Yeti is a member of WAMAL’s class of 2022! He recently passed, but he had a very, very happy tail!

Yeti was the most beautiful, happy boy, who absolutely loved his life. He enjoyed snacks, snuggling, hiking, eating, backpacking, paddle boarding, xc skiing, biking and meal times. Most of all, he just liked to be with his pack, whether that was on an adventure, running errands or lazing around. 

We couldn’t have asked for a better friend than Yeti, we are so lucky to have been able to share these years with him, and we know that Yeti had a wonderful time as well. He taught us how amazing the snow can be, the art of a dip on a warm day, and most importantly, that squirrels are NOT friends. 

Yeti was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2023, he fought so so hard, constantly amazing all of vets, but unfortunately started losing his fight recently. We are so proud of all that he was capable of, and his tenacity to keep going. 

We love you so much pal

I wanted to give you guys an update on Aurora and send you photos of her life. She is doing great. She is best friends with our neighbors labradoodle, so we made a trap door between our fences to allow for play together pretty much every day.  She loves to hang out in our neighbor’s yard in the afternoons and often takes naps with their cat, which was a surprise to see. She loves to play tag and fetch with our son. She has her own “toy box” with sticks, cardboard, balls and a fuzzy monster. Such a silly dog, she was deeply worried when our son started preschool, and waits by the window for his return every school day. Aurora has been camping in the cascades and OR. She even made her first international trip with us to Vancouver Island last Sept.   She is afraid of the dark, tall bridges and the garbage truck. The Coho Ferry from Port Angeles to Victoria was also scary for her, but she survived. She also doesn’t seem to like riding in the car or wearing her halti, but she loves our adventures so she is learning to tolerate both. Her separation anxiety has lessened a lot in the last 2 years. I hope that in a year, as she matures, she will not have any worries at all if we pop out for pizza or something and she stays home. I know you guys might have felt you took a little gamble, adopting out to a family with a small child no matter our experience, but it has worked out well for us all. 

Bella, who is now (in September of 2024) four years old, is very large 120-pound female who is a mix of Malamute (two-thirds), Newfoundland (one-sixth), and Great Pyrenees (one-sixth). She combines in a single dog my three favorite breeds. She also combines in a single dog many of the traits of these three breeds that some families find difficult to manage. She has an extremely strong prey drive (common for both Malamutes and Great Pyrenees), aloofness (common for Malamutes), independence (common for all three breeds), a level of disobedience (especially common for Malamutes, but also common for the other two breeds), and a capacity for critical and independent thinking (essential for the survival of all three breeds). When she does respond to a command, she often likes to make it appear that it is her idea. After having been surrendered by her first two families, she has now found her permanent home, though the transition has not been an easy one for her.

Bella’s experience with her first family appears to have been a happy and even joyous one. She was adopted as a puppy, trained, loved, and cared for. She seems to have especially bonded with her family’s three young boys. (After I adopted her, she ran to the fence whenever a school bus passed by in the hope that her beloved boys would somehow appear.) Unfortunately, she began to exhibit a strong prey drive toward the family’s cats. Given a choice, the family chose their cats and surrendered Bella.

Her experience with her second family was not as good. Judging from a custom harness and high-quality bowls, her adoption seems to have gotten off to a good start, however I suspect that Bella was stored outside for long periods of time, and quite possibly all the time. When her family finally decided that they no longer wanted her, they complained of her prey drive, her digging, her being an escape artist, her aggression toward other dogs, and her unpredictable behavior toward people. Their evaluation depicted a horrible dog about whom there was virtually nothing to like. Who would even consider adopting a dog like this?

Of course, I adopted her. When I read her second family’s assessment, it struck me as an impressive piece of character assassination. There was sure to be some element of truth to it, but at the same time it was almost certainly an exaggeration, with many of the complaints about
Bella’s behavior clearly stemming from her being stashed outdoors and bored out of her mind. It also seemed clear to me that her second family had no idea of what to expect from and was totally unprepared to handle a Malamute/Newfoundland/Great Pyrenees mix. Bella deserved a new home and a third chance.

