Rain Mountain Chinooks -- The View From Rain Mountain

Sometimes there is just the urge to write something about day to day life with the Chinooks that has no bearing at all on educating people about the breed, advertising our breeding stock, or bragging about wins in the show ring. Sometimes there are just small things that happen around the house that get the writer in me going. So this webpage is devoted to those little day to day whims, the cute antics around the house, and the thoughts they provoke. I hope you enjoy meeting the cast of characters that make life on Rain Mountain a busy, warm, and fun place to live.

Lolo Grows Up
Memorial Weekend - Waking Up
November 3rd - A Rainy Evening

Lolo Grows Up

Lolo spent the first eight weeks of her life on a ranch outside of Eugene, Oregon. Kay Lee Brown, whom I co owned Lolo's mom McKenzie with, did her best to get the pups exposed to sights, sounds, and people but when you live in a rural area, socializing a litter of Chinooks can be tough. Plus Lolo was the low pup on the totem pole of her litter, though breathtakingly beautiful. I knew I had to have her even though I went through the motions of choosing between her and her sister. Her first months of life weren't easy either. It was as if a back cloud found us on the drive from Eugene back to the Seattle area. At twelve weeks when we went to puppy class, we stopped in the office of the training facility to say hi to friends. Lolo got to play briefly with a rescue Lab pup that was coming through the lobby at the same time we were there. Sure enough, two days later Lolo had a bad respiratory virus. But then I was told that the Lab pup had to be put to sleep for being deathly ill with distemper. Lolo was young enough that she'd had only two of her distemper vaccinations so far. I spent two horrible days nursing her along until the results of her tests came back and we found she didn't have distemper.

A few months later, Lolo was playing with Taaku in the back yard when I hear a yelp. Sure enough, Lolo had managed to break her right front leg. The cast barely slowed her down though it was a couple months before her gait was back to normal. Then one day I shut the door to my home office so I could have a quiet conference call without the wrestling match that was going on between the dogs. When I opened the door after less than thirty minutes, it looked like a horror movie had been filmed in my kitchen, living room, family room, and down the hall. Every inch was covered with blood. All I could find was a small cut between Lolo's toes. But that quantity of blood couldn't be taken lightly. Sure enough the vet found an artery had been cut and she could have bled to death. I'm now an expert on how to get blood out of carpets.

For quite a while Lolo seemed to have escaped the cloud. She traveled to the Chinook Specialty in New Hampshire that summer with Carie Taylor, her favorite person in the world, while I stayed home with Taaku and her pups. Lolo was an excellent nurse maid and nanny to Taaku's pups and I started to dream about possibly breeding her some day. In November she finished her UKC Championship and when snow came, she started pulling with great skill, speed, strength, and enthusiasm. But in January of that winter, the black cloud returned. The dogs somehow managed to get the gate to the back yard open and within less than five minutes from the time I put them out the back door, a neighborhood boy was pounding on my door to tell me the dogs were out and one had been hit. It was Lolo and this time her left front leg was broken. Bless his heart and soft spot for Lolo, our vet, Dan Frey, opened the clinic up on a Sunday morning to check all the dogs over and splint Lolo's leg. This time she had surgery to put in a plate over her leg. I think I ached even more than she did.

Lolo took this downturn hard. She lost nearly ten pounds dropping from 58 pounds down to 48 and when she moved around the house she hung her head. She was nervous of strangers and when someone came to the house, she put up her hackles and barked. I couldn't just discipline her every time someone came to the door or she would start thinking that visitors equaled punishment. It was a tough few months. Her left wrist couldn't flex as far as the right due to the plate on her leg so her gait was going to be permanently affected. Slowly with a lot of home cooking, her weight came back up but her personality was so much different. By summer she started doing a bit better. She went with me on a trip to Idaho and Montana and had fun romping around the property at the home of JoAnn Filce and her family near Sandpoint, Idaho and that of the Lindhorsts outside of Great Falls, Montana. Taaku stayed in Great Falls to be bred and it was about a month before she came home. What with Holly and Thunder gone forever and Taaku in Montana, Lolo was suddenly head dog, senior in age to Taga and little Kamiak. She loved every minute of it and I began to see signs of confidence in her. John and Leslie Donais flew out from New Hampshire over Labor Day weekend with two of their pups who were going to Northwest homes. Lolo immediately claimed them as hers and would pin them down to wash them. I was afraid that Ruby wouldn't have any hair left by the time JoAnn came to pick her up a week later. Lolo was a very good surrogate mom.

