Bob and I we have had a blend or adopted a blend that works with our specific animals to make it work in as painless a way as possible; but the bottom line is we simply loved the dogs. We were willing to make the effort and think outside the traditional box; and even when faced with adversity, we knew there had to be a way to get it to work without too much pain for all involved. In retrospect, rather than scootering, I wish I had discovered carting, as perhaps for ME it would have been less hazardous! About any breed again can do it; it is all about the weight and training them and this will probably be our new endeavor with the Princess Denaya and our little Griffin when he is old enough to pull weight. This link to carting shows the range of breeds that are suited to it as well as the scootering. This site link to dog play as well shows many ways to bring happy times to your life with your dog including cross country skiing (skijoring when you do it with your dogs) which I personally would also love to do (and hope to avoid trees; you can almost SENSE Bob's excitement); the possibilities are limitless and my feeling is that with malamutes or any breed that is properly trained, you can only enrich your life and open your heart to the gifts that our pets give so readily and so easily; no strings attached. More tales to come!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Another Time, Another Place, I Could Have Been in the Iditarod
What do you do with 2 malamutes that you suddenly find yourself sharing your life with and how do you begin to make sense of it all? Do you give it your usual 200% and make it work or do you just throw in the proverbial harness and let it go? Well, upon discovering that taking on another malamute and a rescue one at that was not going to be an easy task, I remembered something my friend Carmen had mentioned to me on meeting Kodi; "he needs something to DO; that's what malamutes thrive on". Much like any dog of any breed, they are meant for something and never could it be more accurate than with malamutes. I had spoken briefly with Carmen about teaching dogs to "pull" but let's be honest here. I was 48 or 49 by this time - not exactly the youngest chick in the henhouse and now I had not only 1 but 2 of these larger than life pets. (I would have also taught poor little Pele to pull as well but his bowed legs and small stature pretty much ruled this out from the beginning. I did think of putting him in a basket and having them pull him around but that would have been insulting to the Master Sargent.) Of the two of us, Bob is obviously the thinker, whereas I am the doer; and probably wisely called on his part. I broached the subject to Bob; "what do you think about getting a scooter or a sled (not really applicable in the Seattle area) or even a cart and what if we teach Kodi and Denaya to pull us?" Dead silence; I believe there was some gaping going on as well, as in "are you out of your mind?" Hmm...everyone's a critic. I have to say looking back that at the time it made perfect sense; it still does! You have dogs that are built for pulling and they need something to do; so you teach them to do it and you just deal with it! But how to go about it; there was the nastiest part. I did keep in contact with Carmen and as she is part of the Washington State Malamute Association http://www.wamal.com/ I knew she could steer me in the right direction. I also did some research on what people were doing to exercise their dogs and found to my surprise that not only malamutes but about every breed was being trained to pull folks on anything from scooters http://www.digglerstore.com/scooters_dog_01.html to rollerblades http://www.seefido.com/html/untitled41.htm and it was becoming quite the rage in terms of keeping your dogs happy and exercised. Carmen graciously decided to have a pulling clinic at her house for malamutes one Saturday afternoon and of course we brought our dogs and I decided to just jump right in and give it a go.
I have to say that for being inexperienced dogs, I thought they did marvelously from the beginning. There were a couple of huge truck tires and everyone graciously loaned me harnesses for my 2 novices so we could hook them up and see how they would do. The idea here is that you harness the dog and then hook them to one of the truck tires, then go out in front of the dog and basically entice them to come to you, all the while them getting used to the huge tire being "lugged" behind them. They seemed to do that really well, though Kodi received quite a huge truck tire and at his first attempts to come to me, he ended up leaping straight up into the air and LANDING on the tire, then bolting away from it as if he was on fire. Luckily, he calmed right down and got the hang of "digging in" and towed it like a champ. Well, after one afternoon and seeing that I could definitely get into this, I proceeded to measure the dogs and order up dog harnesses on the spot and a towline (also threw in a chin strap to keep them close to each other) and why stop there? I called up Diggler and ordered myself a dog scooter!
Meanwhile though, waiting for the scooter to arrive, I definitely needed to keep the momentum going so what to do? Well, one afternoon I remembered that my daughter had left her rollerblades at our house and we had the same shoe size so one thought blended into another and since I already had the harnesses and the towline, why not just start them out and be totally prepared when the scooter came! In retrospect, I probably should have mentioned to Bob that I was doing this, especially considering the way things ended up going for me. It would have been nice to have back-up, which I eventually did learn; unfortunately the hard way. I actually was going to take both of the dogs (we are talking roughly 200 pounds of dog here) and for some CRAZY reason I thought better of this before I started....whew, saved myself on that one as it turns out. I decided to take the dog that I knew I could handle more easily simply because he did not try to out-alpha me all the time, my Kodi.
Now is a great time to point out one of the most salient points of the rollerblading link above. Too bad back when I decided to do this, I did not do my research beforehand and as I do with so many things in life, I jumped before I thought. Here is the brilliant quote..."You should be proficient with basic roller blading maneuvers before taking your canine on a skate." Hmm...again, hindsight is always 20/20. I had never been on rollerblades in my LIFE. In fact, the last time I was on skates, I was in high school on a date twirling around in a rink with a boy practically holding me up! But always one for a new challenge and completely at ease with my athletic capabilities, I harnessed Kodi up, attached the towline to my WAIST (with no way of releasing him I might add), I strapped on the rollerblades and away I went. I have to say Kodi was a natural. He remembered the truck tire obviously and knew exactly what to do. He was like a racehorse out of the chute and from the get-go, I swear we were flying. For the first 5 or so minutes, it was the thrill of a lifetime, although my ankles were kind of bothering me since I had never done this kind of thing before. I was also realizing much too late that he was not hearing me (or not listening) to WHOA. We had actually never practiced ANY of this before I just strapped on the skates and took off so who was I to blame him? At any rate, we are now flying down the street and Kodi is not showing any signs of fatiguing let alone stopping any time soon. I am beginning to panic because dead ahead there is a very busy street and any minute, we are going to be in the middle of it; at 5:00 p.m. no less. I vaguely remember seeing other people stop themselves with rollerblades and something about brakes so I think "don't panic; just apply the brakes and it will be okay". Well, I think having a 100 pound dog pulling an old woman who has never been on rollerblades in her life before might be a set-up for disaster, especially since obviously I did not heed the little sentence of advice above; where are the brakes? Well, if they were on the toe, they were burned up in about 2 seconds because I was trying everything to stop REPEATEDLY and it wasn't helping! If they were in the heel, they were gone, too because I STILL wasn't slowing down! (I always wonder if there was smoke in retrospect.) Now I'm really starting to panic because there is literally nothing that I can do to stop; then it dawns on me. Skiing, yet another comedic sport for me, but if in doubt snow plow. I didn't think I could get my feet that close together going at the rate of speed I was going though so I thought what is the next best thing? The Arte Johnson from Laugh-In on the bike move perhaps; just throw yourself down and you will stop (or in retrospect become a very serious case of roadkill). Unfortunately, there was no grass (which they recommend you run into if in trouble; sure now I know). There was nothing on the street but gravel where the sidewalks should have been but I guess it beat concrete; so I just very gracefully THREW myself into the gravel and prayed. Luckily I had chosen the right dog. He heard my exclamation as I hit gravel (and tore my pants) and he probably mostly heard my swearing, and he stopped on a dime (or a little more than a dime). Whew, that was close! The one thing I had not happened to notice was that everyone was filtering into our neighborhood coming home from work and of course, tons of people have just seen one of America's Funniest Videos and they are slamming on their brakes to see if I am okay (mostly laughing). I was sitting up by this time and trying to compose myself and I'm sure I looked very athletic with my torn pants, my smoking rollerblades and my helmet on crooked. I gave them all the wave; "hey, I'm fine; sure, I do this all the time". I took off my rollerblades and walked home!
