It Started with a Husky

According to some random quiz I took on Facebook, 2011 is supposed to bring me pain. Since that makes no sense, I have decided to use this year and this blog as a place to maybe exorcise some demons and maybe purge some deep down pain. I have a lot of demons. The first is one that I choose not to talk about because it sucks. Don't all demons, though?

I moved to Michigan a little over five years ago, and shortly after I moved here I began the search for a puppy. I wanted an Alaskan Malamute, but after seeing how incredibly large they get, we settled on a Siberian Husky. Same difference, right?

Grey Alaskan Malamute

Grey Siberian Husky















Appearance-wise, what's the difference, right? Huskies seemed to just be more a manageable size than the malamute, so that's what we got. After we got Ash, we got Cedar and then Ditto. Three huskies, and when they got to breeding age, that's what they did. Now, if it had stopped after one or two litters it probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but it got absolutely ridiculous, and a point of shame for us both.

After a certain point, several husky escapes and many many killed rabbits, cats and wild animals later, we decided we had definitely not done enough research on the dogs and HAD TO call it quits on the huskies. In between, there were other breeds we tried out, and failed miserably for one reason or another.

The blue heeler/jack russell mix HATED little man. She tried to attack him when I was holding him in a standing position before he had even learned to crawl. She found a new home, and it was beautiful watching her connect with the older lady that adopted her. They were truly canine-human soulmates. Not coincidentally, this sparked an interest in starting a no-kill shelter, which we WILL run once we're in a position financially to be able to handle that sort of a job.

Anyway, we've gone through and re-homed so many dogs, it's pretty embarrassing. And WE KNOW IT WASN'T RIGHT. Really. But our addiction/obsession with dogs ended abruptly when we adopted Koko. I don't talk about her. We've mentioned her in passing, but her story is so DARNED painful that it's even hard to blog about. But I'm going to try anyway.

We took a quick trip to Jay's Sporting Goods because we were getting kind of tired of sitting at home, and went to browse the puppy parking lot. (Knowing full well that we should never never NEVER go there because it's so hard to leave empty-handed.) That day there was the usual array of overpriced labs, German Shorthairs, Weimeraners, foo-foo dogs, and other breeds that we know don't mesh well with us. Skipped them all. And then we saw the pitt puppies. OMG they were adorable and the woman who had them in the back of her truck "JUST WANTED THEM GONE!" We looked, and they looked sad, weighed down heavily by worms, and just overall defeated. Then we saw Koko, and she was boisterous, full of energy, and uber-playful. It was love at first sight. We took her home. (If I had my way, I would have taken them ALL and tried my darnedest to get them healthy.)

In the car on the way home we tried to think of a name for her. She was all white, but names synonymous with white just didn't fit her. Then "Kokomo" came on the radio, and her name was quickly shortened to Koko. She chewed on our fingers all the way home, and was quickly making us fall in love with her. (We should have seen it as a sign that something wasn't right when we passed the racetrack and I joked that I should have taken the last of my money and bet on the long shot. I didn't and he won.)



This picture isn't Koko, but it's pretty close to what she looked like. She had a couple faint grey spots on her left ear, but was otherwise all white.

We got her home, set up her food and water, and watched her bounce around with the min pin. Jaden loved her and giggled at every silly slip up she had. I wormed her with the same wormer we used so many times with all. those. husky pups. Then she slept. Wormer does that to a puppy.

The next day Koko had slowed down. She wasn't eating as much, but she still drank water, and even though she passed a TON of worms, she seemed to be adjusting OK. She wasn't quite as playful as the day before, but with the ordeal with those worms, we didn't think too much of it. We just tried to keep her comfortable and get her to drink water. I tried softening her food... She still wouldn't eat. I was getting worried.

The third day when we woke up, she was vomiting and had the most horrific-smelling diarrhea on the planet!  I had started feeding her with one of Jaden's medicine syringes. She got a teaspoon of formula every hour, and she immediately threw it back up. She was going downhill fast, and we were horrified. The worms were gone and we were able to see her body... wormless, deflated. I WANTED TO BEAT THE LIVING HELL OUT OF THE WOMAN WHO BRED THOSE DOGS! I'm serious. This puppy was emaciated. Not just a little ribby. HORRIBLY EMACIATED and tiny. You could see every single bone in her body. Every last one. We were told they were 9 weeks old. She looked maybe 5 weeks at best. You know those ASPCA commercials with Sarah McLachlan singing "Angel"? Yeah, THAT emaciated.

So we had this amazing, beautiful, emaciated, sickly puppy. Between bouts of everything coming back out both ends, she slept. We called the vet, and she began to sleep more than she got sick. She just didn't have anything left. The vet said to keep her comfortable and let her know she was loved. She was already on her way out, and even if we had taken her in to be put down, she might have just died on the 20 minute ride to the vet. So I laid on the bed with her. I held her in my sweatshirt and watched her breathe... those last struggling breaths... painful for her and painful to watch. She held on for two more hours. Jaden got to say goodbye before I told her to let go. We all did. But that didn't make it any easier. She had changed our lives. Completely turned it upside-down. We learned so much in that short time..... I can't even tell you how much she gave to us... and how much that breeder took away. Three days with that puppy felt like 15 years. God, I loved that dog.