Taaku came home from Montana and took over as head dog but she was also pregnant. Now a seasoned puppy aunt, Lolo waited until Taaku gave her an invisible signal before she stepped in to start helping with care of the Big Dog Litter. She would wrestle with them gently for hours but was also firm and didn't hesitate to put a pup in its place if it got out of line. Lolo loved babies. Before the last of Taaku's pups had even left for its new home, Lolo went into season. After twenty years of successfully juggling my intact males and females, Lolo and Taga managed a tryst despite me holding them each by their collars, trying to keep them apart. Taga had figured out sex with a bang and Lolo's look told the story clearly. If Taaku could have pups, so could Lolo. She wanted her own babies.

I had been planning to sell my house and look for a better location for the dogs and I but that plan was put on hold. Sure enough, Lolo presented me with a litter of six boys. She was an excellent mom, delivering them easily and having copious quantities of milk for them. Each of them were gorgeous though what with Lolo and Taga being cousins on one side and uncle/niece on the other, all the various odd color genes in their pedigrees came to the surface and we had every color of the rainbow -- gray with tan like Holly, black and tan like Banshee, buff like Riki, and tawny with black masking, just like Lolo. Lolo not only had her babies but gained status in the pack too.

Having babies has turned Lolo into a completely different dog. The first week I was worried when she didn't want to let her old friend Pam Chambers touch her pups. I was concerned that she was going to be difficult about people seeing them. But that faded as the pups grew. When people started to arrive to see the pups, a near constant stream of visitors every weekend, Lolo figured out that if she didn't push her way in, she'd miss out on the attention. The dog who had previously hung back and barked at visitors was now climbing into their laps! She needed attention too. Rather than keeping one of her pups, I was presented with Bucky from Balsam Ridge Chinooks who was only four days older than Lolo's babies and who arrived before her pups left. Bucky slid right into the household, deciding he was one of Lolo's Oh No! Litter, and Lo seemed to take it in stride. She nursed Bucky along with her pups and would pin him down to wash his face as if he were one of her own. Though it was tempting to keep one of Lo's babies too, I know better than to try and raise two pups the same age at the same time. But Lo seems to feel that she's Bucky's mom and she now feels like an important member of the pack. She now is greeting people at the front door and pushing her way in for pets and love right along with Taga and Taaku. Her gait is still a bit off but most days I don't notice. I'm so happy to see her hold her head high and join in the wrestling matches that it's tempting to let her get away with things sometimes. Mostly I'm just happy to see Lolo so happy. Anything else in her life will just be icing on the cake. As long as Lolo is fine, I'll be fine too.

Memorial Weekend - Waking Up

For most of Thunder’s life, he woke me every morning. That is perhaps too mild a term as what he really did was launch all of his eighty-plus pounds from his bed on the floor next to my bed onto my body with the full force of his morning cheerfulness. Mind you I'm not a morning person so living with a dog that was happy in the mornings was almost as bad as having a spouse who was a cheerful morning person. Almost every morning started with me screeching out all those words I learned from Dad when Mom wasn't within earshot and mind you, Dad had some good ones. What would totally infuriate me was that during our dark winter mornings, Thunder would wake me up, which would wake up the other dogs and cat who would then want me to let them outside, and when they went out, Thunder would be back in bed. He didn't like dark mornings and his job ended with waking me up. I’d come back to the bedroom after my journey to the back door to find him curled up in the smallest ball possible, hiding his eyes under his paws and tail, trying to convince me it was a dream that only moments before I’d had a large dog on top of me, slapping me in the face with huge paws.

Thunder’s death was and still is a great sorrow in my life. The two things that comforted me the most after his passing were:

That I could now sleep in without an eighty pound dog waking me up at whatever hour he thought appropriate.

That his son Taataga, born eight weeks after Thunder’s passing, joined the family.

