As you know, we recently lost our beloved husky Dakota Joe. He was a great dog and we've missed him SO much. We also know; however, that he would want us to be happy and to share our home with another wonderful husky. He was a rescue and the group he was rescued by was shut down not too long after we got him for keeping dogs outside in cages even during storms. We suddenly understood his fear of lightning and rain. We brought him to our home and loved him very much and it was always very clear that he was so happy to be part of our family. I know he'd want us to share that with another dog so they could be as happy as he was. Well, we found her. Kristy came upon a breeder that had some husky pups that were born in mid-October (the 12th if I remember right) that would be ready to go to homes in December around the 8th.
Kristy emailed them to see if any were still available and to get more info about them. They said they had several black & whites (mostly males) and one sable (rust colored) female available and sent some pictures of them all. I've always loved the sable huskies, so I was pretty excited just seeing the small picture when I opened it on my phone! Then I opened the picture on my computer monitor so i could see it better and I knew this was our dog. Dakota had a strange coloring on his nose. Sometimes his nose was VERY dark black, but other times it would turn very pale except the very outsides. When I looked at the picture larger I noticed right away that the pup has the same coloration on her nose! I seriously almost cried, so I texted Kristy to see if she had noticed that. She said not only had she noticed it, she was crying. I told her to set up a time for us to go meet the pup and the breeders because I felt we were destined to have this little girl join our family.
Yesterday evening we drove up there, it's about an hour and a half drive each way, to meet them. They live out in the country on a bunch of land. We were greeted by a wonderful sight; about 4 or 5 huskies running full speed toward us!! You have to love the smile on a husky's face when they are going to get to meet someone new! We got out of the car and went straight to petting all of these wonderful dogs! The lady and her husband came out hearing the commotion and greeted us and introduced themselves. These huskies were their pets, all well cared for, friendly and very happy. She took us out to meet the puppies, I was so excited! They were in a very nicely kept barn with several runs that had doggie doors going out to a large, fenced in area for them to move around. The litter with our puppy had just been separated from their mother the night before so they were all out running, jumping, biting and playing!! She found ours and pointed her out to us and I picked her up. She went right to licking my face, biting my goatee and generally goofing around with me! I was in love.
Her mother was understandably nervous and made a lot of noise, she's been separated from her pups for less than 24 hours after all. I went over to pet her as well and she stuck her nose up to the gate so I could scratch her snout, she was very sweet. Then the breeder pointed out a very large sable husky in the run next to her and told us that was our puppy's dad. He had blue eyes and a big friendly smile! I moved over to meet him and he was so excited! He was rubbing his head in my hand, letting me scratch his ears and licking me; he was a very nice dog. I felt comfortable with the breeders and their love of the dogs; this was no puppy mill. They are in it because they love huskies, not for the money. Also, we felt good about the parent dogs, they looked healthy, happy and well cared for. We gave her a $100 deposit and told her we looked forward to coming to get our pup in December! It was so sad leaving her there!
Okay, to bring this back to running... Huskies are natural-born endurance athletes. They were obviously bred as sled dogs in Siberia, so they had to be strong, smart, capable and willing to run for very long periods of time tied up to the sled. Thanks to that breeding, huskies are well know for running away. If they get loose they run, then they run more, then they keep running. They are like many of us, they find true joy in running. We believe that Dakota had some sort of hip injury as a puppy because he never could quite run correctly or wag his tail very well, so we never got to see the natural runner bred into him. I'm hoping our new puppy will have that natural love of running that most huskies do. I'd love for her to become my training partner. Recently we've started training our Australian Sheppard and Border Collie to become our running partners as well. They've been doing great; they love to run, but they tire out quickly if you go very fast. That's our fault. We have only been active people for a couple years now so we never gave them the exercise they needed. They are building up quickly. Hopefully this new member of the family will get up to speed quickly since she is young and healthy and she can be an athlete for many years to come.
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