Mal

2018/05/07

Remembering Anana

This past Friday (May 4, 2018) I said ‘Goodbye’ to my ‘little’ angel Anana who quietly passed sometime in the wee hours of May 4th.  Anana, my 125 pound female Alaskan malamute, gave me eight and a half years of joy, love, humor and amazement.  I was privileged to raise her from an awkward, ten week old puppy to a beautiful, regal but always mischievous adult Mal.  She was my first canine after decades of no pets due to employment based travel requirements and also the first Mal I’d ever known.  The breeder warned me Mals were far different from other breeds with respect to training and developing a relationship; as such we each had a lot to learn and to teach the other.  Anana did so in classic Mal style and while I suspect I was often a source of frustration to her because I was so slow to understand her ways she was always patient and loving.  As the breeder had warned me I quickly learned to pick my battles with my growing girl as I just was not going to win every one.  As such I came to realize I developed a series of ‘understandings’ with my baby; some favored her needs while others satisfied my own.  In the end our relationship was based on trust, mutual respect and a whole lotta love.

Anana Chewing Bed 2

Anana at eleven weeks of age lounging in her new bed

I'm TOO Cute

Anana in her ‘aren’t I just too cute’ mode at three and a half months of age

Anana came to me at a dark time in my life yet she brought with her a spirit which exuded a love of life, a need for much exercise, a deep mischievous streak and unconditional love.  Just caring for her puppy needs and attempting to reach some of those ‘understandings’ really helped me to come to grips with my situation as caretaker of the family home after my father passed and Mom was living in an assisted living facility.  Anana quickly showed a love of anything on two legs and she never met a person she didn’t love.  So many folks who were initially concerned about her size quickly fell under her spell and found themselves drawn to this gentle Teddy Bear.  While living at the family home Anana became a real rock star within the neighborhood as people out walking would stop by our yard to see her and young children would come to the door asking if “Anana can play”.  When I decided to begin volunteering at the Northville (MI) Sunrise facility where Mom was staying I started bringing Anana with me.  At first I was worried because she was such an energetic and exuberant puppy but my concerns were ill-founded; Anana was instinctively slow and gentle when interacting with the residents.  She delighted everyone with her repertoire of howls and other vocalizations.  She quickly achieved the informal title of ‘Visiting Therapy Dog’ and spent the next three plus years as a fixture at the facility.  On the odd days when I couldn’t bring her with me when volunteering the first thing I’d hear as I entered the facility was; “Where’s Anana?”

Anana with Nina & Luba

Anana with Luba – a Nazi death camp survivor – and Luba’s daughter Nina in the Sunrise of Northville (MI) assisted living facility

I’m not sure Anana ever completely forgave me from removing her from her extended ‘Sunrise home’ to relocate to semi-rural south central Alaska in July of 2013.  She did love living up here and irritating the local moose population but I also could tell she missed seeing scores of people on a regular basis.  People naturally gravitated to her and whenever she accompanied me and Qanuk into the village during tourist season my Escape would be quickly surrounded by doting tourists lining up to pet her and take her picture.  Often I spent tens of minutes answering queries about my girl and waiting until everyone had finished petting Anana and taking her picture so we could pull out.  My neighbors knew her well and enjoyed her larger than life presence in this immediate area.  Anana accompanied me almost everywhere I went and she was an amazing passenger this past September when she and Qanuk made the 5,200+ mile round trip to Three Forks (MT) to pick up an R-pod travel trailer and haul it back here.  She made new friends at every motel where we’d overnight and sometimes the staff would stop by the room with treats for her and Qanuk.  She was truly a ‘people dog’!

Maybe Anana Hasn't Learned Her Lesson

My Alaskan malamute companion (Anana) was a bit too close to this moose just outside my driveway; it let her know it was time to ‘back off!’

She was Qanuk’s adult canine figure and mentor; as such she really smoothed out some of the traditional German Shepherd Dog traits like suspicion of any unknown human and excessive barking.  But, being true to her breed, she did teach Qanuk to be very vocal and even howl from time to time.  To this day Qanuk remains one of the most vocal GSDs I’ve ever known and regularly expresses his feelings through grunts, groans, whines and other indescribable sounds.  He remains a very effective watchdog but he doesn’t exhibit excessive barking which is fine by me.  He seems to be handling Anana’s absence in stride although I do see him sometimes sniffing some of Anana’s favorite lounging areas and while outside walking I can sense he sometimes looks for his friend.  Anana was the only steady canine influence in Qanuk’s life from the time I brought him home at seven weeks of age (he is now about six and a half years old).