Taataga, usually shortened to Taga, was just what the doctor ordered. He looked like his dad as a baby but as he grew he quickly came into his own showing only flickers of Thunder and even more rarely a glimpse of his dam, Taaku. He's a very loving dog who even during wild play sessions with all his cousins has to run back to me frequently to briefly lean against my side and tell me how much he loves me. Like his dad, he's been a breeze to train and he is very faithful about obeying my directions. By his first birthday, he'd been through Puppy Kindergarten, Puppy Obedience, Adult Basic, and Advanced classes. Training a boy Chinook is so very different than training a girl Chinook. Boys are so happy to do whatever their human mom asks where a girl always wants to know “What's in it for me?” Around the house, having a male Chinook keeps me sane since the other canine members of the family are all females. The girls are all far too smart, fickle, and moody where Taga, and before him, Thunder, is always cheerful.

As soon as his littermates left home, Taga moved into the crate that had formerly been occupied by Lolo. Lolo had begun sleeping on my bed with me when she was just five months old and had a broken leg. She's a very sweet girl, not as fickle as most of her breed and gender, and quite cuddly so it wasn't as if she was using the crate. Taaku slept in the crate on the other side of Taga's and Holly then later Kamiak had the crate that was either under the window or next to the dresser, depending on how I currently had the furniture arranged. Dog crates make wonderful night stands, end tables, and small tables especially when covered with a nice throw but I digress and most dog people know this already.

Every night's ritual is my announcing “Last Call” which means all the dogs must go outside for their final nature call and when they come back in, the key word is “Lullaby”. That's the trigger for everyone to march down the hall and wait for me at the bedroom door. As soon as it opens, they all take position. Lolo heads to my bed, Kamiak goes under the bed in hopes I’ll forget about her and let her sleep loose, Taaku heads straight for her crate, and Taga to his. Taaku will NEVER sleep loose in her whole life as she likes to dance on my head at 3am, frequently dropping slimy chew toys or bones onto my head in the process. Kamiak is a cuddly pup but I still don't trust her to stay out of the garbage cans or to hold her bladder until morning so I end up dragging her out from under the bed when I'm done my bedtime rituals and ready to climb under the comforter myself. For the first year of his life, Taga would serenade me to sleep with his squeaky toys. When he first went into his crate I’d hear a fast “squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak”. Slowly it would turn into “squeak . , squeak . . squeak . . ,” and gradually I’d hear the quietest “ squeak, . . . squeak, . . . squeak,. . . . squeak, . . . . . squeak” until both of us fell asleep. It was a comforting lullaby.

Mid May found Taga finally turning a year old. He'd grown into a handsome though still gawky boy, far taller than his mom and dad and showing signs of being a magnificent adult Chinook stud someday. His adolescence has been easy so far without much rebellion. He was well behaved with a good sense of humor – a critical trait for me in a dog – and very easy to live with. The weather turned unseasonably warm and I started the fans running in the bedroom greenhouse window earlier than usual. Our bedtime rituals did not change though except for Taga's. He still followed the parade down the hall every night and would go straight into his crate. I’d shut the doors to his and Taaku's crates while I was puttering around brushing my teeth, emptying my pockets, and catching the end of a movie. But as soon as I turned the light off, he started to whine. Taga never made noise like this unless he was trying to say something so I promptly opened his crate door and let him out. After a quick trip outside though, Taga didn't want to go back into his crate. This happened a few nights in a row until I finally understood that he wanted to take up his position as Head Dog now that he's a year old.

Like his dad before him, Taga now sleeps in the hallway, near the door to my bedroom but between me and the front door. During the day, if he can get away with it (as I don't normally let young dogs in the living room), he wants to nap next to the front door or plop his front half up on the lowest shelf of the cat tree so he can get a comfortable view out the front window. Kitty Rory is frankly disgusted that a dog is usurping his territory but Rory also likes to occasionally incite a riot by taunting Taga from his perch up at six feet elevation on top of the cat tree.

In the mornings when I first awake I'm now feeling as if Thunder is back but in a more gentle form. Instead of all eighty pounds landing on me, I have a mere seventy pounds (and still growing) of Taga; instead of having Thunder’s whole body slamming on top of me, I get Taga's front half only since his legs are long enough for his hind end to still be comfortably on the floor. But the paw still pats my face to let me know it's time to get up. Since Lolo is on the bed with me, this also wakes her and incites her to snuggle up closer to give me a kiss and within moments, I'm having a dog washing either side of my face. The intention may be endearing but canine morning breath is not always appealing. So much for my sleeping in until noon.

