For the Love of Lilly: Living with Malamutes in Hawaii

Prologue

This book is a recollection of some of the best years of my life. It is full of stories, vignettes, and observations about living with Malamutes. For ten years in particular, I was the companion and caregiver of a most beautiful, intelligent, loving, female Malamute named Lilly. This book is really Lilly’s story, as told by me in words, with a few woofs and some pictures. Lilly’s story would not be accurate or complete if the rest of her pack were not included. Lilly lived her whole life with a pack of humans, felines, and canines. Lilly’s pack was an essential link in my relationship with Malamutes.

I was one of those children who was not allowed to have a dog while I was growing up. My mother had been threatened by a pack of dogs as a child in the woods of Vermont while out berry picking. She developed a terror of dogs that has lived within her for her whole life and was present in my life with my original family. My mother communicated a fear of dogs to me and to the rest of my siblings. Luckily, though I look a lot like my mom, I am not totally like her. I took after my father’s side some too; especially my father’s mother, Molly.

Molly was a gardener and an animal lover. I spent a week or two living with my father’s folks for a couple of summers when I was young. It was a glorious time for me to be away from the rat race of being the first-born child and only-girl in an ever-increasing family of brothers.

My grandmother and I would work in the garden everyday. Grandmother Molly was really good at growing tomatoes and, as you already know, there is nothing like a homegrown tomato. We spent hours weeding, staking, and harvesting those tomatoes, always under the watchful eyes of my grandmother’s German shepherd, Otto.

Otto was from Germany and trained as a watchdog. My grandfather, who had been a career military officer and a member of the Berkshire police force, had always bought trained German shepherds from a breeder in Germany. They were the best dogs, to his way of thinking, to protect his family, especially while he was away fighting in the war. Otto was perfectly obedient to my grandmother and would often anticipate what she wanted him to do. He was the first dog I really got to know, and it was love all the way. Still, no matter how wonderful Otto was to me, and even to my mother when she visited her mother-in-law, having a dog was a closed book in my home when I was growing up.

Therefore, within a year of getting married, I did what so many other young adults do when they move out of their parent’s home. My husband and I got a house in the country; he got a motorcycle, and I got a dog. We went to the pound and found a shy, gentle four-month-old mutt—a mixed breed of golden retriever and some type of terrier. He weighed in at forty pounds, had a wiry blond coat, and beautiful brown eyes. I named him Tupelo Honey because he was so sweet.

Tupelo was the first dog to teach me about the unconditional love of a dog for his mistress. He was a good, well-behaved dog, though I never took him to dog training classes. I’m not sure they even had dog training classes in southeastern Connecticut back in 1973!

In 1976, we moved to the San Francisco Bay area. Within two years, my husband, Tupelo, and I had settled in Fremont, California. My husband was the service manager for a motorcycle shop there. The owner of the shop had a purebred German shepherd who was about to whelp. My husband knew how much I had loved Otto, so for our sixth anniversary, he got me one of the shepherd pups—a beautiful, pure black female that looked like a fuzzy little bear when I took her home at eight weeks. I named her Sasha Bear.

I raised Sasha, housebroke her, and taught her how to walk on a leash along with other rudimentary commands. Thereafter, she was my constant companion, with the intelligence and fierce loyalty that is innate to shepherds. She was my beautiful, loyal companion. Meanwhile, Tupelo had become a middle-aged and very mellow dog who was very tolerant of Sasha’s insistence and persistence. Sasha always had to be first to eat, the first out the door, the first to greet me, and so on. By the time she was full-grown, she outweighed Tupelo by about half his weight.

Tupelo, Sasha, and I roamed the hills, canals, parks, and coastal areas of the San Francisco and East Bays and the Pacific Ocean. We loved nothing more than to take off on the weekends and go hiking. My husband had taken on a new love—his motorcycles—so the dogs and I took care of ourselves in our new hometown and surrounding areas. I went back to college and completed a master’s degree in humanistic psychology. This time in school gave me many hours of studying at home. Walking with the dogs was always good for clearing my mind and developing ideas related to my master’s thesis. I was lucky to not have to work for two years while I got my degree and to get to spend so much quality time with my dogs.

In 1980, my husband and I split up. He would only agree to a divorce if I let him keep the dogs. I think this was a ploy to discourage me from leaving him, or at least to keep me coming around to visit the dogs. But I was intent on leaving the relationship and agreed to these terms.

For the first six months, I did come once a week to see Tupelo and Sasha, cook their food, and take them out on a hike. As time went on, my soon-to-be-ex realized we were not going to get back together and started to make it difficult for me to see them. I could not come over because he had guests, because he did not want me there when he wasn’t home, and any number of other reasons. I reduced my visits, though my heart ached for my beloved dogs.