I actually had the nerve to tell Bob what I had done. After a lecture of sorts (and a lot of laughing and him saying he was so sorry he had missed it), I set out to try and train them a little more slowly. I took them into our backyard and hooked them up one by one and had them pull me all over the backyard. I only hit the deck posts a few times doing figure-8's. It wasn't that bad. Then the magical scooter came and I was so excited to try it I could not wait! At least I had trained them to the best of my ability by this time and I felt confident that I could do this! It was going to be so much fun and they were going to be so happy doing it! So I laid out the towline (or gangline), hooked them up, put on their chin strap and gave them the "let's go girls". Now if you look at the Diggler scooter on the link above, you will see that it is basically a very long skateboard with a very large front tire and a very large back tire. It does have hand brakes, but the thing to remember here is that when you have 200 pounds approximately of torque on that scooter and if you slam on the brakes, you had better be standing on that scooter rather than stepping off (which I quickly learned). If you step off, it will hit you; it basically just flips up your entire back leg and thigh and wipes you out. That particular thing only happened a couple of times; okay, maybe half a dozen! You quickly learn what not to do. The dogs actually took to this sport like fish to water and I was so jazzed that I had taught them to do this! However, I was having a hard time getting them to keep going. I would run them for at least 3-4 loops and that was over a mile but much of it was uphill (and then downhill). We never progressed out of the neighborhood but it was a great route. One day I got the bright idea to involve Bob and got him to get in our Subaru and drive in front of the dogs at 20-25 mph because they loved to ride in that particular car and I felt certain they would chase him. They did! Sadly though, after doing that for a week or so, I suddenly realized that I was in actuality teaching them to chase cars; probably NOT what I wanted them to do. I was hoping that they had gotten the "hang" of this though and that my encouragement and my running up hills with them, spurring them on so to speak was going to do it. It really did pretty much!
One of the most awesome things I ever did was coming to a "T" intersection in the route and giving them the "haw" (left) http://www.everythinghusky.com/features/mushingterms.html and then watching them swinging out in this beautiful arc and heading down the road behind them. It was the same as making a turn on water skis. It was a thrill! Not too much of a thrill though when I realized that there was no way to get them to completely reverse themselves (backing up is really tricky) and turn us around so ended up manually unhooking and turning us all around and starting over again! One rainy day I ended up going anyway just because I could not resist by then and discovered there was a very distinct disadvantage to wearing glasses that did not have windshield wipers built in. By about 2 minutes into the ride, I could not see a thing. Not to mention that my clothes now weighed about 500 pounds and were glued to my body, and the road was like ice; but good times! Another problem for scootering fans up in the Washington state area presented itself quickly as well; squirrels, cats. Malamutes are not notorious for being overly fond of small animals such as squirrels or cats. Try as I might to get them to "keep on" or stay on track, I found myself being run into folks' driveways, front yards, bushes or to the base of a tree while my 2 runners decided to take a detour and catch "lunch". One of the most memorable events, however, was one afternoon when Bob decided to come out and watch me start up. I had picked up the gangline and had wrapped it around my hand (I only did this one other time and sadly with the same result). I was holding the scooter with the other hand and the dogs were harnessed and ready for action! Bob flipped the garage door open and said "let's go" which unfortunately was their trigger word. I thought for a moment that I had lost several of my fingers as the nylon gangline felt like it took the skin off my hand when they put all their weight into the torque, not to mention the enormous pop and my ring finger breaking. I probably should have seen the signs then that there were going to be more mishaps in my future but never let it be said that I could be a quitter! The best tale of all though was running into a neighbor at the market one evening and listening to this fellow going on and on and making fun of "the idiot that he has seen riding around the neighborhood on a huge skateboard thing being pulled by 2 huge dogs". I held up my hand and confessed that that idiot would be me! For the most part though, folks would stand outside and wave and clap and yell all kinds of encouraging things; at least they sounded like encouraging things! Come to think of it, there was some laughter as well.
After a few of my mishaps though, such as little pomeranians running out in BETWEEN my running dogs and me having to stop on a dime and then extricate myself from these situations alone, the bruises that I was starting to sport everywhere possible and try to explain, Bob decided that it would be best if at the very least, he would be my "spotter". He would ride a bike ahead of me and that would serve to give an incentive to the dogs as well as me having backup in case I got into trouble (of course the chances of this were nil). One late beautiful morning, we decided to suit up and give it a run. Bob took off as usual on his bike and I was busy fiddling around with my water bottle (I used this to potentially squirt dogs who were bothering us; wow what a weapon in retrospect). I usually started in our steep driveway and then turned onto the road while the dogs gave it the "gas". Well, we roared out of the driveway and were on the flat when I realized that my water bottle was falling. Unwilling to let it go (part of my personality unfortunately), I took a hand off the handlebar just for a second to fix the situation when I suddenly realized that by doing that, I had just lost what little balance I possess somehow and we were tilting on a funny angle. Of course, the dogs were oblivious and were still running but as I was trying to right the scooter, I realized that it was getting worse and had the thought "we're going down". In a panic thought I figured I should just jump off, problem solved and the dogs would stop; we'd start over. I could not have been more incorrect in this brilliant plan! When I jumped off, the handlebar hit me in the back and sent me smashing into the pavement, which I hit with my FOREHEAD. I can say here that helmets are meant to be worn for a reason! I still have the mark/dent where it hit the pavement. Did the dogs stop? Let's just say it took a while; let's say maybe 1/4 mile? They somehow did not happen to notice that the load was way lighter and they just kept on going. As I lay face down on the pavement, I could vaguely hear thump, thump, thump as my beautiful expensive scooter hit the pavement over and over bouncing along behind them. They probably had never run so fast in their lives!! The only thing I could think of was that someone was going to see me flopping around on the street like a beached whale and that secondly, if the dogs decided to turn left (haw), they were going to be out on the main road. I literally crawled to the grass in someone's yard and then forced myself to get up; complete with bloodied hands, knees, elbows (this was with pads on as well); not to mention that nice little whiplash I got from hitting the pavement and snapping my neck back and forth a few times! Talk about the mother of headaches! I was literally staggering up the front steps of our house to go get the car keys and go after the dogs when I spotted Bob walking from the opposite direction with a very mangled scooter and 2 panting dogs! They had the time of their life!