Buddies

Anana sheltering Qanuk on the back porch of the dump we lived in just outside Northville (MI)

I wish Qanuk could’ve learned more patience and acceptance of young children and adult males from Anana; he remains very skittish around both types of people but never aggressive or threatening.  Anana was a natural with children which is all the more exceptional as she had almost no experience with kids growing up.  While volunteering at Sunrise I would assist in taking a number of the ‘Reminiscence’ residents – those struggling with dementias – to a summer music concert in a local town; I drove the bus and served as one of the ‘wranglers’.  We brought the residents so they could enjoy some time outside observing the kids and we provided a picnic lunch.  The first time I brought Anana along I was a bit concerned about what her reaction would be to so many youngsters just being kids.  In hindsight I should’ve known better; early on a young girl walked up to us and asked if she could pet Anana who was off her lead but lying a few feet from me.  I said; “Sure” and the youngster cautiously approached Anana and petted her head.  Anana, of course, loved the attention and moved a bit closer to the girl.  I looked away just briefly to count the residents; something one learns to do on a regular basis when on such outings.  After assuring myself everyone was accounted for I looked back to where Anana had been and saw no less than fourteen children surrounding her!  Anana was lying on her side and just loving all the attention.  Many of the kids had close by parents; it was heartwarming to see their initial concern melt away to smiles as their kids petted the big black and white Teddy Bear.

Gene&Anana CU

Anana reveling in Gene’s attention; she was around ten months of age

Anana was an exceptional canine and I could go on and on about her amazing character and adventures; she was the epitome of unconditional love and probably one of the most wonderful ambassadors for the Alaskan malamute breed ever to walk this earth.  Learning to live without my ‘little’ angel is going to be a very difficult proposition but one I will embrace with time.  Mostly, I want to remember all the wonderful times we shared and celebrate the eight and a half wonderful years I was privileged to share with my ‘Anana Dog’.  It truly was mostly sweet and she was the sweetest of it all..!

Anana in Fall Leaves

My beautiful ‘little’ angel in Alaskan fall leaves…

 

2015/02/13

Solo and Sick

Although normally a very healthy person suffering only from the usual age related infirmities (i.e. weakening eyes, forgetfulness, morning aches, weight gain, etc.) at the start of February I contracted some illness which apparently is burning through this region as well as many places in the lower 48.  It is rather unusual in that it begins with a sore throat, low grade fever, a sense of overall weakness/lack of energy and slowly mounting cough; by day two the cough is a deep, hacking repetitive monster settled well into one’s lungs.  By day four the fever and sore throat are gone but the cough remains in full force although one can begin to feel it lifting its locus from the lungs into the throat.  By day seven all symptoms are gone except for a general weakness and the cough.  I am now into day twelve of this illness and it continues to tease me with feelings it is disappearing followed by kicking my butt if I so much as try to start acting normally.  But across this entire situation I’ve experienced no congestion in either my lungs of my head, something that’s very surprising given the cough.  From what I’ve been told the cough requires around three weeks to completely disappear.  I was quite impressed with the fact this organism was capable of knocking me flat on my back for the first five days; all I did was sleep, drink gallons of water, sleep, try to hold down some soup and sleep.  In the first 96 hours of this battle I believe I sent 78 hours in bed.  As the fever and sore throat departed and the cough moved up into my throat my need for sleep has diminished although I’m still making sure I get at least ten hours a night.

All told this has been a most unpleasant time and it has caused me to reflect upon myself as a patient and my lifestyle as a single human being.  I’ve known since childhood I am a lousy patient and my demeanor is directly proportional to how bad I feel; in this case imagine an old grizzly bear awakened abruptly from hibernation only to find snow and cold outside his den suffering from severe hunger and possessing a fuse maybe a sixteenth of an inch in length.  I feel so bad for my dogs as although I honestly try they still get the brunt of my negativity and Heaven knows they do not deserve it!  In fact given my largely comatose condition across the first five days and their almost non-existent exercise they have behaved wonderfully.  Yes, I did get up to let them outside three times a day and made sure they had food and water but that was about as much as I could muster yet they responded by being perfect family members.  Really makes me proud of how I raised them but much more so proud of their intelligence, patience and loyalty.  It always put a smile on my face when I’d finally awaken in the morning and find Qanuk’s favorite tennis ball by my head; he ‘gave’ it to me just in case I might want to awaken and play a bit.  Anana is the classic Mal; endless patience broken only by random periods of her need to ‘talk’ up a storm.  I love the Mal vocabulary of howls, grunts, wheezes and similar and thus I’ve always encouraged her to be vocal.  As I’ve improved I’ve been able to get them outside; I’ll often load them in my Escape and drive around handling important chores.  Upon finishing I drop them on a back road a few miles from the house and allow them to chase me back home.  A real advantage to living rural is the complete lack of traffic on the back roads!

