A meandering blog with no clear topic. You will find me talking about knitting, building, kids, social and economic issues, Alaska, and lots of other stuff.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Monster


This is Monster. He is joining our family tonight. He is a 3 or 4 year old Alaskan Malamute, who is retiring from mushing. This dog is HUGE. I pet him without bending over at all and his paws are as big as saucers. This is an interesting addition for us. Monster is an outside dog; his current owner says he has never lived inside. He has lived in the dog house you sort of see next to him, on a 4 foot lead when not pulling a sled, with about 30 other dogs in close proximity, as is quite typical with sled dogs. Doesn't seem like ideal conditions, but he is a happy, cheerful, exuberant dog.
We will be keeping him in somewhat different conditions, but we will have to keep him chained when not leashed, at least at first, until we are certain he will not run away. Gypsy, our current dog, is never chained or leashed, unless we are somewhere in a crowd where she has to stay with us, such as a playground. She runs around the neighborhood, but never goes far, so we don't have to worry about keeping her chained up. We only have one neighbor close enough for her to bother, and they seem to like her visiting. She is good with other dogs, and Monster is certainly used to other dogs, so we are hoping they will get along ok. We will continue to keep him an outside dog... sled dogs don't do well indoors, as they are conditioned to the cold.
We have thought about putting him to work... we have a huge pile of cut firewood that needs to be hauled to the wood shed for next winter, that is a ways away. We can hook a sled to his harness and fill it with wood, then have him pull it to the house. In addition, he will need lots of exercise, and at least until he can be let loose on his own, that means that one of us will have to get lots of exercise too, LOL. Guess I won't need to do the elliptical machine at the gym anymore. He is a big strong dog, and I hope I can keep him from pulling me all over creation. At least that would give James entertainment :).
I hope he likes it at our house.

3 comments:

Meadowlark said...

Coming from the girl who actually knows nothing, this is meaningless, but the idea of him working/pulling is EXCELLENT.

These guys LOVE to pull.. and huskies especially are built for long, slow and heavy work.

He's a sweetie.

msaonika said...

What a cutie! I love that you are getting a new puppy. You will have to tell me how you came about getting him....

I am sorry that I haven't been online... I had my phone shut off the other night when you TM'd me - my Boss was giving me extra heck after hours... so I figured powering off would be the best idea... Go figure...

LOVE YOU

Chile said...

I second the opinion that giving him work to do will be the best for him. If he's been a sled dog up until now, he's used to having a "job". Dogs like having something useful to do. You could get/make a small personal sled to have him haul you around as well as the wood.