Another trip to the ER; another file in the athletic chart of one Audrey Kirchner. The doctor looked up from my road rash and asked me to explain it one more time (probably so he could tell everyone and have a good laugh later on); "so what were you doing to sustain these injuries?" That took a little bit of time to get over. The scooter needed major work to get bent back into shape. Luckily there were no "serious" injuries but I did learn a very valuable lesson. Speed kills! I do not feel the need for speed anymore! I was able to get back on the scooter (after much trash-talk from Bob about being a chicken, having to get back on the horse after you fall off, etc) and I was able to ride it again; however, I never enjoyed it quite as much again simply because for the first time, I realized how vulnerable I was (and how stupidly misinformed in many ways). Bob became the master of the scooter after that as the primary rider (not fair that he had NO mishaps) and I became the bicycle spotter, though even doing that I could manage to get myself twisted and fall off sometimes in my antics trying to ward off dogs chasing us! We also had to finally retire the scooter when Kodi developed Addison's disease as he was on lifelong steroids after that and the fear of stress fractures outweighed the sheer joy he found in pulling the scooter! It is a wonderful way, however, to exercise your dogs and enjoy them at the same time (also to check on how good your health insurance coverage is); if only you take the time to learn about it and be safe (as I found out the hard way in most instances). With the advent of our little Griffin, we are going to reinvent this great form of exercising and bonding with your dogs, but hopefully in a "safer" venue and one that does not involve kissing the pavement! More tales to come.
I have to say that for being inexperienced dogs, I thought they did marvelously from the beginning. There were a couple of huge truck tires and everyone graciously loaned me harnesses for my 2 novices so we could hook them up and see how they would do. The idea here is that you harness the dog and then hook them to one of the truck tires, then go out in front of the dog and basically entice them to come to you, all the while them getting used to the huge tire being "lugged" behind them. They seemed to do that really well, though Kodi received quite a huge truck tire and at his first attempts to come to me, he ended up leaping straight up into the air and LANDING on the tire, then bolting away from it as if he was on fire. Luckily, he calmed right down and got the hang of "digging in" and towed it like a champ. Well, after one afternoon and seeing that I could definitely get into this, I proceeded to measure the dogs and order up dog harnesses on the spot and a towline (also threw in a chin strap to keep them close to each other) and why stop there? I called up Diggler and ordered myself a dog scooter!
Meanwhile though, waiting for the scooter to arrive, I definitely needed to keep the momentum going so what to do? Well, one afternoon I remembered that my daughter had left her rollerblades at our house and we had the same shoe size so one thought blended into another and since I already had the harnesses and the towline, why not just start them out and be totally prepared when the scooter came! In retrospect, I probably should have mentioned to Bob that I was doing this, especially considering the way things ended up going for me. It would have been nice to have back-up, which I eventually did learn; unfortunately the hard way. I actually was going to take both of the dogs (we are talking roughly 200 pounds of dog here) and for some CRAZY reason I thought better of this before I started....whew, saved myself on that one as it turns out. I decided to take the dog that I knew I could handle more easily simply because he did not try to out-alpha me all the time, my Kodi.
Now is a great time to point out one of the most salient points of the rollerblading link above. Too bad back when I decided to do this, I did not do my research beforehand and as I do with so many things in life, I jumped before I thought. Here is the brilliant quote..."You should be proficient with basic roller blading maneuvers before taking your canine on a skate." Hmm...again, hindsight is always 20/20. I had never been on rollerblades in my LIFE. In fact, the last time I was on skates, I was in high school on a date twirling around in a rink with a boy practically holding me up! But always one for a new challenge and completely at ease with my athletic capabilities, I harnessed Kodi up, attached the towline to my WAIST (with no way of releasing him I might add), I strapped on the rollerblades and away I went. I have to say Kodi was a natural. He remembered the truck tire obviously and knew exactly what to do. He was like a racehorse out of the chute and from the get-go, I swear we were flying. For the first 5 or so minutes, it was the thrill of a lifetime, although my ankles were kind of bothering me since I had never done this kind of thing before. I was also realizing much too late that he was not hearing me (or not listening) to WHOA. We had actually never practiced ANY of this before I just strapped on the skates and took off so who was I to blame him? At any rate, we are now flying down the street and Kodi is not showing any signs of fatiguing let alone stopping any time soon. I am beginning to panic because dead ahead there is a very busy street and any minute, we are going to be in the middle of it; at 5:00 p.m. no less. I vaguely remember seeing other people stop themselves with rollerblades and something about brakes so I think "don't panic; just apply the brakes and it will be okay". Well, I think having a 100 pound dog pulling an old woman who has never been on rollerblades in her life before might be a set-up for disaster, especially since obviously I did not heed the little sentence of advice above; where are the brakes? Well, if they were on the toe, they were burned up in about 2 seconds because I was trying everything to stop REPEATEDLY and it wasn't helping! If they were in the heel, they were gone, too because I STILL wasn't slowing down! (I always wonder if there was smoke in retrospect.) Now I'm really starting to panic because there is literally nothing that I can do to stop; then it dawns on me. Skiing, yet another comedic sport for me, but if in doubt snow plow. I didn't think I could get my feet that close together going at the rate of speed I was going though so I thought what is the next best thing? The Arte Johnson from Laugh-In on the bike move perhaps; just throw yourself down and you will stop (or in retrospect become a very serious case of roadkill). Unfortunately, there was no grass (which they recommend you run into if in trouble; sure now I know). There was nothing on the street but gravel where the sidewalks should have been but I guess it beat concrete; so I just very gracefully THREW myself into the gravel and prayed. Luckily I had chosen the right dog. He heard my exclamation as I hit gravel (and tore my pants) and he probably mostly heard my swearing, and he stopped on a dime (or a little more than a dime). Whew, that was close! The one thing I had not happened to notice was that everyone was filtering into our neighborhood coming home from work and of course, tons of people have just seen one of America's Funniest Videos and they are slamming on their brakes to see if I am okay (mostly laughing). I was sitting up by this time and trying to compose myself and I'm sure I looked very athletic with my torn pants, my smoking rollerblades and my helmet on crooked. I gave them all the wave; "hey, I'm fine; sure, I do this all the time". I took off my rollerblades and walked home!
