Last Sunday we opened our home to foster a rescue malamute for IAMRA (the rescue we got Dora from). He's a big male about 6-7 years old, he came to us from the Milwaukee Humane Society his name used to by yukon but he doesn't seem to know his name, we've decided to call him Yuki which in Japanese means "Late winter snow" and/or "happiness."

Yuki is heartworm positive. The human society gave him a double dose of heartworm treatment which is basically a (generally) non-lethal amount of arsenic. This kills off the heartworms and hopefully doesn't kill the dog. You have to keep the dog calm and relaxed during the treatment though, over excitement can cause a heart attack. That means Yuki and Dora are not allowed to even meet. Dora was actually fairly clueless about there being another dog in the house for a day or two.

Yuki is a real love bug, he loves, loves, loves being pet. He's actually quite pushy about it if you stop. He also loves being on beds and loves being around people. He cries and whines when we leave him alone at night in the other bedroom. Last night it was pretty bad as he started clawing at the door. Eventually Anne ended up sleeping in that room with him to keep him from getting too worked up.

Hopefully once his heartworm treatment is done he and Dora will be able to get along well enough to allow Anne and I to spend time together in the evenings. I also hope he ends up going to a great home where someone will love him and pet him forever.

More photos

Each year IAMRA, the rescue organization where we got Dora, has a homecoming and fundraiser even called Malawalk. Basically all the adopted out malamutes (and their owners) are invited to a big malamute picnic. We went down this year with Mitch, another IAMRA adopter who lives in Milwaukee, and two of his Dogs, Lance and Molly.

We had a lot of fun. Dora had a great time and behaved very well considering the amount of dogs there. She participated in the bobbing for hotdogs event (she got her hot dog) and also competed (and sucked it up) in both the kissing and singing contests.

More photos here