For my part, I started getting busy in my new life, with a new job and participation in an exciting est network of transformational seminars, workshops, and trainings. Also, the places that I rented to live did not allow dogs, so I started to wall off that part of my heart as something I could not do anything about—I couldn’t see or have my dogs.

After a couple of years, when Tupelo was around eleven years old and Sasha was around six and suffering from hip dysplasia, they escaped from my ex-husband’s back yard and took off somewhere in the neighborhood. My brother let me know that he helped my ex look for the dogs, but they were unsuccessful. They neither saw nor heard about the dogs again. My heart was broken. I felt like the worst creep on the face of the earth for having abandoned those sweet, dependent creatures. Somehow, I buried this shame deep inside and went on with my life.

In 1985, I started vacationing on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. By late 1987, I had moved there with my best friend, Susan, a woman I had worked for in California. It felt like a dream. I fell totally and deeply in love with the Garden Island and the tropical lifestyle it allowed. I wanted to share my life with a dog. Susan was supportive of my interest in acquiring a canine companion and accompanied me on several outings to look at potential pups. I had determined that a Labrador retriever would be a good breed for me. I looked at newborn puppies and at bitches about to give birth, but no one called to me until I met Montana.

Montana had just moved from Oahu to Kauai with his human and canine family. He was two years old and had been raised as a show dog. He had the training and the ribbons to prove it. His humans had thought they would just commute to Oahu for the dog shows and keep showing Montana, his younger brother Dakota, and their mother. But the costs and difficulties of flying with their dogs to Oahu became too much, and they decided to sell both Dakota and Montana.

For Montana and me, it was love at first sight. When this gorgeous, two-year-old, yellow Lab male walked into the living room of his home, he walked right up to me, carefully jumped up and put both paws on my shoulders, and gave me a big lick across the face. The woman who owned and had trained Montana was appalled! She kept apologizing, saying that Montana never did that except upon request to her husband. She was so sorry; she did not know what had gotten into him. Montana, meanwhile, had sat down near me and was waiting to see what I would do next.

Well, whatever had gotten into that dog had worked for me; I knew Montana and I were meant for each other. Montana’s owner was surprised to hear my decision and asked if I was sure: didn’t I want Dakota, who was a year younger? Montana had made his impression; I had made my decision, and when my friend Susan agreed with me, Montana came home with us.

Montana was the love of my life for the five years we were together. He was always with me, always by my side, always patiently waiting to accompany me on whatever was next. Faithful and true to his species, he would wait for hours while I worked at my computer, talked on the phone, or read a book. He would spring up whenever I moved and follow me wherever I went. Because of his early obedience training, he was the kind of dog who could be taken anywhere and trusted with anyone. He was always gentle with elders and little children. He was so calm and loving that when we went camping, I could lie down and rest my head on his chest and he would lie still for as long as I rested. I called him my pillow dog for this accommodating way of his. Montana never again jumped up and put his paws on my shoulders, which I thought was very interesting, but he did give me plenty of kisses over the years we were together.

Montana and I moved in with friends who had a Welsh corgi named Blazer. Blazer loved to try to herd Montana around, to make him go over there, then come back over here, to stay away from this or that. Montana had the perfect laid-back personality and did not get upset with Blazer’s canine instincts—though by choice he did not spend a lot of time with Blazer, except for one fateful morning.

Montana woke me up very early one morning and asked me to let him outside which, I sleepily did, not knowing that the garbage man had left the gate open. I was next awakened by our neighbor outside my window calling for me to come right away as Montana had been hit by a car—the nightmare words you never want to wake up to. I ran in my nightgown out of the house, down the driveway, and to the main street where Montana was lying on the side of the road.

One look at him and I knew he was severely injured, though there were no visible marks, cuts, or blood. I sat on the ground and put his head in my lap and just stroked him. I told Montana what a wonderful dog he was and that I could not have asked for a better friend and companion. He lay in my lap breathing heavily for a few minutes and then he just stopped breathing. I don’t think he suffered much; maybe his back or neck was broken and he was paralyzed and did not feel any pain, as he never cried out nor did he try to move. He just died quietly in my arms. I was so glad to be able to hold him as he left this world.

Then the trauma of what happened rolled over me, and I went through some very heavy grieving. Someone helped me, and we got Montana’s body in the back of my station wagon. I drove home and just sat with him in the back of my car for hours, holding him, crying, rocking, inconsolable. Friends who came to see me were afraid for me, afraid of my grieving. I was so grief-stricken that I was not worried for myself, just struck by the incredible waves of pain of losing my dog.