I actually had the nerve to tell Bob what I had done. After a lecture of sorts (and a lot of laughing and him saying he was so sorry he had missed it), I set out to try and train them a little more slowly. I took them into our backyard and hooked them up one by one and had them pull me all over the backyard. I only hit the deck posts a few times doing figure-8's. It wasn't that bad. Then the magical scooter came and I was so excited to try it I could not wait! At least I had trained them to the best of my ability by this time and I felt confident that I could do this! It was going to be so much fun and they were going to be so happy doing it! So I laid out the towline (or gangline), hooked them up, put on their chin strap and gave them the "let's go girls". Now if you look at the Diggler scooter on the link above, you will see that it is basically a very long skateboard with a very large front tire and a very large back tire. It does have hand brakes, but the thing to remember here is that when you have 200 pounds approximately of torque on that scooter and if you slam on the brakes, you had better be standing on that scooter rather than stepping off (which I quickly learned). If you step off, it will hit you; it basically just flips up your entire back leg and thigh and wipes you out. That particular thing only happened a couple of times; okay, maybe half a dozen! You quickly learn what not to do. The dogs actually took to this sport like fish to water and I was so jazzed that I had taught them to do this! However, I was having a hard time getting them to keep going. I would run them for at least 3-4 loops and that was over a mile but much of it was uphill (and then downhill). We never progressed out of the neighborhood but it was a great route. One day I got the bright idea to involve Bob and got him to get in our Subaru and drive in front of the dogs at 20-25 mph because they loved to ride in that particular car and I felt certain they would chase him. They did! Sadly though, after doing that for a week or so, I suddenly realized that I was in actuality teaching them to chase cars; probably NOT what I wanted them to do. I was hoping that they had gotten the "hang" of this though and that my encouragement and my running up hills with them, spurring them on so to speak was going to do it. It really did pretty much!
One of the most awesome things I ever did was coming to a "T" intersection in the route and giving them the "haw" (left) http://www.everythinghusky.com/features/mushingterms.html and then watching them swinging out in this beautiful arc and heading down the road behind them. It was the same as making a turn on water skis. It was a thrill! Not too much of a thrill though when I realized that there was no way to get them to completely reverse themselves (backing up is really tricky) and turn us around so ended up manually unhooking and turning us all around and starting over again! One rainy day I ended up going anyway just because I could not resist by then and discovered there was a very distinct disadvantage to wearing glasses that did not have windshield wipers built in. By about 2 minutes into the ride, I could not see a thing. Not to mention that my clothes now weighed about 500 pounds and were glued to my body, and the road was like ice; but good times! Another problem for scootering fans up in the Washington state area presented itself quickly as well; squirrels, cats. Malamutes are not notorious for being overly fond of small animals such as squirrels or cats. Try as I might to get them to "keep on" or stay on track, I found myself being run into folks' driveways, front yards, bushes or to the base of a tree while my 2 runners decided to take a detour and catch "lunch". One of the most memorable events, however, was one afternoon when Bob decided to come out and watch me start up. I had picked up the gangline and had wrapped it around my hand (I only did this one other time and sadly with the same result). I was holding the scooter with the other hand and the dogs were harnessed and ready for action! Bob flipped the garage door open and said "let's go" which unfortunately was their trigger word. I thought for a moment that I had lost several of my fingers as the nylon gangline felt like it took the skin off my hand when they put all their weight into the torque, not to mention the enormous pop and my ring finger breaking. I probably should have seen the signs then that there were going to be more mishaps in my future but never let it be said that I could be a quitter! The best tale of all though was running into a neighbor at the market one evening and listening to this fellow going on and on and making fun of "the idiot that he has seen riding around the neighborhood on a huge skateboard thing being pulled by 2 huge dogs". I held up my hand and confessed that that idiot would be me! For the most part though, folks would stand outside and wave and clap and yell all kinds of encouraging things; at least they sounded like encouraging things! Come to think of it, there was some laughter as well.
After a few of my mishaps though, such as little pomeranians running out in BETWEEN my running dogs and me having to stop on a dime and then extricate myself from these situations alone, the bruises that I was starting to sport everywhere possible and try to explain, Bob decided that it would be best if at the very least, he would be my "spotter". He would ride a bike ahead of me and that would serve to give an incentive to the dogs as well as me having backup in case I got into trouble (of course the chances of this were nil). One late beautiful morning, we decided to suit up and give it a run. Bob took off as usual on his bike and I was busy fiddling around with my water bottle (I used this to potentially squirt dogs who were bothering us; wow what a weapon in retrospect). I usually started in our steep driveway and then turned onto the road while the dogs gave it the "gas". Well, we roared out of the driveway and were on the flat when I realized that my water bottle was falling. Unwilling to let it go (part of my personality unfortunately), I took a hand off the handlebar just for a second to fix the situation when I suddenly realized that by doing that, I had just lost what little balance I possess somehow and we were tilting on a funny angle. Of course, the dogs were oblivious and were still running but as I was trying to right the scooter, I realized that it was getting worse and had the thought "we're going down". In a panic thought I figured I should just jump off, problem solved and the dogs would stop; we'd start over. I could not have been more incorrect in this brilliant plan! When I jumped off, the handlebar hit me in the back and sent me smashing into the pavement, which I hit with my FOREHEAD. I can say here that helmets are meant to be worn for a reason! I still have the mark/dent where it hit the pavement. Did the dogs stop? Let's just say it took a while; let's say maybe 1/4 mile? They somehow did not happen to notice that the load was way lighter and they just kept on going. As I lay face down on the pavement, I could vaguely hear thump, thump, thump as my beautiful expensive scooter hit the pavement over and over bouncing along behind them. They probably had never run so fast in their lives!! The only thing I could think of was that someone was going to see me flopping around on the street like a beached whale and that secondly, if the dogs decided to turn left (haw), they were going to be out on the main road. I literally crawled to the grass in someone's yard and then forced myself to get up; complete with bloodied hands, knees, elbows (this was with pads on as well); not to mention that nice little whiplash I got from hitting the pavement and snapping my neck back and forth a few times! Talk about the mother of headaches! I was literally staggering up the front steps of our house to go get the car keys and go after the dogs when I spotted Bob walking from the opposite direction with a very mangled scooter and 2 panting dogs! They had the time of their life!