This is as ill as I’ve been in many decades and it really did cause me to reflect upon my choice to be living solo with just my dogs in a rural setting.  Because I am still relatively new to south central Alaska I have yet to build up a robust network although I must admit I was surprised and pleased by so many genuine offers to walk the dogs, make store runs and similar!  I knew Alaskans are known for being caring, sharing people but even so I did not expect this level of support.  Yet this remains quite different from what so many folks have in terms of support be it a significant other or close by family.  In working through my desire to relocate to this area I was painfully aware I would be putting thousands of miles between myself and my family and friends.  I was very concerned about this concept but saw no resolution if I went ahead and made the move.  To be honest once my folks passed my closest sibling was in Chicago (240 miles to the west) but he soon moved to Albuquerque (NM).  My sister has almost always lived in Colorado and hence she was well over a thousand miles to the west.  I have some loosely held connections with cousins and Aunts but they are mostly 500+ miles to the ESE.  So as far as family the move didn’t really involving making a separation but rather exacerbated that which already existed.  This was not the case with my network of friends in Michigan and this caused me the most angst in deciding whether to move so far afield.  In the end I was chasing a 16 year old dream and I couldn’t not say ‘Yes’ to the opportunity.  I sometimes have second thoughts but then it was a huge lifestyle shift and it only occurred 19 months back.

But this current bout with whatever illness I’m still locked in battle against did give me some long, sleepless periods during the coughing spells in which I could review my choice and my situation.  No surprise many of these times were rather negative as I struggled with trying to quell the cough and the up-welling of illness induced concerns about caring for myself as I age and illnesses become more impactful.  Sometimes it was downright desperate in nature although I also realized the sickness was skewing all my thought processes in such a negative direction.  I did realize it was much better for me to be alone with this illness given just how close to ‘Hell on Wheels’ I was in terms of my overall personality.  No one should have to be subjected to me when I felt that bad!  So this was a good thing.  In addition I was aware that despite how devastated I felt during those first four days I was also still capable of rational thought as I set it in my mind that if the cough remained in my lungs by Monday I was going to break down and visit the Sunshine Clinic just three miles from here.  In addition I had the phone numbers of two neighbors who would gladly have come by to check on the dogs and me.  So all in all I was ‘okay’ for the short term while I monitored my own progress and reacted accordingly.

Of course as one really ages – such as crossing the 60 year old mark – I believe it becomes paramount to begin to recognize one’s infirmities and to plan ‘round them such that one’s abilities are not too diminished while living safer.  My stairwell is narrow and steep in this place; from the time I moved in I started training Qanuk to never, ever be on the stairs with me.  He is far too excitable and energetic; I could easily see him knocking me down by accident and me ending up at the base of the stairs with a broken ankle or leg…or worse.  If there’s outside work that requires getting up to the second floor or higher I’m paying to have it done; I’ve recognized my balance isn’t as good as it used to be!  There are a plethora of other ‘concessions’ I’ve made with plans on how to minimize their impact on my lifestyle.  I do not want to ‘wall myself in’ with so many restrictions I cannot enjoy life; this would be a travesty.  But I do want to live a little smarter and safer; in pursuing this goal I recognize I should shy away from things I may have done without a second thought at age 50.  Part of my leanings in this direction stem from watching my folks refuse to accept age related infirmities and pay for their denials.  Seeing Dad on a ladder at his place cleaning out the second floor gutters when he was 90 years of age scared the daylights out of me.  And I saw the results of Mom climbing up a short ladder to fill a bird feeder and losing her balance.  These were extremely healthy octogenarians plus yet the infirmities of age negatively affected their abilities.  I am in nowhere near as good shape as them but I do recognize that I just cannot do some of the things I did when I was 45 years of age nor should I try.  That’s life…

Learning to accept that age often means a lessening of one’s abilities particularly in the extremes is a part of aging and something I feel is necessary.  In one sense I suppose one could make a case for me holding myself back based on these beliefs.  But in another I accept the fact that I can ill afford a major injury like a broken leg when living my lifestyle.  Because of this I’ve adopted a simple approach which has served me to this point:  I accept I do have some age related infirmities which will restrict some areas of my life but I do not dwell upon them or bemoan them; they simply are a part of my aging process!