Bella’s experience – rejected by a loving home – left her little reason for hope. When Bella first arrived, she wouldn’t eat and barely drank any water. Nor was she at all interested in treats. She was defeated and had given up. When I placed her bowl in front of her, she fled. When I replaced her bowl with an ordinary soup bowl, she would eat only a small amount. To encourage her to eat, I fed her by hand, kibble by kibble. I slowly decreased the time spent hand-feeding her before I placed the soup bowl (which continues to be her bowl) in front of her so that she would eat by herself. After about a month, she began to eat without hand feeding. She also proved to be very treat-motivated.

There were (and continue to be) other behavioral problems, but Bella’s behavior immediately improved when my daughter adopted a year-old Black Lab mix. As a dominant female, having a submissive male to bond with helped her to locate herself within her human/canine pack. Her behavior also improved as we got to know one another, develop trust, and as I began to understand and honor Bella’s preferences. Bella wants to be outdoors during her alert time and for some play. But she wants to be indoors for meals, treats, pill time, naps, some play, and bedtime. She also likes to have the option of going to her indoor crate when she feels insecure. She’s an indoor dog who likes to be outdoors a lot. Finally, developing a regular routine, with Bella’s active participation, helped her adapt to her new home. As a dominant female, Bella determines our wakeup time; she likes to get her daily activities underway early. Time outside is followed by breakfast, followed by time outside, followed by pill time, followed by time outside, followed by a Greenie, followed by time outside, followed by a large beef Buffalo Blue bone, followed by nap time. Like most dogs, she thrives on regularity and predictability. Most important of all, though, are understanding breed-specific behaviors and looking beyond the undesirable behaviors of many rescues to who the dog really is as an individual. In her aloof way, Bella is loving, caring, considerate, and passionate. She is a dominating presence who fills the house with joy. And when she wakes me up, she reminds me to greet each morning as an enormous gift of God’s grace. When I met her, I thought that she would be the perfect dog for me; and indeed she is.

Last year on 20 February I drove from Portland up to Puyallup to meet Lucky. I fell in love & brought her home that day. She has become a wonderful friend and companion. She is very friendly with other humans (well, maybe sometimes a little over friendly at first) and has made many human friends in the neighborhood. We have been training on our walks this year, with some good help and classes. And so, have made great improvements.

We had guests to stay with us over the Christmas holidays and she was quite thrilled with all the attention she received. She was disarmingly sweet and well behaved. Amazing. Of course lots of photos were taken & I have attached one.

I wanted to thank everyone at WAMAL who helped me in the adoption process and also the Online support during the first few weeks she was with me. She will be nine years old next month and I am hoping for many more years with her.

I wanted to update you about Niko & Aurora, but they’re doing great!

We moved to Alaska and they’re right at home. 

Niko has really come out of his shell and has a super sweet, funny, and loving personality. He gets to spend time off leash these days because his recall is perfect (which was a huge surprise to us).

Aurora had some issues for the last year or so and we finally determined she has hypothyroidism. Our vet suspects her thyroid might have been nicked during her surgery to remove the cyst in her neck because her levels tested so low they couldn’t even read it. 

She’s now on medicine and better than ever. 

Fourth of July retraumatized Eli (formerly Metro) and I started having problems with the neighbors again because of his barking, and I figured the HOA board would flip out if I brought a second dog home, of any size, let alone a Mal. In retrospect I’ve realized it probably took him 7-8 weeks to get over the 4th.

New Year’s Eve was hard for him too, even though there were only a couple of booms. He recovered after a week or two, which seems like a big improvement.

But what I wanted to let you all know is how fantastic he’s been doing since then. He’s started initiating play with other dogs, and will even keep at it for a minute or two. The fakeout/spin away is his favorite move. He approaches other people and will often let them pet him. A couple of times he’s reached his muzzle up into someone’s face. He’s calm with little kids. He used to move behind me if anyone held out their hand to him. He’s been able to completely relax when we visit my parents, and he used to stay really agitated the whole time we were there. He’s startled by fewer external noises, and instead of running to the door and barking, if he reacts at all he just lifts his head and wuffs once. He stole half a cookie off the kitchen counter, and I was just thrilled that he felt safe enough to do that. It’s happened once in 18 months. (No chocolate, I never leave that in reach.)

It doesn’t seem like much when I read through it, but it feels huge for him.

It’s funny – I chose him because of something in his eyes and I never realized how striking he is. But everyone else sure notices. I’ve had passengers yell at us out of car windows, drivers slow down, someone opened a third floor office window — all to tell me how beautiful he is, how much they love my dog. Pretty much everyone we pass remarks on it. The whole neighborhood knows us, although I doubt they’d know me on my own. The bus drivers wave. So many people want to talk to me about my dog.

