ARYA

To tell the story of Arya, I need to first tell you a little about Nanuk.

Nanuk, was my first Siberian Husky. We got him as a puppy in August of 1998. He was about three months old. We like most people fell in love with the blue eyes and the ball of fur.

Well, it took a while for us to learn about huskies...
Click here to see what you need to know about Huskies. We had 14 wonderful and crazy years with him. He was a very active dog and unpredictable. And like most Huskies would like to run away. But I was always lucky enough to catch him and get him back home. He was originally my dog but over the years he would go with my wife more and be at my in-laws house a lot. My Father-in-law really took to him and they had a very special relationship through the years. When my Father-in-law passed away in February, Nanuk was pretty old. He had a hard time getting around and had slowed down a lot from his youth. over the next few months he just got worse. At the same time my Father-in-law did not have funeral plans so it took us a while to get his niche. So his urn stayed at my house. We finally got everything squared away and planed for internment on Friday the 13th of April. Since I was taking the day off I called Nanuk's veterinarian Dr. Tal Solomon to check out Nanuk. Dr. Tal said he could come right over. At the time Nanuk was having a hard time breathing and a hard time standing. He could not lay down because of his breathing and he couldn't stand. Well, there was not much we really could do for Nanuk other than give him strong meds to just let him sleep, but when he woke up he would still be in pain. So, we decided to put him down at home on his bead... The same day as we interned my Father-in-law.

Now fast forward to June 31st. We were getting ready to visit my Father-in-lawn for his birthday on July 1st. I am at home resting and I get a phone call from my niece. She only says she is on her way over. When she got here she said she had a dog in the car.
My wife, daughter and I had been talking about getting a dog but we had 3 rules:
1) NOT a HUSKY
2)Not a puppy
3)Wait till August so we could enjoy the summer before training a new dog.
4)I also wanted to look into getting a dog that could be trained as a Service Dog.
So here it is June and a my niece shows up with a Husky in her back seat. I told her to just take it to Animal Control. Because it was June and a Husky... But the more I looked at her (the dog) I saw that she was covered in burs. This was a Saturday night and I knew that Animal Control does not open till late on Sunday and I do not think that they would brush her till mid day. So having all the brushes and other things for a Husky my heart went out to her and I took her in.

The next morning we drove around where she was found and no signs were up, no one was looking for her and no one at the parks knew her. So I took her to Animal Control and registered that I had her and would foster her until the owners came for her.

We then went about our day and she came with us to visit my Father-in-law's grave. Then out with us to and early dinner at Denny's where she waited in our van. As we were on the way home we were stopping at Pets Mart to get her food and I got a call. The prior owners had gotten our number from Animal Control. So we agreed to meet up at my house.

When they arrived they told us how they had rescued her a little over a week  before and were having such a hard time with her. They have another dog and a cat and she is not getting along with the cat. We were telling them that this is actually common with Huskies, but it is possible. We were telling them about how wonderful and how challenging Huskies can be and giving them suggestions on how to socialize her with the cat.

After, a while of talking they asked us if we would like to keep her. By that point we were in love with her and so it was not a hard decision.

We did have a tough time with her initially to get her house trained with us. But she got it eventually. But something I noticed right away was that when ever I would make a move to get up out of a chair she would come running and sit right next to me. So I tried to pull on her to help me get up and she loved it. I quickly learned that I can pull on her and push down on her, what ever I need, to get up.

I had given up on having a service dog when I we adopted her. But now... I started to think it was possible. So I started to do my research again. We enrolled in training classes at Pets Mart and started down the road of training her as a service dog. She is coming along well and is now going with me everywhere.

So why Arya? I am a big fan of the show Game of Thrones. My Arya looks like one of the dogs used in the series. Sadly that dog "Lady" was killed. So we did not want to name her that... But she is similar in many ways to the character Arya Stark. She is very smart, defiant, but yet very loyal. So that is how she got her name.

In the recent months she has become a wonderful companion for me and I am sure one day soon will be fully trained as a service dog.

So continue to follow our adventures here and on our blog at www.horyza.com.