Theresa Lewis

The life expectancy of Samoyed dogs is eight to ten years old, but everyone knows that pampered pets can live longer lives. In our case, Sasha lived until she was ten plus years until she was taken by complications from cancer surgery. Misty lived for seventeen years.

I never knew how painful it was to lose our dearest friends. It was like losing a child in that it left us with a hole in our hearts that needed to be filled.

Before having Misty and Sasha join our family, I had never been attached to a pet although we had several pets during my childhood. Back then, to me, a pet was a member of the household whose existence was accepted and tolerated. I never wanted anything bad to happen to our family pets because they were God’s creatures, but I cannot say that I ever bonded with any animal until we had Misty and Sasha. Those dogs taught me so much about unconditional love, so much about their intelligence and so much about their individualities. They also taught me commitment, respect, patience and understanding on a much higher level. I felt honoured to have had them as friends in my life for as long as I did.

For the next two years, we did not have another dog. It was an awful time in my life. I missed the companionship of a dog. When we moved to Prince Edward Island, I felt it so much more because almost everyone I knew had a dog. It had been two years and my husband and I discussed getting another dog. This time, my husband said he wanted a big dog, not a puppy as he didn’t want to go through the puppy training stage. I suggested adopting an adult dog from the humane society and he said he would think about it.

Unknown to me, my husband went to the animal shelter with a friend who was looking for a dog for his son. He informed me about it later that day. I asked him if he had looked into getting a dog for us. He said that he looked at all the dogs, but not seriously. He told me his friend didn’t find the kind of dog he was looking for either and they were going back there to the shelter on the weekend. He asked me if I would like to go with them and I agreed to go.

On Saturday, we all headed into the area where the dogs were penned in cages. I had never been to an animal shelter before and I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of jumping barking dogs that all seemed to be jumping up and down and saying “pick me, pick me!” My ears were ringing from the deafening noise.

My spot in the line to view the dogs was right behind two couples who took their time reading the specifications on each animal. Some pets were listed as abandoned while others were listed as surrendered, or runaways. Nobody wanted a runaway dog. The couple directly in front of me said runaways make the worst pets because once a runaway, always a runaway.

There was one huge dog, a Giant Malamute that was tagged as a runaway. The woman in front of me told her husband not to waste his time reading all the information on her because she was a useless runaway. I paused in front of the dog’s cage. She was the only quiet and calm dog in the place. She just sat there looking at all the people who passed in front of her. When I stopped to look at her, she nodded her head. I stood there in front of her cage and asked her why she ran away. She just looked curiously at me. I asked her if she could bark if she wanted to and with that, she let out one deep resounding woof. I then asked her if she could jump up like the other dogs were doing and she obliged me by jumping up and holding her position for a few moments. I realized that this was indeed the biggest dog I had ever seen. While she was standing on her back legs, I had to hang my head backwards to look at her face. Wow! What a size!

She was undoubtedly the most beautiful dog I had ever seen and by far the hugest. We had a Saint Bernard at home when I was growing up, but this Giant Malamute who was only a year old was bigger than I remembered the Saint Bernard being. She was at least six feet seven tall when she stood on her back legs.

When she got down and sat in her cage, I noticed that she was staring at me as though she was trying to send me a telepathic message. I told her I didn’t understand what she was trying to say. She immediately turned her back to me. I initially thought she was shunning me. I asked her again what was wrong. She looked over her shoulder at me and I realized that she wanted me to scratch her back, but I couldn’t reach her through the bars of her cage. I told her I had to go, but I said that I would come back soon.

I had no idea where my husband was and it took me some time to locate him since he was in another part of the building. When I found him, I told him about the dog I had just spent some time with. I asked him if he had seen her and he admitted that he had seen her on his first visit to the shelter earlier in the week. He wanted to know what I thought about adopting her. There was no doubt in my mind about that.

When we inquired at the front desk about adopting her, we were told we could and then the receptionist asked us if we wanted to meet her one-on-one in the playroom. When they brought her into the playroom, they took her off her leash and let her come to us. The guardian gave me a ball to play with the dog so I tossed it in the air. The dog jumped up, caught it then tossed it back to me. Right at that moment, she stole my heart. I went with the guardian when she returned the dog to her cage. As soon as the dog entered her cage, she picked up her water dish and showed me that it was empty. I got her some water and she sucked it back until the dish was empty again. It took a couple of days to finalize the paperwork then we brought her home with us.

This was to be a love affair that lasted as long as she did.

More stories about Nikka’s journey will follow soon.

The End