If the conversation goes on, he just sits down and waits patiently. If he’s extra excited to get his harness on, he sits down. Sometimes I can’t quite believe what a good dog he is. If I want to turn around before he’s ready he also just sits down, quite calmly. Which is a bit odd, but very clear communication. I know everyone thinks this about their dog, but it sure feels like he understands complete sentences and responds to them.

I know I’m rambling on, but he’s just so amazing. The other day he was sitting out on the deck, the afternoon sun on his back, the wind blowing all those good smells right into his face and he looked so happy… It brought tears to my eyes, and that’s unusual for me. So I wanted to let you know.

Sora (formerly Sugarplum) has been quite a bit of work and in truth I constantly fought with my own doubts if she was the right dog and such. Especially her unknown reactivity to dogs and her separation anxiety. I was spoiled by my previous dog, Mizu who did not come with these issues and mostly was just very aloof and always did his own thing but always wanted to be at least in the same room.

I’ve come to realize it’s almost impossible to find the perfect dog because these rescues are often fully grown and come with some bad habits with unknown history. Along with my still grieving process, I could only focus on Sora’s negative aspects because they were the ones that gave me anxiety, so I fixated on her problems; and because I am still grieving I couldn’t help but compare her to my previous dog despite how wrong it is. As I got more comfortable with her, got to know her triggers and us being more used to each other’s quirks and strides, it’s gotten better. What has helped most was when I introduced her to more family and friends who all adore her greatly. Seeing her play well with some dogs on a 1-on-1 basis also helped. These little things helped remind me of her positives and gave me a form of confirmation that she is indeed a good dog. I think all new relationships take work and we still have a long way to go but I am grateful to have her be so affectionate with myself and every person she’s met.

These days, we mostly walk around my area and go to the dog park at night when no one else is around for her to have some zoomies and all in. We recently went snowshoeing for the first time over the new years and we also went off road camping together.

***Sora’s adoption is dedicated to the memory of Mizu, who showed her adopter how amazing Northern Breeds can be.

Almost six months since he came to stay with me, and he’s doing well. So much healthier than Zippo was.

I have only left him behind three times when I needed to go somewhere, and each time he escaped and wound up at a neighbor’s. Since the third time I either find a dog-sitter or take him with me everywhere. Dogs are amazing creatures:  he knows when I change into good clothes that it means a trip someplace and starts howling.

I do volunteer drives for Island Senior Resources, taking people to medical appointments. He comes with us, and everyone falls in love with him. As I wait outside a clinic or office I’ve even had staff come out to ooh and aah over him — and take photos! I have a supply of WAMAL bookmarks with him on them, and hopefully that creates some interest.

I went to the store him, including the Country Store in Freeland. It’s one of the few places I feel ok bringing him in with me. As usual he was a big hit with customers and staff (so boring.) Happily he didn’t pee on anything, but it was a mistake bringing him down the dog treat aisle.

The clerk at checkout took his photo and I gave her a bookmark since she said her daughter might be interested in getting a big dog.

He is dog #62 that I’ve adopted, and appears that he will wind up in my Top Ten favorite dogs if he keeps this up.

Thanks for helping me find him.

Today is Bust Out Day!

11 years ago, Oreo Yoyo and 160+ of her closest kin were saved from a Darwinian nightmare in Helena, MT. These dogs became known as the MT Mals and the overall effort was Operation Malamute. It was a nationwide effort to find every last dog* a loving home. Several came here to be placed by WAMAL: Oreo (Yoyo), McKinley, DJ Fuzzbutt McGillicuddy, Strider, Quinn, Sugar, Littlefoot, Spirit, Lola, and more whose names escape me at the moment.

It was a long process, but Miss Yo has blossomed into quite the adorable little monkey. She was 35 lbs when we brought her home and had the most tragic coat I’ve ever seen, it was dull and brittle and not quite what I would call fluffy. Every meal might be her last, so she ate it before anyone else had a chance to. I’m sure she remembers where she came from, if for no other reason than to understand why it will never be like that again.

I always wish for the day when rescues are shut down because there are no more irresponsible breeders and puppy mills. Until that day comes, WAMAL and our family of rescue groups will keep working to place every dog who needs us into homes like every one of yours.