I found my forever home!

A post went out on Facebook. A local husky mix needed help. She was about to be euthanized and needed to be saved. She had been left tied to a park bench, no tags or micro-chip. She was brought to the King County Animal Shelter in Washington State. King County is suffering from budget shortages and will be soon closing all their shelters. The staff is hard pressed to adopt out all the animals that come in. Jenna, being a husky, was considered hard to adopt. Northern breeds are more complicated animals and many dog owners want a dog that is easy to care for like a retriever.

Jenna is a five year old Siberian/Samoyed Mix. Her early life was spent on the end of a chain, outside year round with little love or shelter. She came to the attention of Dogs Deserve Better local Rep Susan Hartland who tried to work with her previous owner to get her off the chain or released to DDB for adoption. Susan even had Jenna groomed to get the mats out of her coat. The crate you see in the photo below was Jenna’s only shelter from the elements. Despite being neglected she was a sweet girl.

(photos by Karen Ducey)

After three weeks in the shelter without being put up for adoption Jenna was going to die unless we could find her a foster home. She had fallen through the cracks as so many dogs do. The local Dogs Deserve Better northern breed expert Terra (mom to two wonderful malamutes) rushed to the shelter to assess Jenna. She was a typical husky who just needed a chance and some TLC. Poor Jenna’s coat was rough, she was skeletal under all that fur, and her hips ached from being left on a hard concrete floor with no padding for weeks. Even after all this neglect she was a sweet baby, happy to be in the presence of Susan and Terra.

DDG found Jenna the foster parents who will write most of this blog. They have two Siberian huskies and have given Jenna a great place to recover and blossom. Terra sprang Jenna from death row, took her home for a night and gave her some love and then brought her to her new foster home the next morning. It was obvious Jenna knew things had taken a turn for the better. She was ecstatic to be out of the cage…

All in all, Jenna will make someone an unbelievable companion, she is a perfect girl to take anywhere and everywhere with you. But she definitely needs an experienced dog owner and one who has done their homework on owning a northern breed dog.

As a result of constant interaction with our huskies (in particular my male, she does her best to follow and imitate him), she is learning very quickly how to just be a dog. After several trips to the dog park, we can conclude a few things:

1. She is great in a social setting with other dogs. She knows her role in the social structure and there has been zero sign of any sort of aggression or fear-based snapping at other dogs, she loves to get in the mix and plays very well with dogs her size.
2. This girl can flat out fly, she can give my male a run for his money.
3. She likes to swim, not like a retriever or anything, but she will get in there and splash around with other dogs.
4. She is great on a leash, but off leash she still occasionally suffers from the same syndrome all huskies suffer from: Selective Hearing.
5. She is a smart girl, she knows what you are saying to her and what you want, albeit she also knows she has a choice to follow said wishes.

After becoming what amounts to a probationary member of our husky pack, Jenna continues her astonishing improvement. She continues to put on weight and her capacity to give and return affection has increased tenfold, as has her capacity to handle bodily manipulation. She is eating well, socializing well, and I have seen few dogs who learn as quickly as she does. Having said that, she is still very much a husky, so even though she knows the difference between right and wrong, she realizes she has a choice.

Her first vet visit, courtesy of Dogs Deserve Better, went relatively well. The doc was encouraged by her weight gain and improvements to her coat, as well as the elimination of her respiratory infection (which we are still finishing her round of antibiotics). She is still wary of strangers palpating areas of her body she cant see, and ended up reacting a bit harshly to the doc manipulating her bladder area. This may indicate a medical problem, but it may just be her remaining wary of people touching her more than she is ready to be touched. In my opinion, it’s the latter rather than the former. She does still need some dental work, but started her vaccinations which she will get boostered in three weeks.

After the Vet’s office, we decided to try her out in the house. She did very well, considering she has never been in a house before, but we did encounter two speedbumps: Her instinctive desire to mark and cats. She only marked once, and that was after following her around the house for a few hours and giving her some freedom. I expected this, frankly, and is just something we have to work on. She didn’t fully “pee” in the house, it was just a small mark. As far as the cats go, she is more just fascinated with them rather than aggressive. It’s going to be tough for her, she’s never had to accept cats as anything more than something to chase, but after a few hours even this started to wear off and she largely left them alone.

So, all in all, her hangups are fairly small and definitely surmountable. She is a good girl and after a week it is clear to me what kind of owner she will do best with:

1) Someone with an understanding that no negative reinforcement can ever be used with her. She is very sensitive to just raising your voice, so a stern “no” is enough for her to understand what she is doing is wrong. She needs a tender but assertive leader, she is very much like having a special needs child. She is amazingly sweet and affectionate, but you need to be conscious that her psyche is a bit fractured from being isolated and neglected her whole life. But also be aware she is making incredible progress every day.

2) She needs to be exercised daily. A long walk would be ok some days, but this girl needs to get her heart pumping to be truly happy. When she has been run, she lets go of all her nervous energy and just lets go, you can physically see her relax and just be happy. She is a working dog, she needs to work everyday. That is her owner’s responsibility. If she has to redirect her work energy towards something destructive because she hasn’t been given a proper outlet, you can’t blame her.

3) If you want a pristine yard, she may not be the dog for you. She is a husky, they dig a bit. If she is exercised, she doesn’t dig much at all. If you skip a day, expect her to redirect her energy into something of her own making.

4) She needs a pack: be it her owner or another dog. A husky is the closest thing to wolves as far as DNA goes, and that is no more evident in her need to be where everyone else is. She just wants to be with you or the other dogs.

Jenna is an extremely sweet, smart, and active dog. She needs an owner who relfects her personality. If you are that person, you will have a brilliant addition to your life. Jenna deserves a second chance, she is a brilliant girl.

Some big changes the last few days: Jenna no longer looks anything like the dog we met a couple days ago. Jenna has put on at least four to five pounds, her coat is becoming soft and lush, her eyes and cough have completely cleared up, and her new favorite thing to do is wrestle. She loves to wrestle with us and she really gets into it, but somehow knows to not play too rough.

Being that her kennel cough has cleared up, we brought her out to meet the other member of the pack, one at a time. Kaiya met her with her usual dominant poise at first (she is a very dominant female), but once she saw that Jenna posed no threat to her, she immediately shifted to attempts to get her to play (I posted videos of both her and Ruckus), and Jenna did very well after she figured out how to react. Ruckus was next, and he is just so much bigger and athletic that it took a bit of supervision for them to work it out, but now they are all comfortably mingling in the backyard. Within a few days, I am sure they will all be learning from eachother and be packed up and happy.