Several of my men friends drove up to Koke’e State Park. There were a limited number of cabins that were leased to Hawaii residents for a period of 20 years. A group of my friends and I had gotten together and paid the lease on a cabin in Koke’e State Park that we called Hale Mala. There the men dug a grave for Montana. Some of my women friends drove me and Montana up to Koke’e. Before the sun went down, we had buried that sweet Lab in the forest floor near our cabin and planted a fragrant, native white hibiscus tree over his grave. I could not have done this without my friends, who did all this exactly right for me and for Montana.

So goes my love affair with dogs, some of my best friends. And my dogs have always led me to or were related to my best human friends. This book is about the most magnificent of dog breeds, the Alaskan malamute. In particular, it’s about seven malamutes—their lives and their loves over a twenty-three year period. It’s a journey taken with canine and human friends in California but mostly in Hawaii. This book is my attempt to honor these incredible creatures, with whom I have had the privilege of sharing life on earth.

1. Luther, the First Malamute

Luther. Photo by C. Millett.

When my friends Kay and Craig bought their beautiful home in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, they decided they wanted to get a dog. They went to the big dog show at the Cow Palace, just south of San Francisco. There were representatives of almost every breed of dog present. They watched the dogs in the ring doing their thing for the judge, heads held high, prancing around, stopping, turning on cue, in tight team with their handlers. There were many breeds that they were attracted to: the standard poodles, the Labs, the goldens, the Dalmatians, the rottweilers, the greyhounds, but no decisions were clear to them after the displays in the ring.

They walked through the area where the breeders and their dogs stayed when not in the show ring. They saw the doghouses, the trailers, the portable pens, and the other gear of those who had traveled to this dog show. Then they came upon a man lying down on a blanket with his great big, black and white malamute lying next to him. They were close yet not touching. One could see and even feel the connection between the man and his dog. Kay and Craig were both touched by the beauty of this creature, this malamute.

The man and dog appeared to be sleeping, both with smiles on their faces. In fact, the man was not sleeping and spoke to Kay and Craig while they were standing there staring at his dog. He said, I didn’t think he would win, but I just had to show everyone what kind of dog I had.

That did it; Kay and Craig looked at each other and knew they wanted to get a malamute. Before they left the Cow Palace Dog Show, the man told them the name of the breeder of the great big, beautiful malamute they had just met and they knew they would give her a call.

Kay and Craig continued walking around the outer areas of the show, watching the people and show dogs go through the various grooming processes: washing the coat, blow-drying and then brushing the coat until it gleamed, all using a wide variety brushes and combs. They enjoyed watching the strong, yet respectful, ways that many of the handlers or owners were with their prized companions and noticed those that were not that way.

Shortly after the dog show, Kay and Craig called Beth, the malamute breeder. They introduced themselves and began the phone and email exchanges that would lead to the breeding of Luther. Craig knew he wanted a big, beautiful, intelligent, black and white male. He and Kay both wanted a singer. After a litter was born on July 19, 1985, Beth knew that amongst the pups was Kay and Craig’s dog. She told them about the twelve puppies in the litter, and they all agreed on the one that had been identified as theirs. Unfortunately, it was a very busy time in Kay and Craig’s lives and it wasn’t until they were coming home from a trip to Oregon that they stopped by Beth’s kennels and met the pup who was then called Night Singer.

Kay and Craig had been up in Oregon visiting the best Japanese maple grower and bonsai artist on the West Coast. They had made several successful acquisitions of beautiful bonsais and were heading home to the Santa Cruz Mountains when they drove towards Lake Tahoe to meet the malamute pups. They had called Beth and told her they were coming. Beth had bemoaned the fact that there were only two puppies left, Night Singer and one other. She was anxious for Kay and Craig to see them.

They drove up the long, dirt driveway to Beth’s kennels, and when they got to the gate, they could not tell if anyone was home. They decided to walk up to the house and see if they could find anyone. No sooner had they passed by the gate, when eight full-grown malamutes came racing down the driveway toward them.

Now, if you have never had eight dogs come racing toward you, that’s one thing to imagine. Magnify that image so that there are eight 130-lb wolves racing toward you! That is what Kay and Craig faced in their first trip to Beth’s kennels. Gathering themselves up, Kay and Craig braced themselves, taking a good long look at what was coming—the art of seeing is a talent of theirs: eight big, fluffy, white plumes flying high—malamute tails! Kay and Craig correctly surmised that meeting these dogs was going to be okay. And it was. These malamute uncles were friendly and happy to see Kay and Craig and pleased to lead and escort them up to the house, a well-known and beloved trait of dogs, especially malamutes. As they