Another trip to the ER; another file in the athletic chart of one Audrey Kirchner. The doctor looked up from my road rash and asked me to explain it one more time (probably so he could tell everyone and have a good laugh later on); "so what were you doing to sustain these injuries?" That took a little bit of time to get over. The scooter needed major work to get bent back into shape. Luckily there were no "serious" injuries but I did learn a very valuable lesson. Speed kills! I do not feel the need for speed anymore! I was able to get back on the scooter (after much trash-talk from Bob about being a chicken, having to get back on the horse after you fall off, etc) and I was able to ride it again; however, I never enjoyed it quite as much again simply because for the first time, I realized how vulnerable I was (and how stupidly misinformed in many ways). Bob became the master of the scooter after that as the primary rider (not fair that he had NO mishaps) and I became the bicycle spotter, though even doing that I could manage to get myself twisted and fall off sometimes in my antics trying to ward off dogs chasing us! We also had to finally retire the scooter when Kodi developed Addison's disease as he was on lifelong steroids after that and the fear of stress fractures outweighed the sheer joy he found in pulling the scooter! It is a wonderful way, however, to exercise your dogs and enjoy them at the same time (also to check on how good your health insurance coverage is); if only you take the time to learn about it and be safe (as I found out the hard way in most instances). With the advent of our little Griffin, we are going to reinvent this great form of exercising and bonding with your dogs, but hopefully in a "safer" venue and one that does not involve kissing the pavement! More tales to come.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Who Picked Whom?
Or what came first, the chicken or the egg? In all reality, when all is said and done, it would not matter and it truly would never change a thing. How did I end up with malamutes? I had a passable knowledge of the Iditarod and "arctic" dogs per se but if someone had told me 10 years ago, I would end up adoring malamutes and deciding to make a life around TWO of them, let alone more, I would have laughed hysterically. The trouble all began for me when someone who worked for me asked me to "have a look" at her last puppy; who just so happened to be on his way to the pound. Bob knew right away this was a fated idea but as in all cases over our many decades together, he never said no and gave me the freedom to decide for myself. The first glimpse I had of my dear Kodi boy was this 4-year-old little boy carrying this huge puppy dangling him the entire length of his own body as Kodi struggled to get loose. I was sitting on my front porch waiting for them to bring the puppy over for a look and no sooner had Kodi spied me (or he just seriously wanted loose from this little kid's grasp) than he ran full tilt across the yard, up the stairs and jumped into my lap. I received my first of many years of Kodi hugs. At this very moment, Bob pulled up in the driveway and sat in the car shaking his head muttering "it's all over". In a nutshell, yep, pretty much.
From the very beginning, I began to realize that this was no run-of-the-mill dog. This dog was by far the most creative, the most energetic, the most dedicated dog I had ever come across. When we decided to keep Kodi, we had a 13-year-old black lab and a heinz 57 part lab, part bassett 10-year-old dog who ruled the roost. Little Pele didn't care that he was ugly - he just cared that the world knew who was in charge. From the beginning, Kodi was larger than Pele, quicker than Molly, by far more "creative" on any plane but he was the gentle giant. He never wanted to make waves, although sometimes he did just because he was Kodi. He drove Molly absolutely crazy as he grew, never hurting her but making his presence known 24/7. She was a docile old girl who only wanted peace and tranquility, which on the advent of Kodi quickly ended. He was forever nipping her back legs or circling her barking ferociously, begging her to engage with him. In all the time they spent together though, there was never a time that she bit him or challenged him. She would square off with him head to head and bark or lunge at him in play but she just tolerated his antics as he tried to grow into the rest of his life. Pele on the other hand made it very clear very quickly that he was running the show and would tolerate nothing less than obedience from this new recruit; no matter how big he got. The first weekend we had Kodi, he managed to nip him in the face and Kodi never was the same again with other dogs. He would always be the non-alpha. Kodi quickly became adept at striking first, striking fast and getting the heck out of there. His mischief became fodder for my entertaining family and friends. There was always another Kodi story to tell.
If he wanted something to do and the 2 old dogs were just not going to respond, he made it his business to try and fix that. He would take the igloo dog house that one of them was in and just start dragging it. We came home to find it dragged across the deck one afternoon (and it was a large deck), wedged on its way down the stairs with lovely teeth marks embedded all the way across it. We figured he must have wanted it put in another location! He would become clever about finding Bob's tools every time he had a spare moment to grab one and proceeded to refashion ALL of Bob's shovels and brooms, any tool with a handle so that they were now meant for shorter people! Or other tools were meant now for HANDLESS people because the handles were no more! He would run past with a garbage can lid, then a garbage can! Oh Bob loved it! On the rare occasions that Bob forgot about Kodi and his boredom and put down his leather gloves, we'd have a race going on as Kodi streaked around the yard over and over with Bob's gloves in his mouth trying to entice him to give chase. It was pretty obvious he was not being too stimulated by our 2 over-the-hill dogs! I started to notice that Kodi was different in many ways from our past dog breeds though because of the socialization. He would push a chair over to the kitchen window and climb up into it and literally sit in the chair and look in the window. He wasn't particular; he would either watch us or he would watch TV when he wasn't already in the house. If he was in the house, he definitely was near you and constantly in need of interaction of some kind, more so than any other dog we had ever had thus far. We began to finally realize that so many of his antics were just Dennis the Menace reflex moves because he was bored and needed something to keep his interest held.
One summer night while I was in my office working just at dusk, I saw the shadow of "something" outside my office window. It honestly looked like a bear! I thought then maybe it was a man - but why on earth was he lifting my big hanging planter off the hook? That didn't make a lot of sense to me but on looking further, just as he managed to free it from the hook and it crashed to the deck making a lovely mess, I realized a bit too late it was Kodi. When I flew out the door to chastise him, he as usual donned his innocent marmaduke look as if to say "oops...you didn't want me to do that probably". Another sunny afternoon, I was outside painting the house and as I have a terrible fear of heights, I was already a ball of nerves considering I was on this huge extension ladder and painting at the very highest part of our house. I had put the ladder just so as Bob had shown me but it wasn't helping me with my nerves. I was gripping the ladder as if it could possibly save me from falling and trying to just relax and paint with my other hand when all of a sudden the ladder began to tremble. All I could think of was "EARTHQUAKE" as we had just had a pretty sizable one a few months earlier. I was sure I was going to die on the ladder, or at the very least take it with me as I plummeted over the fence and onto all manner of objects; it was a long, long way down. I was so scared that I couldn't even scream but started down the ladder just on the odd chance that maybe I could get to ground BEFORE the earth sent me flying to my death...only to find as I was white-knuckled grasping the rungs descending, someone or someTHING was ascending....none other than Kodi. He had somehow decided he could climb the ladder and he had almost gotten all 4 paws up to another rung and was doing his best to get up it! I almost had a stroke when I realized what he was doing and of course promptly finished coming down, paint bucket in hand and scolding him all the while. My heart was in my throat and I set down all my paint supplies on the top of our huge woodpile and went into the house to get something to drink to try and compose myself again. I had not been in the house more than 5 minutes and stepping back out onto the patio, I looked at Kodi and thought I was having a sunstroke or maybe a delayed reaction to all that adrenalin because all of a sudden, he looked so much LIGHTER in color than I remembered. I was seriously thinking that I needed to just quit the painting for the day and go lie somewhere with a cool cloth on my forehead when I spied the paint...EVERYWHERE. In 5 minutes, he had managed to climb up the woodpile and spill an entire can of beige paint all over himself, all over the patio, all over EVERYWHERE. Needless to say, there was no cool washcloth in my future as it took me well beyond 1-1/2 hours to wash him, wash the patio, clean the garden and the rest of the mess that he had made in no less than 5 minutes. I'm not sure if Bob ever knew what happened to that can of paint! I figured what he did not know could not hurt me.
