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| Spike the Special Husky |
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| 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.
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| 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…..”
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| 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.
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| 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……