November 3rd, A Rainy Evening

It's been quite a year for me. Last year at this time I realized that Thunder and Holly were done their careers as recreational sled/rig dogs. I was getting ready for Lolo to join the household, reading Kay Lee's emails about the growing pups, searching for clues as to which one would fit best into my household. Taaku was madly in love with Thunder, following him around like a groupie every step of his day.

Fast forward a year and Thunder and Holly are both at the Rainbow Bridge. Taaku is now a mature Chinook, beautifully filled out with a gorgeous ruff of fur. She is still a very busy dog, bringing me bones to show off about every ten minutes all day as I sit in front of my computers -- Toy Parade we call it -- but she also has eased into the roll of head of the pack and is doing a good job despite her young age. She had her first litter with her true love Thunder though the pups were born after he passed away. Their son Taataga stayed when the other pups in the litter went on to new homes. Taga is just enough like his dad Thunder that I feel a part of Thunder is still here yet enough just his own self that he is a unique personality. He'll be six months soon and he's already as tall as Lolo. Having a young boy Chinook around is so pleasant. He is very happy to do what I ask **almost** any time. He is so big that I sometimes forget that he is still a puppy. Lolo is turning into a big girl getting ready for her first season of what we hope will be a good year of sledding. (Carie called me shortly after 11pm last night to tell me there was six inches of snow in the Pass already and over two feet forecast for the weekend.) Lolo matured quickly when she took over Taaku's pups as their primary babysitter and “auntie” after Taaku weaned them. Both Taaku and Lolo indulge Taataga completely; Holly only disciplined him once when he rudely knocked her over in a moment of recklessness and it only involved noise and saliva.

Holly's passing was sad yet very sweet because I got to spend a wonderful couple of weeks with her before she left for the Rainbow Bridge. She and I had almost fourteen years of time together and that time will never be matched by another dog, Chinook or otherwise. I've been immersed in the Chinook world for so long now that her passing was the natural step in the cycle of life. Her lifespan covered so many steps in my evolution as a breeder. In 1992, to some extent, I kept Holly because homes were so scarce for Chinooks. No one knew what they were or that they even existed. Later the demand for her pups (and Chinooks in general) shot sky high and suddenly there were not enough Chinooks to go around. In those early days I was very critical in deciding which pups I would keep and which would go on to new homes, looking primarily for those who would contribute most to my breeding program. I remember Colleen McDaniel evaluating one litter and helping me decide which to keep: "Do you want a pup you can live with or do you want a pup that will win?" In those days, I wanted a pup that would win. But as Holly's life wound down, I found I was looking at the pups I wanted to keep with a new eye. I had to remind myself that the reason I had Chinooks was not just to breed them and show them but because I love them. Suddenly I was choosing my pups for completely different reasons.

The cycle of life here is renewed again with the addition of a new pup. Kamiak is now ten weeks old and has only been with me about a week but I can't imagine life without her already. Rather than having a pack of old dogs that spent their time snoozing or struggling to follow me around the house, I now have a pack of youngsters, all under three and three of the four a year or less.

Evenings are spent not just snoozing in front of the TV any longer. Why watch television when I have a show going on in front of me? Kamiak may only be about 15 pounds and able to completely walk under Taga's belly but she can certainly hold her own in wrestling matches with him. I find myself calling her “Miss Happy Pants” as her tail is always wagging; not the fast wagging of an excited Chinook meeting a long lost friend but the slow graceful wag that says she is simply a contented girl. Even when making her worst snarly face and attacking Taga to steal his bone, her tail continues to wag. Considering his age and klutziness, he is surprisingly good with her. When she pulls a sneak attack on his tummy from below, he simply sits on her, a wrestling trick that is exactly like his dad's style.

Each of the four have completely unique personalities yet in each I see snippets of the generations before them. Though she is colored completely different than her dam, when Taaku has a toy in her mouth and wiggles up to me with her ears pinned back and her eyes narrowed into slits, I see Jenna again. Tall leggy Lolo looks nothing like her grandsire Thunder but she digs into a dog bed exactly as he did, sometimes to make it just right for a nap but other times just to rearrange the dog beds on a whim. Despite our losses, we're a complete family/pack again. And with the advent of colder weather here, the energy levels are increasing. I hope soon to be gliding across the snow with the ghost of Holly running lead and the spirit of Thunder pulling in wheel.