My point in all this is that had I known the breed a wee bit better and foreseen some of these pitfalls that just came along naturally in the course of raising our Kodi, I probably would have been far more prepared but then of course had far less stories to tell! It finally did dawn on me that this poor dog was sorely missing something in his life and then it became my mission to figure out what that was. As seasons change and life evolves, over the course of very little time, Molly eventually died and we were left with the half-pint Pele and poor Kodi whose daily quest now seemed to be how much trouble he could get into. This was of course in SPITE of being walked, exercised, and played with on a regular basis. As of yet, we just did not understand the breed. I was devastated by Molly's death but I knew in her case that I had to replace her simply because it was not going to be fair to Kodi to expect him to live with such a small, old dog the rest of his days. I am not sure why I thought about malamutes as a choice simply because I had already lived with Kodi long enough to know that I was missing something in the translation! However, I diligently set out on line to find a malamute "companion" for him still knowing relatively zero about what I was doing nor what I was getting into! The ride of my life! Always preferring to rescue a dog as opposed to just "getting" one, I searched the Washington State Malamute Association's rescue pages http://www.wamal.com/adoption.pl and lo and behold, when I looked, there she was - Denaya. She was beautiful and I knew just seeing her she was THE dog. I immediately set about trying to adopt her but unfortunately, it was too late. Someone had already adopted her. However, I asked them to keep me in mind if anything ever went wrong with the adoption but then set about trying to find the second "perfect dog" for Kodi.
We drove hither and yon looking at dogs. While I would feel for them and did want to see them adopted, just nothing clicked. Of course, I would take Kodi and he would literally try to crawl up the tail pipe of our car trying to get away from these dogs so I was becoming not a little discouraged. As to Pele, he would just growl at them, no matter what their size, and I figured we were in it for quite some time on our quest for the "perfect" mate. Out of the blue, I received an email and then a phone call that the dog I had originally picked had been returned (I never knew the reason but suspect I do now); she was mine if we wanted to adopt her. We literally raced across the state within a day to "meet her" only to be informed we could not take her home because she had been so severely malnourished and abused that she was still being brought back to normal and she probably could not withstand being kenneled even for a short while. We would have to go back home, prepare everything and come back yet again to get her. We could have let it go at that of course; too much trouble, there are other dogs in the sea but of course we went back to get her! Here again, however, a little knowledge goes such a long way. We really still knew relatively zip about malamute behavior. We knew even less about a rescued dog of this nature and how severe or deep the abuse had gone. All that was on our minds was we had a companion for our Kodi and it was going to be perfect! It did amaze me that upon introducing them a few weeks later, it very nearly was perfect! Denaya gave him a little doggie smile and looked very content to meet him, whereas Kodi was just beside himself that he now had a real live fresh young dog to play with and to boot, she was gorgeous to look at! (I have no doubts this is what he thought because he remained head over heels in love with her his entire life.) He could not have been happier. Pele gave it his indifferent cold shoulder as if to say he knew who was still top dog and that was that - and walked away smoking his cigar.
Not quite perfect. Several hours later, Denaya let us both know why she probably was returned! Within a few hours of meeting her "prince" she had bitten Kodi on the face and managed to reduce our dining room to a bar room brawl. She quickly let Kodi and everyone else know who planned on being the alpha (if not to include the omega and everything in between). I quickly adopted the idea that "Houston, we have a problem". Whereas I was delighted with our new girl, I began to very quickly surmise that I had just bitten off a huge task for all of us and there were going to be many, many rocky moments to come. Those will follow as the saga continues.
From the very beginning, I began to realize that this was no run-of-the-mill dog. This dog was by far the most creative, the most energetic, the most dedicated dog I had ever come across. When we decided to keep Kodi, we had a 13-year-old black lab and a heinz 57 part lab, part bassett 10-year-old dog who ruled the roost. Little Pele didn't care that he was ugly - he just cared that the world knew who was in charge. From the beginning, Kodi was larger than Pele, quicker than Molly, by far more "creative" on any plane but he was the gentle giant. He never wanted to make waves, although sometimes he did just because he was Kodi. He drove Molly absolutely crazy as he grew, never hurting her but making his presence known 24/7. She was a docile old girl who only wanted peace and tranquility, which on the advent of Kodi quickly ended. He was forever nipping her back legs or circling her barking ferociously, begging her to engage with him. In all the time they spent together though, there was never a time that she bit him or challenged him. She would square off with him head to head and bark or lunge at him in play but she just tolerated his antics as he tried to grow into the rest of his life. Pele on the other hand made it very clear very quickly that he was running the show and would tolerate nothing less than obedience from this new recruit; no matter how big he got. The first weekend we had Kodi, he managed to nip him in the face and Kodi never was the same again with other dogs. He would always be the non-alpha. Kodi quickly became adept at striking first, striking fast and getting the heck out of there. His mischief became fodder for my entertaining family and friends. There was always another Kodi story to tell.
If he wanted something to do and the 2 old dogs were just not going to respond, he made it his business to try and fix that. He would take the igloo dog house that one of them was in and just start dragging it. We came home to find it dragged across the deck one afternoon (and it was a large deck), wedged on its way down the stairs with lovely teeth marks embedded all the way across it. We figured he must have wanted it put in another location! He would become clever about finding Bob's tools every time he had a spare moment to grab one and proceeded to refashion ALL of Bob's shovels and brooms, any tool with a handle so that they were now meant for shorter people! Or other tools were meant now for HANDLESS people because the handles were no more! He would run past with a garbage can lid, then a garbage can! Oh Bob loved it! On the rare occasions that Bob forgot about Kodi and his boredom and put down his leather gloves, we'd have a race going on as Kodi streaked around the yard over and over with Bob's gloves in his mouth trying to entice him to give chase. It was pretty obvious he was not being too stimulated by our 2 over-the-hill dogs! I started to notice that Kodi was different in many ways from our past dog breeds though because of the socialization. He would push a chair over to the kitchen window and climb up into it and literally sit in the chair and look in the window. He wasn't particular; he would either watch us or he would watch TV when he wasn't already in the house. If he was in the house, he definitely was near you and constantly in need of interaction of some kind, more so than any other dog we had ever had thus far. We began to finally realize that so many of his antics were just Dennis the Menace reflex moves because he was bored and needed something to keep his interest held.
