Sunday 20 April 2014

Spike: The Special Husky


Spike the Special Husky
One year on, our “last ever foster Husky” has become an integral part of the Huskies Running team and has attracted a lot of fame thanks to his personality and determination to live life to the full.  He has severe physical problem, development problems and several other health issues that we keep on finding.  He feels pain every day of his life and yet he remains a happy a delightful little chap with a personality as big as his heart.

Week one
I don’t think I will ever forget the day I met Spike.  I expected a bald and very underweight, but cute blue eyed baby husky of about 3 months.  What actually arrived on our doorstep was a dog that looked a little bit like a husky crossed with a gremlin.  He had comically oversized ears that flapped when he moved and a strange shaped head disproportional in size to his very frail body.  Sparse fur covered his body and his tail looked more fitting for a rat than a husky.  He had huge paws and very weak hind legs that wobbled as he tried to walk.
But the one thing that I remember most of that first meeting was Spike’s smile.  Standing in front of me was a little dog badly treated and abandoned by humans, close to death when he was found and with absolutely no reason to trust or be happy to see a strange person peering at him through suspicious eyes.  He smiled back at me as I stood there trying to absorb the detail of his condition.   He smiled at Ian and he smiled at some people that happened to be walking past when he was led from the van that had brought him to our house.

With his Husky family
Spike has now been with us for nearly a year, he has grown into a beautiful swan and his smile remains.  He loves people and loves life, even when he struggles with pain he remains determined to enjoy life to the full.  The simple things in life give him great happiness and each and every day I learn something new about him and his attitude to life 

Our plan had been to foster him on behalf of SHCGB Welfare and when he was fit and healthy he would be adopted by a loving family.  “Just one more foster” had been my plea to Ian, “I promise it will only be for a few months…..”

Having fun
For those that do not know his story, we achieved the original objective and helped Spike grow a glorious husky fur coat and gain enough weight to achieve the honour of “heaviest dog in the household”.  We even found a family that wanted to adopt him.
But sadly my promise to Ian was broken and will remain broken forever and a day.  Spike will never leave us and will stay here until he breathes his last breath.  We have now adopted him and he lives permanently with us and our little pack of Siberian Huskies.  They all accepted him from day one and have taught him how to be a husky.  We have tried to teach him about life outside of a husky pack, but I think the reality is that he is teaching us more about what really is the best approach to life….

Spike is not a “normal” Husky.  The first 6 month of Spike’s life caused so much damage to his body that he will never be allowed to live the life a Husky should.  Spike has hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia and a deformed jaw and those are only the conditions that we have been able to accurately diagnose.  At times he struggles to walk or even get up from a sleeping position.  He should lead a sedentary and lazy life to reflect his condition.  And he has every right to be a grumpy boy with a negative attitude towards the human race and the problems that they have caused him.

But Spike is a dog.  He does not think like a human and he bears no grudges to anyone or anything.  He refuses to accept that he should not run or jump or bounce around.  It does not matter if it hurts him because he loves doing it and no one is ever going to convince him otherwise.  We have tried to restrict what he does, but he ignores us and will perform spectacular “walls of death” manoeuvres in the living room if we dare to tell him to take it easy…
Spike has taught me many things in the past year.  I now smile when I see fluttering leaves blowing in the wind as I think of Spike spending hours pouncing on them.  When I am out running and a train comes alongside I speed up, thinking of Spike and his fascination of chasing trains.  I sometimes splash in the puddles because I can and you should see what happens what a person on a bicycle dares to try and overtake me during a run….
But the greatest thing that Spike is trying to teach me is patience.  Patience is not a virtue that I have been blessed with.  I understand the importance of it, but just choose to ignore it in a world where time is precious to me.  Having lived with Siberian Huskies for nearly twenty years and run thousands upon thousands of miles with them I have had the honour of entering their world and understanding how they view the world around them.  I have studied them for hours, watched how they assess situations, solve problems and interact within a pack.  I understand what motivates them, what drives them to perform certain behaviours and most importantly I trust them.  They can understand my body language instantly, sometimes without even looking at me!  Not sure how that works, I can only assume that there is a slight change in my tone of voice that they pick up on. 
If our running route includes a steep or potentially dangerous terrain, the two brother Sibes (Kez & Kroi) will instantly come and run by my side until we are back on safe terrain. They will then shoot forward and resume normal position of running 6- 8 feet in front of me – on our leisurely long runs I run the dogs on collar and long lead, which allows us all to run freely while retaining control and not endangering the local wildlife.
Spike thinks all hills should be descended at full speed and that the human should either keep up or drop his lead….

Joking aside, when we are running Spike generally does not listen to me.  He will follow and will copy the other dogs, but if I ask him to speed up or slow down he ignores me.  He runs quickly and I speed up to keep up with him, he slows down and so do I.  He controls the pace that we run at, not me!   Sometimes he will be trotting along sedately and then without warning break into a gallop for no apparent reason.  I now just try to “go with the flow” when this happens and try to imagine that we are chasing a polar bear or some other imaginary creature that Spike has suddenly “seen”.

When Spike suddenly stops running I stand and wait for him and then off we go again.  When he first did this I feared the worst and that he had pushed himself too far.  It has now happened on numerous occasions and with no apparent detriment to Spike.  I can offer no explanation for this behaviour other than that he just wants a little break to catch his breath and recover before his next little burst of explosive energy.  I have never known this of any Siberian Husky that I run with, they all naturally know how to pace themselves and will never stop, just slow down depending on temperature and terrain.

Where'd it go...??
Spike does not possess the problem solving ability of Siberian Huskies.  If something is different he does not know how to manage the situation.  Simple things that the other dogs accept and deal with cause him confusion and he requires either husky or human help.  Put his food bowl in a different location than usual and he is unsure what to do until you hand feed him or pretend to eat his dinner.  If there is an obstacle across the path (such as a twig) he stops dead.  He does not realise that he can either go over it or push past it. Instead he waits until I either show him or ask one of the other dogs to show him the best way to negotiate the obstacle.  This does mean I need to be constantly alert and try to view the world as Spike does, otherwise a dog stopping dead right in front of me could prove disastrous, especially while running at speed!  He also believes that if you see a deer in one location then you will always see a deer there.  Just wait long enough and they will appear…..  But make sure that you scream when the human tells you get a move on.  Only the other day he was so adamant that the deer he saw the previous evening were going to appear in exactly the same place that he completely missed two of them crossing directly in front of us less than 10 feet away!

I believe in dreams, it is what propels me forward when I am struggling.  I know that Spike does not have dreams in the way that I do, but I am sure that there is much that he would love to do, if only his body would allow him.  Spike will never be able to run long distances, will never run a marathon, so last Sunday Ian and I ran a marathon for him. 
I decided to run the London marathon knowing that I would struggle because of an injury that requires surgery, but I chose to run for Spike – run a marathon in his name.  It worked, we did it…. Hearing Spike’s name being shouted from the crowds drove me on when I wanted to stop.  Spike is not a quitter and neither am I and my pain is nothing compared with what he has had to cope with all his life.


Several years ago I was told that I would never run more than a mile because of a chronic ankle injury.  Several operations, nearly 100 marathons/ ultras and many dreams later I am still running and refusing to give up what I love.  Spike and I are very similar in that respect as we are both driven to do what we love.  I love to dream and I love to run, combine the two and miracles do happen.  And guess what, the long held dream to run a sub four minute mile with huskies is moving closer and closer and with Spike’s help I am determined to achieve that very special dream……