One summer night while I was in my office working just at dusk, I saw the shadow of "something" outside my office window. It honestly looked like a bear! I thought then maybe it was a man - but why on earth was he lifting my big hanging planter off the hook? That didn't make a lot of sense to me but on looking further, just as he managed to free it from the hook and it crashed to the deck making a lovely mess, I realized a bit too late it was Kodi. When I flew out the door to chastise him, he as usual donned his innocent marmaduke look as if to say "oops...you didn't want me to do that probably". Another sunny afternoon, I was outside painting the house and as I have a terrible fear of heights, I was already a ball of nerves considering I was on this huge extension ladder and painting at the very highest part of our house. I had put the ladder just so as Bob had shown me but it wasn't helping me with my nerves. I was gripping the ladder as if it could possibly save me from falling and trying to just relax and paint with my other hand when all of a sudden the ladder began to tremble. All I could think of was "EARTHQUAKE" as we had just had a pretty sizable one a few months earlier. I was sure I was going to die on the ladder, or at the very least take it with me as I plummeted over the fence and onto all manner of objects; it was a long, long way down. I was so scared that I couldn't even scream but started down the ladder just on the odd chance that maybe I could get to ground BEFORE the earth sent me flying to my death...only to find as I was white-knuckled grasping the rungs descending, someone or someTHING was ascending....none other than Kodi. He had somehow decided he could climb the ladder and he had almost gotten all 4 paws up to another rung and was doing his best to get up it! I almost had a stroke when I realized what he was doing and of course promptly finished coming down, paint bucket in hand and scolding him all the while. My heart was in my throat and I set down all my paint supplies on the top of our huge woodpile and went into the house to get something to drink to try and compose myself again. I had not been in the house more than 5 minutes and stepping back out onto the patio, I looked at Kodi and thought I was having a sunstroke or maybe a delayed reaction to all that adrenalin because all of a sudden, he looked so much LIGHTER in color than I remembered. I was seriously thinking that I needed to just quit the painting for the day and go lie somewhere with a cool cloth on my forehead when I spied the paint...EVERYWHERE. In 5 minutes, he had managed to climb up the woodpile and spill an entire can of beige paint all over himself, all over the patio, all over EVERYWHERE. Needless to say, there was no cool washcloth in my future as it took me well beyond 1-1/2 hours to wash him, wash the patio, clean the garden and the rest of the mess that he had made in no less than 5 minutes. I'm not sure if Bob ever knew what happened to that can of paint! I figured what he did not know could not hurt me.
My point in all this is that had I known the breed a wee bit better and foreseen some of these pitfalls that just came along naturally in the course of raising our Kodi, I probably would have been far more prepared but then of course had far less stories to tell! It finally did dawn on me that this poor dog was sorely missing something in his life and then it became my mission to figure out what that was. As seasons change and life evolves, over the course of very little time, Molly eventually died and we were left with the half-pint Pele and poor Kodi whose daily quest now seemed to be how much trouble he could get into. This was of course in SPITE of being walked, exercised, and played with on a regular basis. As of yet, we just did not understand the breed. I was devastated by Molly's death but I knew in her case that I had to replace her simply because it was not going to be fair to Kodi to expect him to live with such a small, old dog the rest of his days. I am not sure why I thought about malamutes as a choice simply because I had already lived with Kodi long enough to know that I was missing something in the translation! However, I diligently set out on line to find a malamute "companion" for him still knowing relatively zero about what I was doing nor what I was getting into! The ride of my life! Always preferring to rescue a dog as opposed to just "getting" one, I searched the Washington State Malamute Association's rescue pages http://www.wamal.com/adoption.pl and lo and behold, when I looked, there she was - Denaya. She was beautiful and I knew just seeing her she was THE dog. I immediately set about trying to adopt her but unfortunately, it was too late. Someone had already adopted her. However, I asked them to keep me in mind if anything ever went wrong with the adoption but then set about trying to find the second "perfect dog" for Kodi.
We drove hither and yon looking at dogs. While I would feel for them and did want to see them adopted, just nothing clicked. Of course, I would take Kodi and he would literally try to crawl up the tail pipe of our car trying to get away from these dogs so I was becoming not a little discouraged. As to Pele, he would just growl at them, no matter what their size, and I figured we were in it for quite some time on our quest for the "perfect" mate. Out of the blue, I received an email and then a phone call that the dog I had originally picked had been returned (I never knew the reason but suspect I do now); she was mine if we wanted to adopt her. We literally raced across the state within a day to "meet her" only to be informed we could not take her home because she had been so severely malnourished and abused that she was still being brought back to normal and she probably could not withstand being kenneled even for a short while. We would have to go back home, prepare everything and come back yet again to get her. We could have let it go at that of course; too much trouble, there are other dogs in the sea but of course we went back to get her! Here again, however, a little knowledge goes such a long way. We really still knew relatively zip about malamute behavior. We knew even less about a rescued dog of this nature and how severe or deep the abuse had gone. All that was on our minds was we had a companion for our Kodi and it was going to be perfect! It did amaze me that upon introducing them a few weeks later, it very nearly was perfect! Denaya gave him a little doggie smile and looked very content to meet him, whereas Kodi was just beside himself that he now had a real live fresh young dog to play with and to boot, she was gorgeous to look at! (I have no doubts this is what he thought because he remained head over heels in love with her his entire life.) He could not have been happier. Pele gave it his indifferent cold shoulder as if to say he knew who was still top dog and that was that - and walked away smoking his cigar.
Not quite perfect. Several hours later, Denaya let us both know why she probably was returned! Within a few hours of meeting her "prince" she had bitten Kodi on the face and managed to reduce our dining room to a bar room brawl. She quickly let Kodi and everyone else know who planned on being the alpha (if not to include the omega and everything in between). I quickly adopted the idea that "Houston, we have a problem". Whereas I was delighted with our new girl, I began to very quickly surmise that I had just bitten off a huge task for all of us and there were going to be many, many rocky moments to come. Those will follow as the saga continues.
This website on Alaskan Malamutes says it all and it probably would have been a wise choice to have visited it or a like site many years ago but hindsight is always 20/20! http://amyty.com/ned11/map.html
Starting Over - Again
I think losing a dog you have raised from puppyhood is perhaps one of the toughest life experiences ever, and one I certainly would like to avoid at all costs. However, when you are in the rescuing dogs "business" as I seem to find myself time after time over the past 20+ years, you tell yourself it is just part of the process. However, this past spring, when I lost my all-time favorite malamute mix Kodi after raising him from a pup, I thought my heart was broken into pieces and I would never recover. Never mind that I had another beautiful 7-year-old malamute who was now lonesome and missing her forever pal; never mind that my motto has always been that one dog leaves so another can come into my life. After we had to put Kodi down after a long battle with Addison's disease and cancer that spanned 5 years discovered at 5 years of age, I was determined/rooted to the fact that I simply could not go out on a limb and love another dog again. No way, no how....just not going to do it and open up that whole can of worms ever again. I talked myself into it or at least I thought I had. My thoughts were that I'm no spring chicken, I don't need the aggravation; at least after a time, Bob and I would just have each other; we can go where we want, do what we want, no worries!! How much simpler our life would be!
Well, probably weeks went by with the new and improved attitude (and the constant crying every day because I missed Kodi so). I was thinking I would get used to it; surely Denaya would get used to it - after all she is "just" a dog. Malamutes bond to people as well as dogs so it was not like we were abandoning her or something! Time is a marvelous thing I guess because one day I had moved from "no way, no how, never again" to "maybe another rescued dog would not be such a bad idea". "Just another dog that needs a good home and some love....but this time, I'm SO not getting attached! It just needs to be a companion for Denaya!" Hmmm...
Then a friend of mine with malamute puppies that I had let know of Kodi's passing tagged me via email regarding a litter of puppies with PICTURES~! Oh, I so did not need this! I could have just ignored the pics; I did not have to look. I did not have to start to think along these lines ever again! Hadn't I said that enough was enough and no more heartbreak? It did not help (much) that Denaya was now becoming attached to us like glue whereas before we lost Kodi, she was always extremely independent and pretty much ruled the roost! Now she was displaying all kinds of dependent behaviors and if I didn't know better, I could have sworn she was lonesome. After much debate (Denaya being herself a rescued/abused dog who had taken years to heal), the thought of bringing another abused or damaged dog into the mix did not particularly appeal so that option went out the door. The pictures of the litter kept beckoning to me until finally I just could not get away from the thought that we HAD to start over and perhaps a puppy was the only option. For Denaya's sake of course! I owed it to my dogs to carry on the tradition and "save" another dog.
The mind is a tricky business. We can about convince ourselves of just about anything I think. I went into getting another puppy as the "smartest" thing to do under our given circumstances, and it was simply the "right" thing to do. Not that I WANTED another puppy or that I thought I could fall for another dog - oh no...that was not part of this girl's plan! Too bad I actually had to MEET my new little Griffin; too bad I had to instantly fall in LOVE with little Griffin. I never stood a chance!! One look at his big brown eyes and one day in the presence of his gentle personality and his gift for just simply being adorable and funny, and I was lost, beyond hope. The doors of my heart that I had decided would remain firmly closed not only opened - I think they blew themselves off the hinges. If ever there was a short, sharp tumble into love this would be it! I fell hopelessly and endlessly in love with this little goofy puppy and somehow I forgot to mourn the loss of one of the most wonderful, gentlest dogs in the world simply because I had his very likeness bound into my life as if to say he'd been searching for me all along!
What a gift an animal is but what an extra special gift a puppy is. No matter that I'd forgotten all the work that goes into the raising and nurturing; how easily we do forget. But when all is said and done, much like raising children, there is so much sheer happiness at the end of the day that you receive from these little bundles of joy and energy, the priceless memories; you cannot but think you are rich beyond measure. I had forgotten what it was like to simply laugh out loud long and hard at nothing but silly puppy antics. I had forgotten what it felt like to have someone so overjoyed to see you that all they can do is jump up and down or rush into your arms to kiss your face over and over and nibble your ear (Bob tries but it just isn't quite the same sometimes). It is a wonderful thing to discover that at ANY age, we are capable of having a new "leash" on life and starting over and I look forward to recounting all the new escapades in our life with Griffin. Over the years, I have been most privileged to have some of the best dogs in the whole world and their stories will follow.
Well, probably weeks went by with the new and improved attitude (and the constant crying every day because I missed Kodi so). I was thinking I would get used to it; surely Denaya would get used to it - after all she is "just" a dog. Malamutes bond to people as well as dogs so it was not like we were abandoning her or something! Time is a marvelous thing I guess because one day I had moved from "no way, no how, never again" to "maybe another rescued dog would not be such a bad idea". "Just another dog that needs a good home and some love....but this time, I'm SO not getting attached! It just needs to be a companion for Denaya!" Hmmm...
Then a friend of mine with malamute puppies that I had let know of Kodi's passing tagged me via email regarding a litter of puppies with PICTURES~! Oh, I so did not need this! I could have just ignored the pics; I did not have to look. I did not have to start to think along these lines ever again! Hadn't I said that enough was enough and no more heartbreak? It did not help (much) that Denaya was now becoming attached to us like glue whereas before we lost Kodi, she was always extremely independent and pretty much ruled the roost! Now she was displaying all kinds of dependent behaviors and if I didn't know better, I could have sworn she was lonesome. After much debate (Denaya being herself a rescued/abused dog who had taken years to heal), the thought of bringing another abused or damaged dog into the mix did not particularly appeal so that option went out the door. The pictures of the litter kept beckoning to me until finally I just could not get away from the thought that we HAD to start over and perhaps a puppy was the only option. For Denaya's sake of course! I owed it to my dogs to carry on the tradition and "save" another dog.
The mind is a tricky business. We can about convince ourselves of just about anything I think. I went into getting another puppy as the "smartest" thing to do under our given circumstances, and it was simply the "right" thing to do. Not that I WANTED another puppy or that I thought I could fall for another dog - oh no...that was not part of this girl's plan! Too bad I actually had to MEET my new little Griffin; too bad I had to instantly fall in LOVE with little Griffin. I never stood a chance!! One look at his big brown eyes and one day in the presence of his gentle personality and his gift for just simply being adorable and funny, and I was lost, beyond hope. The doors of my heart that I had decided would remain firmly closed not only opened - I think they blew themselves off the hinges. If ever there was a short, sharp tumble into love this would be it! I fell hopelessly and endlessly in love with this little goofy puppy and somehow I forgot to mourn the loss of one of the most wonderful, gentlest dogs in the world simply because I had his very likeness bound into my life as if to say he'd been searching for me all along!
What a gift an animal is but what an extra special gift a puppy is. No matter that I'd forgotten all the work that goes into the raising and nurturing; how easily we do forget. But when all is said and done, much like raising children, there is so much sheer happiness at the end of the day that you receive from these little bundles of joy and energy, the priceless memories; you cannot but think you are rich beyond measure. I had forgotten what it was like to simply laugh out loud long and hard at nothing but silly puppy antics. I had forgotten what it felt like to have someone so overjoyed to see you that all they can do is jump up and down or rush into your arms to kiss your face over and over and nibble your ear (Bob tries but it just isn't quite the same sometimes). It is a wonderful thing to discover that at ANY age, we are capable of having a new "leash" on life and starting over and I look forward to recounting all the new escapades in our life with Griffin. Over the years, I have been most privileged to have some of the best dogs in the whole world and their stories will follow.
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